It has been over a year since Suomi (the Finnish name for Finland) became the 31st member of NATO. After joining the North Atlantic Alliance, threats were made against Finland, including by Putin himself, who said that there had been no problems, but now there would be. In response, Russia created the Leningrad Military District…
Category Archives: Analytics
Column, Important, Analytics, News
Russia is delaying the exchange of prisoners of war and using it as a tool for internal destabilization and pressure on Ukraine
On July 17, Russia released 95 Ukrainian prisoners of war in exchange for 95 Russian soldiers. Since the beginning of the full-scale war in 2022, Ukraine has managed to conduct 54 prisoner exchanges, freeing 3,405 Ukrainians held captive. Unsurprisingly, the prisoner exchanges are of particularly high salience for Ukrainians because the lives and safety of…
West, Important, Analytics, International analytics, News
Deep strikes into Russia: a partner’s decision for Ukraine’s strategic success
Two years ago, on May 31, 2022, President Joe Biden announced in his New York Times op-ed that the United States would provide Ukraine with high-mobility artillery rocket systems. The op-ed noted that the White House neither encourages nor allows Ukraine to launch strikes outside its borders. “We don’t want to prolong the war just to hurt Russia,”…
West, East, Important, Analytics, International analytics, News
How Russia’s economic lobby in the European Union works
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 27 EU states have imposed 13 rounds of sanctions on Russia. Since then, restrictions have been imposed on trade in oil, coal, timber, and many other resources. However, a serious loophole in the sanctions regime remains: European industry continues to buy raw materials classified as “critical” or “strategic”, such…
East, West, Important, Analytics, International analytics, News
Ukraine “denazifies” Russian neo-Nazi units on the battlefield
On May 9, Russia celebrated the victory over Nazism in World War II. The message of the victory over Nazism is one of Russia’s fundamental state-building messages. In Russian ideology, the “Russian nation” is seen as almost the sole victor over the Third Reich, while the term Nazism is demonized to the maximum extent possible….