It is commonplace these days to invoke the fears that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has awoken in Eastern Europe. With the 2008 invasion still fresh in the minds, the Black Sea nation of Georgia…
A digest of the week’s coverage of the war against Ukraine.
Swedish army medics simulate the evacuation of a field hospital as part of military exercise called “cold response 2022”, gathering around 30,000 troops from Nato member countries plus Finland and Sweden, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in the Arctic Circle on March 25 2022.
Reuters/Alamy
The US and the Soviet Union are both seen as responsible for the Cold War and presented as manipulating more vulnerable states.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is introduced to the US Congress by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on March 16, 2022 in Washington, DC.
J. Scott Applewhite-Pool/Getty Images
The reasons for the prominence of the Ukraine war in the West are many – and include the Ukrainian government’s strategic efforts to tailor presentations of the conflict for Western sensibilities.
Elon Musk has indicated he might pull back on moderation of Twitter.
Alamy
Elon Musk will need to tackle false information on Twitter, say researchers.
The U.S. military released a defoliant called Agent Orange over the South Vietnam countryside to weaponize the forest during the Vietnam War as part of the Operation Ranch Hand project.
(Shutterstock)
While it is tempting to view the war in Ukraine as a metaphor for some larger struggle between a tolerant West and an intolerant East, the reality is inevitably far more complex.
Germany, heavily reliant on natural gas from Russia, has seen a fast expansion in solar power since Russia attacked Ukraine.
AP Photo/Martin Meissner
The West’s new approach to Russia – bar it from international organizations, restrict international trade, prevent further military moves – looks just like how it treated Russia in the 20th century.
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to deliver a speech at the Kremlin in Moscow, April 26, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
‘Vlad the mad’ psychological analyses don’t help us understand Russia’s war. Historians gain insights by examining the enabling and determining factors behind why conflicts erupt.
A Russian military intercontinental ballistic missile launcher rolls by during the 2019 Victory Day military parade celebrating the end of the Second World War in Red Square in Moscow in May 2019.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
The sort of scenarios that might lead to the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war would require a significant deterioration in Russian fortunes — and greater western involvement in the conflict.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, attends a flower-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier close to the Kremlin.
EPA-EFE/Anton Novoderekhkin/Kremlin pool/Sputnik
Kibrom Abay, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ; Guush Berhane, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) , and Jordan Chamberlin, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Our work highlights the potential of phone surveys to monitor active and large-scale conflicts.
Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, center, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, right, at the consecration of the Cathedral of Russian Armed Forces outside Moscow, June 14, 2020.
Oleg Varov, Russian Orthodox Church Press Service via AP