Author: TheConversation

By Jonathan Este, Associate Editor, International Affairs Editor Large areas of Ukraine, including the capital, are now without power much of the time. And still Moscow persists with its strategy of targeting Ukraine’s power supply. It’s hard to argue – as the Kremlin continues to insist – that these are military targets. On November 23 a two-day old baby was killed when what have been reported to be Russian missiles hit a maternity ward in Zaporizhzhia. The region is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and has come under particularly bombardment recently. The plant itself has been under...

By Ronald Suny, Professor of History and Political Science, University of Michigan People understand the world, where we came from, how we got here, and where we are likely to go because of the stories we tell about ourselves and others. The very political and social environments in which we are embedded are also rooted in these stories and these narratives. And so it is with the current conflict in Ukraine. As the months of fighting have progressed, so too have the narratives that underpin the actions of the two sides. It is as if both Russia and Ukraine...

By Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University Among the many questions asked about Russia’s disastrous war against Ukraine, one of them is posed only very rarely: can Russia survive what seems increasingly likely to be a humiliating defeat at the hands of its smaller neighbor? On the face of it, the prospect seems almost absurd. Vladimir Putin may have been weakened by a trio of crucial miscalculations – about Russian military strength, Ukrainian resolve, and Western unity – but there’s no evidence yet that he’s on the verge of losing his grip on power,...

By Alfio Leotta, Senior Lecturer, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington When images from Ukraine of abandoned Russian tanks tagged with the word “Wolverines” circulated in early April after the invaders failed to capture Kyiv, movie buffs got the message right away. Ukrainian fighters were consciously referencing the cult 1984 film “Red Dawn.” Released at the apex of the Cold War, it chronicles a fictional Soviet invasion of the United States, in which a group of teenagers – the Wolverines – mount a guerrilla resistance against the might of the Soviet military. The tagged tanks weren’t the...