Ukraine says it will push Russian troops out of the country. This offensive could be critical to that aim.
In July 2022, Iran provided the Russian military with training for using Iranian-produced weapons, including the Shahed-129 drone, displayed here at a 2019 military show in Tehran.
Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Putin simultaneously seeks to control Ukraine, to dominate Russia’s region, and to hasten the fall of the West. And is an internal struggle on the horizon?
A view of destroyed Russian military vehicles installed in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 24, 2022. Kyiv authorities banned mass gatherings in the capital for fear of Russian missile attacks. Independence Day fell on the same day as the six-month mark in the war.
(AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Aug. 24, 2022 marked both the 31st anniversary of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union and the six-month mark of war. As they have for more than three decades, Ukrainians showed resilience.
US president Joe Biden speaks with his ‘old friend’, CIA director William J Burns (left), during a national security team meeting in the White House.
Adam Schultz/White House Photo/Alamy
With a formidable Kremlinologist in charge and Donald Trump out of the presidential picture, has the CIA regained its influence amid the ‘new cold war’?
Firefighters battle a blaze caused by a Russian attack near Kyiv at the beginning of the Ukraine war.
State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Alamy
Six months into the Ukraine war, around 5000 Ukrainian civilans and 9000 soldiers have died, but the war shows no sign of ending.
People attend an exhibition of Russian equipment destroyed by the armed forces of Ukraine, in Lviv, Ukraine, Aug. 11, 2022.
Olena Znak/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Democratic nation-states were supposed to be the legitimate successors of empires. It hasn’t quite worked out that way in the past century, and Russia’s war on Ukraine is a reflection of that.
While Putin reduces Russian gas supplies, Europe has become more dependent on shipments of LNG.
Bill Chizek Photography/Alamy
The New Zealand prime minister might have sometimes enjoyed spectacular popularity, but that’s not the same thing as being a cult of personality in the manner of Trump or Putin.
Russia has secured gains in the east but Ukraine is pushing back in the south.
Added firepower: US MLRS systems being used during a live-fire training exercise in Minnesota, July 2022.
Pfc. Riley Anfinson/US Marines Photo/Alamy Live News
In terms of stated war aims, some sort of Russian ‘victory’ — albeit a costly one — is closer than the sort of victory upon which Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pinned his hopes.
Youthful patriotism: Russia’s sense of its own history remains unclear.
REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
Russia is trying to normalise an international order where might makes right. And democracy and respect for human rights are optional.
Former president Donald Trump tosses hats into the crowd before addressing attendees during an event in on July 23, 2022, in Tampa, Fla.
(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
For our societies to survive, we must take action to figure out the psychology behind an attraction to tyrants — or we will be led in the future by fear-mongering, war-mongering tyrannical liars.