he Russian retreat from the Kyiv suburbs left behind mass graves and corpses strewn everywhere for the world to see. The most horrific of these scenes was discovered in the Kyiv oblast suburb of Bucha last week after Ukrainian troops reclaimed the city.
Early reports piece together a sickening mosaic of gratuitous violence inflicted on the city’s residents for weeks.
Ukrainian refugees continue to pour into Romania in the third week of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, over 101,000 Ukrainian citizens have entered Romania through the Siret border crossing.
Then there was what turned out to be a myth about the success of Turkish drones used by the Ukrainian army inflicting “huge” damage on the invading Russian columns. Drones, regardless of their capabilities, cannot be game-changers in a conflict with such vastly asymmetrical military might. The West must send jets, tanks, anti-aircraft, anti-armor and anti-ship missiles, and other weapons to Ukraine to repel Russia’s Chinese-backed aggression — fast — or the US and Europe will soon find themselves enmeshed in wars even messier to fight.
Around 4.3 million people have fled Ukraine since 24 February, when Russia launched its all-out invasion of the country. Most of them have crossed into countries that neighbour Ukraine – mainly Poland, but also Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary – and many are now moving further west. This is not the first time the European Union has faced a large influx of people seeking asylum. Yet the current crisis is unparalleled in both its geographical proximity to the EU and the sheer number of refugees entering the union. Therefore, it requires an unprecedented European response.
The U.S. is deploying a Patriot missile system to Slovakia, along with troops to operate it, after Slovakia sent a long-range, anti-aircraft battery to Ukraine, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
Ukrainian officials have been asking other countries to donate the S-300 anti-aircraft system, which is a Soviet Union-era equivalent to the U.S. Patriot missile system, to help beat back the Russian invasion that began Feb. 24.
Russia has tapped a new Ukraine war commander to take centralized control of the next phase of battle after its costly failures in the opening campaign and carnage for Ukrainian civilians. U.S. officials don’t see one man making a difference in Moscow’s prospects.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine shows the essential value of looking ahead to medium- and long-term strategic trends.
In foresight terms, the war in Ukraine is known as a ‘grey rhino’ – a high-probability, high-impact development that took shape over a long period but was largely ignored. Even so, the war has come as a shock, and thrown much prior consensus about international affairs to the wind as officials and observers alike point to the start of a new era. However, there is a danger that imaginative, long-term strategic thinking is forgotten in the face of such a pressing problem. But when a crisis of these proportions emerges, we must make strategy that also looks at the bigger picture.
As Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine accelerated early this year, military planners at NATO began preparing to dispatch scores of fighter jets and surveillance aircraft into the skies near Russia and Ukraine. It was a warning to Moscow not to make the mistake of targeting any member country.
U.S.-government document shows Russia’s top state companies stand to cash in when sanctions drop
Several of Russia’s top state-controlled nuclear companies stand to gain billions of dollars in revenue as part of a new nuclear accord with Iran that will waive sanctions on these firms so that they can build up Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, according to a U.S. government-authored document reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Speaking to reporters this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the future he sees for his country in unusual terms: as “a big Israel.”
Gone, he said, are hopes for “an absolutely liberal” state—replaced by the likely reality of armed defense forces patrolling movie theaters and supermarkets. “I’m confident that our security will be the number-one issue over the next ten years,” Zelenskyy added.