Tag Archives: Russia

Renaud Foucart, Lancaster University L’invasion de l’Ukraine a placé la Russie au bord de la faillite. Les taux d’intérêt ont doublé, le marché boursier a fermé, et le rouble est tombé à son plus bas niveau historique. Le coût militaire de la guerre a été exacerbé par des sanctions internationales sans précédent, soutenues par une large coalition de pays. Les …

Aglaya Snetkov, UCL and Marc Lanteigne, University of Tromsø As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, China’s role has been thrown into sharp relief. Prior to the war, some commentators suggested that China would openly side with Russia or seek to act as a mediator – so far Beijing appears to have resisted doing either. As Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to …

Kenton White, University of Reading As Russian military activity moves nearer the Ukrainian border with Nato, the potential for direct confrontation between Russia and the alliance increases. On March 13, Russian aircraft reportedly fired rockets at the Yavoriv International Center for Peacekeeping and Security, 20km from Ukraine’s border with Poland, a Nato member. The possibility of a unit from the …

Unrest over food prices is growing. EPA Bamo Nouri, City, University of London Iraq has been seeing protesters take to the streets as food prices spiral upwards because of the Ukraine war. Around 500 people protested in Iraq’s southern city of Nasiriyah a few days ago as flour suddenly rose in price by nearly a third. With food-related protests subsequently …

A Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces member holds an anti-tank weapon in the outskirts of Kyiv on March 9. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) Michael J. Armstrong, Brock University When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the world “I need ammunition, not a ride,” what he really wanted was anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. Since then, countries have sent him some 17,000 anti-tank missiles and …

Russian president Vladimir Putin and African leaders at the 2019 Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum in Sochi in 2019. Photo by Alexei Druzhinin / SPUTNIK / AFP via Getty Images Joseph Siegle, University of Maryland It’s commonly held that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s objective for invading Ukraine is to install a puppet regime that is pliable to Moscow’s interests. If …

Ukrainian emergency workers at a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) John Duncan, University of Toronto For 25 years, experts warned that the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was risky. The leading voice among them was the late American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan, who wrote in …

Ben Noble, UCL Vladimir Putin’s military aggression against Ukraine is meeting more opposition from Ukrainians than he expected. The Russian president also saw widespread condemnation of his military’s aggression in Ukraine at the UN General Assembly. But the opposition Putin faces domestically in Russia is also likely giving him cause for alarm. There are clear reasons, however, to be sceptical …

Mark Webber, University of Birmingham and Nicolò Fasola, University of Birmingham Is Russia now led by someone who would contemplate using nuclear weapons without any great concern? Over Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has dropped some pretty big hints that he is prepared to cross that strategic Rubicon. Just days before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia and its ally Belarus engaged in …

Sergey V. Popov, Cardiff University Russia knows sanctions. In 2009, the death of Moscow anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in custody motivated Bill Browder, an entrepreneur who used to work in Russia and employ him, to lobby the US government to introduce sanctions against Russia. US sanctions were duly applied to 18 people in 2013 who had been directly related to …