In this August 2012 photo, Russian soldiers ride atop an armoured vehicle through a street in Tskhinvali, capital of the Georgian breakaway enclave of South Ossetia, with a destroyed tank in the foreground. The Russian military quickly routed the Georgian army during the war.
(AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)
In the midst of the Ukraine-Russia war, we should pay more attention to the evolution of Russia’s official rhetoric and military actions in former Soviet states.
Abdelmadjid Tebboune after winning the Algerian presidential election in 2019.
Photo by Nacerdine ZEBAR/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
For years it has lagged Airbus, but that might be coming to an end.
Russian President Vladimir Putin watches through binoculars as Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu sits nearby during military exercises east of Moscow in September 2021.
(Sergei Savostyanov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
As Russia’s war against Ukraine unfolds, Putin’s errors become perceptible. That’s because he’s faced few constraints to his power.
A woman who was evacuated from Irpin cries kissing a cat wrapped in a blanket at a triage point in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 11, 2022.
(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
This war has powerfully and painfully magnified the connections among human and animal lives, and our unrelenting commitment to love in the face of darkness.
Vladimir Putin has a history of flattening cities in time of conflict. But alleged war crimes in Chechnya and Syria never resulted in charges, let alone prosecutions. Will Ukraine be any different?
People wait for a train to Poland at Lviv railway station, Ukraine, in February 2022.
Bumble Dee / Shutterstock
Putin often uses words to mean exactly the opposite of what they normally do – a practice diagnosed by political author George Orwell as ‘doublespeak,’ or the language of totalitarians.
Wheat accounts for about 20% of human calorie consumption, and Russia and Ukraine are both major exporters. The war could hit household food supplies in countries as far apart as Egypt and Indonesia.
The war in Ukraine will continue to push up food prices as the supply from the ‘Breadbasket of Europe’ is cut in the short term and, possibly, the long term.
(Shutterstock)
The Russian invasion of Ukraine will have global impacts far beyond the region directly involved in the fighting. Food prices will increase, and the effects will be felt by the most vulnerable.
The UNESCO-recognized Pechersk-Lavra monastic complex dating from the 11th century comprises multiple monastic buildings and bell towers, and its 600-metre network of catacombs contains chapels, relics and tombs of the monks.
(Shutterstock)
Lviv is an important Renaissance and baroque urban centre in Eastern Europe, and its two remaining synagogues survived mass destruction in the Second World War.
The monument to Catherine II (Catherine the Great) in Pushkin, Russia.
(Shutterstock)
Is Catherine the Great a source of inspiration to Vladimir Putin? Her actions in Poland throughout her reign are remarkably similar to Putin’s designs on Ukraine.
A resident sits outside a destroyed apartment building after it was hit by artillery shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 14, 2022.
(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Military behaviour usually becomes more restrained when troops feel securely in control of a city. That means Ukrainian civilians may bear the brunt of growing Russian military frustration.