The impact of Ukraine’s August 6 offensive operation into Kursk oblast remains an open strategic question following four weeks of increasingly intense and fluid fighting (see EDM, August 14, 15).
Ukrainian soldier on August 30, 2024 in Sudzha, Kursk Region, Russia. Photo: Oleg Palchyk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first reaction to this incursion was clearly misinformed by intelligence assessments portraying it as just another tactical raid.
Forced displacement places increased pressure on host communities. Refugees are often hosted in resource-scarce areas with high unemployment and poverty. Local, national and international collaboration is therefore crucial to mitigate social conflict and prevent instability from traveling with those fleeing war.
Photo from fieldwork in the TRUST project at PRIO.
Uganda, with its progressive refugee policies, is often presented as a success story in the world of refugee management. Through the 2006 Refugee Act, refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda are given employment opportunities, freedom of movement and access to basic services. Read More
The timing of the unprecedented exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West on August 1 remains a difficult question.
The largest Russia-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War, which involved 24 individuals being freed. Photo by Omar Zaghloul/Anadolu via Getty Images
It was an unprecedented and historic moment that unfolded in Bangladesh on 5 August 2024 when Prime Minister Sheik Hasina hastily fled the country in a military helicopter.
Protesters continue their demonstration for the abolition of the quota system in government jobs, on August 05, 2024 in Barishal, Bangladesh. Photo: Niamul Rifat/Anadolu via Getty Images
The protesters had demonstrated in the streets for several weeks, and that moment marked a ‘second independence’. This was not an independence from a foreign country or an external body. This was a liberation from the increasingly suffocating iron fist of Sheikh Hasina’s regime.
Can a democratic society now re-emerge from this totalitarian regime?Read More
On July 24, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was summoned to Moscow for a secret meeting in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress.
Vladimir Putin meets Bashar Al-Assad in Sochi in 2018. Photo: Kremlin Press Office / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
The visit was announced only the following day when al-Assad was already back in Damascus, which was hardly a coincidence (Kommersant, July 25).Read More
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not demonstrated any discernible change over the last few weeks in his maximalist stance on how to end his war in Ukraine.
Viktor Orban in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 2, 2024 Photo: Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Nevertheless, many other governments and organizations continue to propose ideas and initiatives for how to end this devastating conflict, though not all of these are conducive to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s proposal for organizing the second peace summit this November (Kommersant, July 17). Some pleas for an immediate ceasefire, like the letter from a group of Nobel Prize laureates calling for peace in both Ukraine and Gaza, come from sincere humanitarian concerns (Novaya gazeta, July 13). Other maneuvers are less magnanimous and more self-serving.
Still, Moscow is keen to channel every proposition toward its obsessive goal of eroding Western unity and undermining the pro-Ukraine coalition.Read More
The ever-changing battlefield dynamics of Moscow’s war against Ukraine have made it impossible for predictions to be accurately tied to the political calendar. This unpredictability is particularly acute in the lead-up to one of the most critical events of 2024 — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington on July 9–11.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks in Washington in June 2022. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Recently, Russia’s war-making has included renewed efforts to increase pressure on Ukraine and thus foster discord between the transatlantic allies (see EDM, May 28, June 3, 10). Those efforts have been centered on the offensive operation in the Kharkiv direction, which gained some ground in the first couple of weeks but has now been exhausted and started to roll back.
Combat operations have reached an unstable equilibrium, granting NATO and its partners an opportunity to recalibrate their strategy for defeating Russia’s aggression calmly and carefully (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 26).Read More
World politics in the first half of June is set to be enlivened not only by elections in such major powers as India, Mexico and South Africa, but also by a heavy concentration of international summits, conferences and visits.
Volodymyr Zelensky meets with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Manila, Philippines. Zelensky arrived in Manila following his speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Photo: Jam Sta Rosa – Pool/Getty Images
Agendas are rich and diverse, as many global issues demand collective action, but one 27-months old calamity continues to demand priority attention – the Ukraine War.
The high-intensity trench battles remain effectively deadlocked, but the political context of this long war keeps evolving, and the joint efforts of key world leaders as well as initiatives of smaller states may make a difference in deciding its outcome.Read More
Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued reassurances of his readiness to negotiate an end to his war against Ukraine many times over the past 27 months, which Kyiv has duly rejected as attempts to pressure it to capitulate (see EDM, January 29, February 6, 26, April 15).
Meeting in the Russian cabinet in the Kremlin in May, 2024. Photo: Kremlin Press Office/Anadolu via Getty Images
A maneuver executed last week may, however, signify a change in Russia’s war strategy. Instead of yet another statement, the Kremlin orchestrated a series of “leaks” that were originally collected by the Reuters news agency.Read More
Norway, Spain, and Ireland recognized a Palestinian state that does not yet exist. This is why it still matters.
The Ramallah Municipality Building with flags of Spain, Ireland and Norway following their formal recognition of the State of Palestine, on May 24, 2024. Photo: Issam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images
On Wednesday May 22. Norway, Spain and Ireland declared that they would recognize Palestine as a state on May 28. The recognition has now become official. During a 22 May press conference, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide noted that the recognition was intended to advance the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians “in the midst of war, with tens of thousands killed an injured.”Read More