As NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs prepare for their extraordinary meeting on 4 March 2022 in Brussels, they will need to address the following existential question raised by former President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė in her 2 March 2022 letter to NATO: “If we do not stop Putin in Ukraine,
Russia’s treacherous attack on Ukraine shocked the entire civilized world. The planned Blitzkrieg that failed led to the collapse of Russian troops and their transition to terrorist methods of warfare, in violation of the laws and customs of war. On the first day of the occupation, it became known
Ukrainian people are dying, and civil infrastructure is destroyed from increasing Russian air-to-ground attacks. And there is no other help from the United Nations member states needed more than closure of airspace from any unapproved military aircraft flying into Ukrainian airspace. According to the article 42 of the UN Charter,
The heroic feats of Ukraine are a balm for our heart and soul. It’s been a long time since anything like its national resistance to Russia’s war has nurtured the spirit. Humanity loves heroes. The Ukrainian people, its military and president have shown it in spades. Respect, love
On 24 February 2022, in violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty, Russia unleashed a full-scale military assault on Ukraine by air, ground and sea, attacking airports, ports, urban areas, civilian infrastructure and the nuclear exclusion zone in Chernobyl. On the same day, the President of Ukraine called for the
With Russia’s ruthless and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in the early morning hours of 24 February 2022, Vladimir Putin has brazenly challenged the West. Ukraine is courageously holding the fort at a high cost of human lives, both military and civilian, as well as an inestimable destruction of property.
On Sunday, police brutally dispersed a group of demonstrators who came to Moscow’s Pushkin Square, the traditional site of dissident rallies since the Soviet era, to denounce Vladimir Putin’s presumptive attack on Ukraine. The protesters, who included veteran human rights leader and former member of parliament Lev Ponomarev,
President Volodymyr Zelensky called upon the West to stand by Ukraine as Russia threatens to further invade it, in an emotional address to the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 19. He criticized the ambivalent attitude of countries who stay silent, saying those who don’t stand by Ukraine should “think
The U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss came to Kyiv on Feb. 17 in a visit that was scheduled for early February but got delayed when Truss tested positive for Covid-19. While in Ukraine, Truss condemned the ongoing Russian military escalation, announced the cancelation of “golden visas” for the rich
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors. It’s important not to lose the battle before it even begins. Right now, the Russia-instigated security crisis in Ukraine is threatening to become an all-out war of occupation. Against all the voices of reason,
Russia’s needless war in Ukraine uncovered the best and the worst sides of international politics and diplomacy. The best produced what looks currently like a win over Vladimir Putin’s war. The worst is that his lunacy against democracy continues. What now? First, the best. Bravo Ukraine! It stands
Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.K., said on Feb. 13 that Ukraine might contemplate the possibility of not joining NATO if this averts a further Russian invasion. The statement triggered a controversy in Ukraine. The statement comes amid the U.S. warnings that Russia might attack Ukraine
Editor’s Note: This is an analysis by experts from the Center for Defense Strategies: Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Alina Frolova, Oleksiy Pavliuchyk, and Viktor Kevlyuk. It was originally published in Ukrainian by Ukrainska Pravda on Feb. 12. The Kyiv Independent has translated it and is republishing it with permission. On Feb.
On Monday, as Ukraine was bracing for a possible Russian invasion and another punishing Covid-19 wave, President Volodymyr Zelensky held an event on digital transformation which resembled something out of Apple founder Steve Jobs' playbook. Flashy graphics and cool suits framed a presentation which included a pledge to gift heavily
While certain aspects of Russia’s attack on Ukraine have been novel, Moscow’s approach to the conflict echoes a range of far more traditional tactics from the era of Soviet expansionism.
Poland, which recently joined the club of nations supporting Ukraine with weaponry against the looming Russian aggression threat, decided to provide Ukraine with better weapons than previously expected. Instead of PZR Grom, the Polish military's workhorse anti-aircraft missile systems promised to Kyiv, Poland is sending a more advanced and modern
Edmonton, CANADA — When Andriy Tovstiuk joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 2016, he knew exactly why he was doing it: to get on Operation UNIFIER in his ancestral home, Ukraine. Three years later, his goal was realized when he was deployed to Ukraine as a linguist working at three Non-Commissioned
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba held a briefing for journalists from foreign media outlets on Feb. 2, to address recent developments in Russia's ongoing military build-up around Ukraine.
Last July, Vladimir Putin supplied the mythical basis for Russian war propaganda in an essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” The essential idea is that Russia has the right to Ukraine because of things that happened a thousand years ago in Kyiv. At the time, the
Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly addressed tensions surrounding Ukraine for the first time since December as he accused the U.S. of using Kyiv as a “tool” to pull Russia into an armed conflict over its neighboring country. Putin said the U.S. and its allies have “ignored” Moscow’s
Editor’s Note: This op-ed was published by Atlantic Council. It is republished here with permission. With Russian troops massed along Ukraine’s borders and Vladimir Putin threatening a potentially devastating new invasion of the country, the drumbeat of Kremlin propaganda is also becoming noticeably louder. This is no surprise.
The Polish government has approved providing Ukraine with humanitarian aid and weaponry amid the ongoing all-out war threat from Russia. "A decision was made to transfer munitions of defensive, rather than of offensive, nature to the Ukrainian party," Pawel Soloch, the leader of Poland's National Security Bureau, said on Jan.
Editor’s Note: This op-ed was published by Atlantic Council. It is republished here with permission. With Russia threatening a new invasion of Ukraine, US and EU officials have been working on contingency plans to identify alternative energy supplies for European consumers in case Moscow disrupts westward deliveries of oil
On Wednesday, January 26, the United States’ ambassador in Moscow, John Sullivan, personally delivered a memorandum to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs containing the official US reply to earlier Russian demands on security guarantees. Simultaneously, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) handed over to Moscow its separate written response.
Ukraine is about to become the burial ground for the western rules-based global order, NATO, and the EU. The world’s dictators are watching. Vladimir Putin is at the top of his power with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine about to fall in his order. Iran is about to cross
Editor’s Note: This op-ed was published by Atlantic Council. It is republished here with permission. In a recent article on the current geopolitical crisis in Eastern Europe, Estonian MP and security expert Eerik-Niiles Kross made the perceptive and provocative statement, “We know what the Russians want, but we are
This opinion was originally published at New Canadian Media. It's been updated to include latest developments. Canada’s Federal government took a good step by deploying 60 more personnel to join 200 troops already on the ground, which came as part of a $340 million Canadian (US$268 million) commitment
The U.S. has not caved in to Russia’s demands to halt potential NATO expansion eastward, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news briefing on Jan. 26. “We will uphold the principle of NATO’s open-door policy,” he said. NATO followed suit, saying that it
The frightening risk of Europe’s most devastating war in nearly 80 years is growing ever more real as the United States warns that Russia could launch a massive new invasion in Ukraine “on very short notice” and readies NATO forces to deploy in Eastern Europe. The catastrophic effects of
A number of NATO militaries are putting their forces on standby and sending more warships and jet fighters to eastern Europe in a bid to deter Russia's aggressive build-up in and around Ukraine. In a statement released by the alliance on Jan. 24, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he
The British government has accused the Kremlin of seeking to install a pro-Russian leadership in Ukraine, in a statement on Jan. 22. "We have information that indicates the Russian government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine," the statement
After communism fell, Russia’s rulers, the siloviki (strongmen, like President Vladimir Putin and his cronies) experienced a period of uncertainty. Eventually, Russia came back under their control. They said, you can’t really run a Western democracy in a post-Soviet country, it just results in chaos. But then Latvia,
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