Russia appears to have seized the battleground initiative as the Ukraine war marks its second anniversary – but the conflict is far from over.
Shackled to a vision of a ‘glorious past’: Russian president Vladimir Putin celebrates Defender of the Fatherland Day, February 23 2024.
EPA-EFE/Sergei Savostyanov/Sputnik/Kremlin pool
Donald Trump says he’s being politically persecuted, like Russian democracy martyr Alexei Navalny, who died while in a Russian prison on Feb. 16. A scholar says there’s no comparison between the men.
Women lay flowers to pay last respects to Alexei Navalny at a monument in Moscow on Feb. 20, 2024.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Alexei Navalny’s successors — not western leaders — are best placed to carry on the fight for Russia’s future. But they’ll only succeed if Navalny’s cause isn’t seen as anchored to western ideals.
The erasure of Ukrainian nationhood in occupied territories and frequent denial of Ukraine’s right to exist is evidence the Russian invasion has been genocidal in nature.
Ukraine has fought off relentless waves of Russian attacks over the past two years, but if its Western support dries up, its resistance will be very hard to sustain.
The opposition leader was poisoned and sent to a brutal prison camp where he is reported to have died.
In this photo released by Sputnik news agency on Feb. 9, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at the Kremlin in Moscow.
(Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Why is there such a Russian focus on the Second World War? Because it’s used to justify authoritarian states, the rule of dictators like Putin and Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko.
With the Ukraine-Russia war entering its third year, Ukraine’s supporters must provide the right aid to the country and domestic politics cannot undermine the urgent needs of the country’s military.
A makeshift memorial for the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in August 2023.
Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images