How does Putin extract himself from this mess? The only way to do so is to win the war in Ukraine, or at least to win sufficient concessions that would permit him to spin it as a victory.
Monument to the victims of the mass deportations of Tartar peoples from Crimea.
Viktor Korotaev/Kommersant/Sipa USA
Forced relocation of civilian populations is a war crime.
Vladimir Putin celebrated Russia’s annexation of Crimea on March 18, 2022, the eighth anniversary of the move.
Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
None of the available methods for holding Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable are likely to actually punish him, and they may even make new atrocities more likely.
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.
A pregnant woman is carried away from a shelled maternity hospital. She later died.
AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File
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?
V is for victory? Or vanquished?
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
A military historian and U.S. Army veteran explains how wars are not easy to win – something political leaders often forget when looking at the calculus of conflict.
Russian army special forces on patrol in Chechnya in 1995.
Alamy
Documentary film Welcome to Chechnya looks at the government-sanctioned torture and murder of LGBTQ people in Chechnya – and the activists trying to help them escape.
Vladimir Putin: 20 years at the helm.
EPA-EFE/ALEXEI DRUZHININ / KREMLIN POOL/SPUTNIK
A renewed security focus on Afghanistan is part of Vladimir Putin’s plan to re-energise Russia’s vision of a ‘Greater Eurasia’.
Moroccan woman Samira Yerou is arrested at Barcelona airport in March on suspicion of attempting to join IS militants in Syria.
REUTERS/Spanish Interior Ministry/Handout via Reuters
The Sochi Olympics shines a spotlight on the forgotten history of the Caucasus, but one group of people has not made news headlines in the same way as neighbouring Chechnya or Dagestan. The Circassian…
One thing dominates the Sochi Olympics as nothing else: the towering summits of the Caucasus mountains. To begin with, it may strike a first-time visitor as strange that this seaside resort is to host…
Senior lecturer in International Relations and Programme Director for the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats, University of Birmingham