Against all strategic rationale, Russian troops keep pushing Ukrainian defenses beyond Avdiivka and Bakhmut, paying a heavy price in casualties for every inch gained. The primary reason for these self-destructive attacks is to maintain the initiative necessary to prove Russia’s upper hand in the “long war.” Putin finds it necessary to declare readiness to end the war, a point he mentioned last week at a meeting with Belarusian President and Putin ally Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Here are the two in St Petersburg in January. Photo: Contributor/Getty Images This illusion of control gives Russian ..read more

Every Russian stereotype about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been disproven by the alliance’s surge of activity in its 75th year. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib shake hands after cutting a commemorative cake during the alliance’s 75th anniversary celebrations at NATO Headquarters on April 04, 2024. Photo: Omar Havana/Getty Images Moscow portrays NATO as an aggressive and indecisive institution, rigidly controlled by the United States, and disunited. As NATO takes steps to increase its solidarity, Russian propagandists ..read more

Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert explores the pitfalls and potentials of the use of AI to provide windows into humanitarian crises and human rights abuses. From the photo exhibition launched by the Australian law firm Maurice Blackburn. AI-generated images have already been used by charities and human rights organizations to illustrate mass suffering and abuse. A lot is potentially at stake as we become exposed to more of these types of images, including public trust in what is real, and ultimately our ability to engage. A debate was sparked when Amnesty International deliberately used images ma ..read more

The shock from the March 22 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall is continuing to generate angst and confusion throughout Russian society while failing to inspire unity. In front of the Crocus City Hall the day after the terrorist attack at Crocus Concert Hall in Moscow on March 22, 2024. Photo: Sefa Karacan / Anadolu via Getty Images) The Russian population may have grown accustomed to the perpetual shocks caused by the war in Ukraine, but the people are unprepared for the return of the specter of terrorism that loomed so large in the early 2000s. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who c ..read more

The official results from last week’s Russian presidential election were precisely what the Kremlin ordered, but they have hardly brought the incumbent Vladimir Putin much satisfaction. Vladimir Putin meets with election campaign activists at Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on March 20,2024. (Photo by Sefa Karacan/Anadolu via Getty Images) Falsifications in the results were so blatant that Putin’s desire to prove overwhelming public support for the continuation of his autocratic rule has remained unfulfilled. Instead of discipling the political elites, he may have inadvertently informed them abo ..read more

This week, from March 15 to 17, Russia will hold presidential election. Canceling the elections would be entirely natural for the repressive autocratic regime that has matured in Moscow. Vladimir Putin submitted documents to register as a self-nominated candidate for the Russian Federation presidential election. Photo: President of Russia/kremlin.ru The government already has all the enforcement structures it needs to suppress protests. Putin could easily justify the move by arguing that Russia is a unique “state civilization” that does not need Western political models (Riddle, August 23 ..read more

What will happen to public debate and our democracy if we can no longer trust research? Fabricated ‘scientific publications’ could threaten the very foundations of our society. Illustration: Getty images It isn’t ‘fake news’ that scares me, it’s fake research. By this, I don’t mean plagiarism and the failure to provide correct citations, but rather completely fabricated ‘scientific publications’ that by their very nature and scale may threaten the foundations for society. Whenever debates in the news or social media become unhinged and false information is suspected or the contours of a co ..read more

Battles in the Donbas trenches and across the Black Sea waters keep raging as the belligerents persist with their strategies of attrition. Neither President Volodymyr Zelensky’s defiant presentation at the Munich Security Conference, nor President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly contained any indication of readiness to compromise. Erdogan and Zelensky during a press conference with on March 08, 2024 in Istanbul. Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images Notwithstanding this determination to keep the war going, three separate tracks for exploring the options fo ..read more

Global South-North asymmetries, or imbalances, in resources and access to mobility are often pervasive in international research, including research on peace, conflict, migration and development. Research projects can be experienced as extractive in many contexts around the world. Project photo from fieldwork in Hanoi. Photo: Karen Liao / MigrationRhythms project / PRIO This means that the research process feels like it is taking something away from those involved, rather than benefiting them. This can even be the case when collaboration across unequal relationships has been carefully refle ..read more

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual address to the Federal Assembly last Thursday was grander in length and style than his usual domineering performances. Vladimir Putin is seen on a screen at a cinema in St. Petersburg that broadcasts him addressing the Federal Assembly. Photo: Artem Priakhin / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images He did not attempt to persuade the audience of loyal bureaucrats that victory in Ukraine is near. The Kremlin’s war strategy relies on the ideas that Russian society is united behind the war and that Western unity is crumbling, neither of which is ..read more