Russia

  Introduction The two countries that have the greatest influence in Central Asia are Russia and China. Moscow and Beijing have common interests in Central Asia, foremost are security interests connected to sharing long borders with a mainly Muslim...

On March 12, a delegation of US officials arrived in Niamey in a highly anticipated meeting on the future of US-Niger relations. The entourage of high-level US diplomats and military officials included the AFRICOM Commander General Michael Langley, Assistant...

Just as Halford Mackinder, in his seminal work The Geographical Pivot of History, argued that control over the Eurasian heartland held the key to global mastery, the world stands at the precipice of another pivotal shift—one driven not by...

  Introduction Consider the following pieces of a puzzle. Russia’s war against Ukraine has revealed stories about the heroic resistance efforts of Ukrainian women: from a grandmother launching a pickle jar against a drone to volunteers with territorial defense...

On Friday, March 22, an attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow killed or wounded hundreds of people. The assault was the deadliest act of terrorism in the Russian capital in more than a decade. The...

On February 28, the legislature of Transnistria, a pro-Russia, de facto independent state internationally recognized as part of Moldova, appealed to Moscow for “protection” from the pro-European government in Chisinau. This preceded Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual address the...

The total wartime losses of Russia and Ukraine are difficult to estimate. Neither country publishes accurate data, exaggerating the enemy’s losses and downplaying their own. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Ukraine allegedly lost 406,000 people killed and...

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently arrived in Washington seeking to persuade the White House and Congress to successfully negotiate legislation that would free up $60 billion to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian forces.  He delivered his remarks...

When the Russian army rolled into Ukraine in late February of 2022, it was clear that the invasion would create serious political and security repercussions for countries across the region. In addition to the immediate threat to Ukraine’s independence,...

On February 16, Russian authorities announced that long-time opposition figure and Putin critic, Alexei Navalny, had died in prison while serving a nineteen-year-long sentence. Navalny, forty-seven, tirelessly challenged Putin’s corrupt, authoritarian regime, often at a high cost, and was...