Darkness and light

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin of Russia represent the best and worst of political leadership, appealing to hope and fear respectively, but both appeal to national sentiments to galvanise support in their respective countries.

Rebuilding a united Ukraine

Russia’s savage invasion aimed to obliterate Ukraine and its people, but has only united them in the desire to defend and rebuild their proud but sorely damaged country.

The killing fields of Bakhmut

The cold blooded murder of Ukrainian prisoner Tymofiy Shadura by Russian troops, who not only filmed their own war crime but uploaded it to social media, epitomises the bestial brutality of Russia’s assault on Bakhmut.

All at sea

Kyiv has undermined Russia’s naval dominance of the Black Sea by demonstrating innovation and initiative through the use of missiles and drones, leaving Russia’s few remaining warships skulking in port or lobbing missiles at civilians far from the conflict zone.

Wartime trauma in Ukraine

The mental anguish inflicted on the people of Ukraine by the Russian invasion will linger long after the invaders are driven from the battlefield.

The future of air power

Defence analysts have been predicting the eclipse of manned aircraft since the invention of ground to air missiles in the 1950s, but Russian air losses in the war in Ukraine could see a fundamental shift in military doctrine with expensive manned platforms replaced by cheaper drones for some close support missions.

Unpicking Putin’s propaganda

Russia’s propagandists try to dupe Western leftists and American isolationists by claiming Putin’s invasion of Ukraine aims to defend Russia and Ukraine itself against US-led Western imperialism, while tapping into the patriotism which Putin and his communist predecessors weaponised to justify their own hegemony.

How Ukraine won the war of words

Russia’s well funded army of internet propagandists have laboured to undermine Western democratic cohesion for years, but wit, intelligence and agility have allowed Ukraine to triumph against their lumpen foe on the internet and social media as well as on the battlefield.

Russia’s grade Z performance in Ukraine

When Russia’s ramshackle armies trundled into Ukraine a year ago, very few gave the defenders a chance and Western support was lukewarm, but the grit, wit and defiance of a nation threatened with extinction at the hands of a murderous tyrant has turned the tables in spectacular style.

Time is the other enemy

The inexorable passage of time is war’s most inflexible and how Ukraine and Russia’s clocks tick down in terms of men, morale and material will decide who wins this war.

“We’re fighting this war for you”

‘If Putin is allowed to win, the face and deterrence value of collective security on the international rules-based systems will be fatally wounded,’ Kyiv’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, tells The Strategist.

How Ukrainian brains beat Russian brawn

Western armies can look to Ukraine for an example of how to integrate technologies and weapons to remain agile and adaptable while the blundering Russian behemoth shows the dangers of corruption, incompetence and poor command and control.