Rusia

It’s not enough to stop a war; it must then stay finished.

Among the most critical but least developed elements of a potential arrangement to end Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the security guarantee that Kyiv will need to deter another attack from Moscow. That will require a deterrent force with substantial presence in Ukraine, including forces from the United States. Deterring future Russian military aggression is an achievable but nonetheless challenging and grave undertaking for the transatlantic community—one that is the subject of ongoing discussions among transatlantic officials following the recent White House leaders’ summit.

Moscow’s tactics, on the battlefield and domestically, are incentivising men to join and stick to the army.

When President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ivan Chenin left his comfortable life as a student in Moscow to deliver aid as a volunteer to the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics of eastern Ukraine, which Russia now claims as its “new territories”.

The summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and subsequent meeting of the U.S. president with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders in Washington have given rise to new hopes that an end to the Russia-Ukraine war may finally be in sight. After all, for the first time in several years, the parties have begun to discuss the practical parameters of a settlement.

Two years ago tomorrow, on August 23, 2023, a private plane crashed outside Moscow, killing three crew members and seven passengers, including Wagner Group private military company founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. Two months prior, Prigozhin had led a brief mutiny against Russia’s military that captivated the world and culminated in an aborted march on Moscow itself. Ahead of the anniversary of Prigozhin’s death — which U.S. intelligence reportedly assessed as a deliberate assassination — the St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka interviewed the late mercenary leader’s mother, Violetta Prigozhina. She recently organized a gallery exhibition in honor of her son.

Growing up in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s, Lana Estemirova knew that her mother, renowned human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, had a very important job. She often went to work with Natalia at the Memorial human rights group’s Grozny office, and overheard her conversations about the abuses sweeping the republic amid the Chechen Wars. Then, when Lana was 15 years old, her mother was kidnapped outside their apartment block and brutally murdered. In her new memoir, “Please Live: The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me,” Lana tells the story of her childhood, and how her mother’s unwavering dedication to her work not only shaped their relationship but ultimately led to her death. Meduza spoke to Lana Estemirova about commemorating her mother’s life and work, how Ramzan Kadyrov’s iron grip on power in Chechnya continues to destroy lives, and how she’s come to terms with the risks that come with fighting for the truth.

In the days since Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s Alaska summit, the world’s attention has turned to the portion of the Donetsk region that Kyiv still controls — and that Putin wants it to give up. This territory contains Ukraine’s “fortress belt,” a 31-mile stretch of defensive structures and fortified settlements that’s been built up over more than a decade. Western media outlets have argued that this belt is both the motivation for Putin’s demands and the reason his proposal is a non-starter for Ukraine. Meduza assesses these claims and explains the military and political significance of the “fortress belt.”

Friday’s “peace summit” in Anchorage was not about peace. It was about war, specifically how Russia can continue to fight a war Vladimir Putin believes he is now winning, while pretending he wants “peace”. It was about the rehabilitation of a disgraced leader wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It was about an opportunistic rapprochement between two great powers whose heads of state are eager “to do business” with one another. None of this has anything to do with bringing lasting peace to Ukraine.

Societies change over time. The political philosophy known as the “Overton Window” measures how a population views what is palatable to them over a certain period, measuring the electorate’s mood on numerous issues and their acceptability to the general public.

US President Donald Trump has expressed growing frustration with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as the war in Ukraine drags on, saying he is considering imposing new sanctions on Moscow.

In comments made at the White House on July 8, five days after his latest phone call with Putin, Trump indicated he was making little progress in his goal of ending the more than 40-month war.