Rusia

It has been the longstanding policy of the Moscow Patriarchate that the borders of what it calls its canonical territory are independent of any changes in the political borders within that space. As a result, it did not move to absorb Russian Orthodox churches in Abkhazia and South Ossetia after 2008 or in Ukraine’s Crimea after 2014.

Russia retaliated Monday for an attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its most widespread strikes against Ukraine in months, a lethal barrage that smashed civilian targets, knocked out power and water, shattered buildings and killed at least 14 people.

For all the recent talk that Russian President Vladimir Putin might use nuclear weapons to hold onto Ukrainian territory, Russia may have already begun hybrid warfare against Norway and northern Europe, especially Germany, to exploit Europe’s energy needs over the coming winter.

Ukrainians widely scoff at Moscow’s “Russian World” project, and often use the term derisively when describing the wholesale destruction wrought by Russia’s invasion of their country. Still education – and the teachers that shape the next generation of citizens – remains key to the fight for both sides.

Annexation and Mobilization Make Nuclear War More Likely

On September 30, following a series of sham referendums held in occupied territory in Ukraine, the Russian government declared that four Ukrainian regions were now officially part of Russia. The annexation came amid a “partial” Russian mobilization that is in fact rapidly becoming a large-scale one and that has left many Russians aghast and anxious. With these moves, the war in Ukraine has entered a new stage in which the stakes have risen drastically.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed treaties to begin the formal (and illegal) annexation of occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions—an area nearly the same size as Hungary. The move comes just days after staged “referendums” held at gunpoint in which the Kremlin claimed a significant majority of voters chose to join Russia. How will the world respond to Putin attempting to forcibly redraw Europe’s borders for the second time in eight years? Our experts map out what to expect next.