As Vladimir Putin’s world-altering war against Ukraine enters its second year, any hope of reviving the post-Cold War European security order depends on defeating Russia in Ukraine. But that will only be the first step in what will be a long struggle—one that calls for an updated strategy of containment.
Introduction
Russia’s military operation in Ukraine started on 24 February 2022. During this one year of conflict, the situation in the world has drifted into dangerous situation with the world getting divided virtually into two camps. While Washington took the lead in building a coalition of NATO and others to send arms and other supplies to Ukraine, Russia and China suddenly found a new bonhomie.
On February 2, 2023, former U.S. Marine Peter Reed was killed in Ukraine while evacuating civilians in the front-line city of Bakhmut. Two days later on February 4, the bodies of two British volunteers, Christopher Perry and Andrew Bagshaw, were returned as part of a prisoner swap deal with Russian forces. Their deaths mark some of the latest Western casualties in Ukraine one year after Russian forces invaded the country in February 2022.
Ordinea mondială este pe cale să sufere schimbări, în contextul împlinirii unui an de la invazia rusească din Ucraina. Războiul a împărțit lumea, iar cele două blocuri economico-militare antagonice se consolidează. Pe de altă parte, globalizarea pare să se apropie de final, iar Europa și Rusia ar putea deveni sateliți ai Statelor Unite și ai Chinei.
Somalis arrive in Ethiopia from disputed town of Las Anod, where at least 82 people have died in fighting
More than 60,000 Somali refugees have fled to Ethiopia after an escalation in fighting in the town of Las Anod, in the Sool region, where tensions between local people and the governing Somaliland authorities have been building for weeks.
The incident took place that morning near the village of Songobia, in central Mali, as their supply convoy was heading to its base in Sévaré.
El-Ghassim Wane, the head of MINUSMA, condemned the attack and offered his deepest condolences to the families and colleagues of the deceased peacekeepers.
On February 9, 2023, around 100 armed men drove to Dembo, Burkina Faso, on motorcycles and in pickup trucks. They opened fire on a militia group called Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP), which works with the Burkinabé military to protect the areas of northwest Burkina Faso near its border with Mali. These men killed seven members of the VDP. Three days later, on February 12, at the other end of Burkina Faso near the border with Ghana and Togo, armed men entered Yargatenga and killed 12 people, including two VDP fighters. Meanwhile, in another incident that took place from February 9 night until the next day—further north of Burkina Faso near the border with Mali—men on motorcycles arrived at the Sanakadougou village and killed 12 people, burning homes, and looting “the few goods and livestock of the villagers,” reported a survivor to Agence France-Presse. These are not isolated incidents. They have become commonplace in Burkina Faso, where about 40 percent of the country is now largely controlled by a wide range of armed groups who began to target the Sahel after 2012.
“As a result of coordinated investigative measures on the territory of Moscow as well as in the Kirov and Penza Regions, five people were detained on suspicion of providing assistance to terrorist formation Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham [formerly Jabhat al-Nusra], which operates in Syria,” the FSB’s press office said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the suspects were apprehended in three different regions of Russia.
Three peacekeepers from Senegal were killed and five seriously injured after their convoy hit an improvised explosive device in central Mali, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country and Senegal’s army said on Tuesday.
Some yet-to-be-identified gunmen on Monday evening reportedly blew off the administrative offices of the Okehi local government area of Kogi State.