Winter is coming for Russia

Winter is coming and it’s cold across Ukraine, but the bitter winds of defeat are blowing through Moscow’s Red Square.

The people v Putin

Despite relentless propaganda, leaked Russian figures show support for the war in Ukraine has fallen to just 25% of the population, but dictators don’t have to run for re-election, and Putin shows no sign of stepping down.

Ukraine eyes the liberation of Crimea

The Kinburn spit, a tiny headland at the mouth of the Dniepro river, has “enormous strategic importance” in the next phase of the Ukraine war, and its recapture will be step closer to defeating the invaders and liberating Crimea.

Now is the winter of Russia’s discontent

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ground to a halt months ago, and, despite Putin’s bluster, Ukraine is now poised to win back more territory against the dispirited invaders.

Bringing Russia’s thugs to justice

The Ukraine conflict offers a microcosm of the tensions in the international legal order, not least the difficulty of prosecuting wrong doers from powerful authoritarian countries.

Russia must lose – and be seen to lose

Vladimir Putin moved to obliterate Ukraine assuming Western acquiescence after years of appeasement of his brutal regime. The failure of his ramshackle military has forced him into unconvincing diplomatic overtures but this should not blind other nations to his goal of undermining the liberal global order to restore imperial spheres of influence.

Putin’s toxic legacy

While Russia’s beleaguered dictator amuses himself by lobbing rockets at Ukrainian civilians, his country has become an international pariah and is falling apart around him.

Finland flies the flag for freedom

Finland’s impressive Prime Minister Sanna Marin used her speech at the Lowy Institute to urge Western democracies to stand firm against authoritarian aggression and redouble their support for Ukraine.

Prosecuting Putin

The trial of Slobodan Milosevic offers a model for the prosecution of Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin for his war crimes in Ukraine.

How Ukraine keeps the lights on

Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine to steal its resources and wipe it from the map, but like its brave soldiers, Ukraine’s economy has remained remarkably resilient in the face of murderous Russian terror attacks on its people and civilian infrastructure.

Prosecuting Russian war crimes

The convictions in a Dutch court of 3 men guilty of mass murder in the shooting down of civilian airliner MH17 in 2014 pave the way for war crime prosecutions to punish the many atrocities committed by Russian troops during the current invasion of Ukraine.

#NAFO

Russia’s troll farms were supposed to be a powerful weapon to sway Western opinion against Ukraine, but have been routed in the meme wars, just as Russia’s military has embarrassed itself on the ground.