The forced displacement of millions of people spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is putting a fresh spotlight on the experiences and differing treatment of refugees and asylum seekers around the world.
In just a few months, a stunning number of people — more than 6.5 million — have sought refuge outside Ukraine and been able to legally enter neighboring states where they have been welcomed with an outpouring of support.
Ukraine is a global granary. Before communism, Ukraine was the granary of the world; since the privatization of agricultural land in 2000, it has become so again. Its grain production has skyrocketed, and Ukraine is now focusing on modern grains—corn, wheat, soy, canola, and sunflower oil.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised to send Ukraine heavy weapons, including air defence systems, though Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was quick to dash hopes of speedy delivery.
Europe lurched closer to an energy crisis on Tuesday after the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to major buyers including Shell.
One of the biggest geopolitical questions raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is whether it will transform European defense.
How should one think about the future of the global order and international organizations against the backdrop of Russia’s war on Ukraine? The war has highlighted the limitations of multilateral security institutions at both the global and European levels, as Moscow has blocked or ignored calls from the United Nations and other bodies to cease the hostilities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has landed in an unenviable position. His country has the resources to inflict damage on Ukraine in perpetuity. But because the first phase of the war has been so costly for Russia and because Ukraine’s military is mounting such stiff resistance, Russia faces serious difficulty achieving anything meaningful on the battlefield without committing much more manpower than it currently has available.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has prompted one of the world’s largest cooperation efforts in recent history. The West donated a lot of financial and military aid to help Ukraine with its defensive efforts against Russia. Just recently, Lithuanian citizens have come together and donated whatever money they could to help buy Ukraine a Bayraktar TB2 drone, a UAV that has been instrumental in their war against Russia.
U.S.-funded biological laboratories are located in Armenia, Kazakhstan and Central Asian countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an interview with RT Arabic on Thursday, May 26.
What Russia’s War Means for Armenia and Azerbaijan
As the ripples of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pulse outward, they have left one region especially volatile: the South Caucasus. The Ukrainian conflict has paradoxically raised the likelihood of both further fighting and a negotiated peace in this area between the Caspian and Black Seas. The region was the site of a brutal war in 2020 between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh—an Armenian-populated enclave within Azerbaijan—and adjacent regions. The 44-day war left around 7,000 people dead and saw Azerbaijan inflict a crushing defeat on Armenia, reversing territorial losses it had suffered in fighting during the 1990s. The war also left unresolved questions, lingering disputes, and simmering tensions. In March, just as Ukraine used Turkish-made Bayraktar drones to repulse Russian forces, Azerbaijan used the same type of drones to strike Armenian troops in Karabakh.