Rusia

The fight to retake the city of Kherson plays to the Ukrainians’ strengths, not the Russians’.

Ukrainian officials, defending their country against Russian aggressors, began doing something in July that seemed odd, even counterintuitive: They started speaking loudly and regularly about their plans to liberate Kherson—a key southern city that Russia seized only a week after invading Ukraine on February 24. Indeed, the Ukrainians telegraphed their intentions in a way that the Russians could not mistake. This was like waving a red cape at an angry, incompetent bull. Almost immediately, rumors proliferated that the Russians were racing reinforcements to Kherson to prepare for the Ukrainian attack.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has demonstrated that the Kremlin does not respect the fundamentals of international law or the sanctity of international borders. This imperialistic foreign policy may soon rebound on Russia itself. Russia’s territorial integrity looks set to become increasingly disputed by the country’s numerous internal republics and regions as the disastrous invasion of Ukraine serves as a catalyst for imperial collapse.

Moscow’s Struggle to Sustain Its War in Ukraine

In April, just weeks after he launched the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin maintained that the West could never strangle Russia’s economy. The barrage of American and European sanctions had not succeeded and would not succeed in bringing his country to its knees. “We can already confidently say that this policy toward Russia has failed,” he told his officials. “The strategy of an economic blitzkrieg has failed.”

A prudent regard for the tragic, unexpected turns history can take would urge leadership in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing to weigh carefully the trajectory they are on and how seriously they want to test moving in another direction.

The return of a two-bloc world that plays by the rules of realpolitik means that the West will need to dial back its efforts to expand the liberal order, instead returning to a strategy of patient containment aimed at preserving geopolitical stability and avoiding great power war.

Europe has been reeling under an energy crisis for the last few months. Amidst the war in Ukraine, which has seen both the European Union and Russia seek to wean themselves away from their mutual energy dependencies, the most pressing issue for Europe today appears to stave-off an energy blackout. While measures such as regulating energy consumption can only a short-term measure to overcome the shortages, the key challenge will be in finding viable long-term substitutes.

As soon as I landed in Rome, I discovered that I was no longer able to access any Russian media whatsoever. Unfortunately, threats by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, that Europe should sever all links with “Russia’s propaganda machine” were taken seriously by the Italian government.