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Evidence and stories from people living under Russian occupation in Ukraine tell of fear, intimidation, and silence. Photo: Milda Gostautaite The story of Svitlana and her husband, Petro, both in their 50s, who spent almost a year in an occupied small town in Kherson Oblast, offers insight into the experience of suddenly falling under Russian control. The couple worked at a railway station and, like many Ukrainians, Svitlana now looks back on life before the invasion with a n

Is China expanding its presence in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia? Or is it just another of the Kremlin’s propaganda games? Photo: Leestat | Dreamstime.com “In the village of Urzuf, the first tourists have opened the swimming season,” reports a Russian TV reporter from the Azov Sea coast in occupied Donetsk. “There is even a new ride called the Pendulum, and today we are the first to test it. It was recently brought from China, installed by Chinese specialists.” Moscow

Yandex is one of Russia’s leading technology companies. Just like Google, for more than twenty years it has served as the gateway to the internet, as well as a source of knowledge about the world and current events, for many users in Russia and abroad, especially in the countries of the former Soviet Union. The problem is that the Russian state has long manipulated the information Yandex users receive in their searches, shaping a distorted picture of reality. Those who buy an

It’s important to distinguish between a genuine military alliance and the picture-perfect imagery of authoritarian propaganda. Source: Ria Novosti Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing on May 19-20 during a highly publicized two-day summit. The pair announced some 40 new agreements, including a symbolic “declaration on the formation of a multipolar world.” But pomp, ceremonials, and signatures aside, the summit did not see an agreeme

NATO’s fragmented responses to Russia’s “accidental” border incursions are enabling Moscow’s shadow war. Galati, Romania / Source: Digi24 On the night of May 29, two Russian drones crossed into Romanian airspace, flew roughly 18km (11 miles) into NATO territory, and struck a residential building in the city of Galați. Two people were injured, and a large fire swept through the neighborhood. The incident was reported as an accident, an unintended consequence of Russian strikes

Drone strikes on St. Petersburg / RBC.UA Ukraine’s recent drone strikes on St. Petersburg provided arguably the most visible indication to date that Vladimir Putin’s invasion is not going according to plan. They also served to underline the fact that the war is now no longer confined to Ukraine and is increasingly being fought inside Russia itself. The drone attacks on Russia’s second city took place in early June as it hosted the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The war’s end will mark the start of a race to secure the peace and make the continent the author of its future. When G7 leaders gather in Évian on June 17, where they will be joined by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they will confront a strategic backdrop profoundly different from a year ago. In mid-2025, the transatlantic consensus was gripped by a grim, deterministic idea: that Russia was locked into a sustainable war of attrition where time and mass inherently favored th

The economy’s two main tracks are moving in different directions. Source: Wix Russia’s wartime economy was already running on two separate tracks. Now they’re diverging even faster, and the gap is certain to widen still more. On one side sits a state-subsidized, demand-guaranteed military-industrial complex, expanding at a pace that would be the envy of any peacetime planner. On the other hand, a civilian economy is slowly hollowing out, starved of labor, capital, and credit.

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Europeans are increasingly speaking of Ukraine as a shield protecting the continent from Russian aggression. This recognition is certainly justified, but it also carries a risk. Amid all the talk of Ukraine’s growing military strength, there is a danger that this could encourage complacency over the country’s ability to bear the current security burden indefinitely. Changing attitudes toward Ukraine were on display at the r

Pashinyan’s victory leaves the Kremlin with the difficult choice of confrontation or something more pragmatic. Source: Nikol Pashinyan Facebook page  The parliamentary elections in Armenia ended in the incumbent prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and his party Civil Contract’s victory. Winning nearly 50% of the vote on an increased turnout, the ruling party will hold 64 seats in the 105-member National Assembly. This is enough to form a government, but it fell short of the seats

The Kremlin’s efforts to show it’s an accepted member of the global community require enormous work by every arm of the regime. Source kremlin.ru The International Security Forum, a conference held at the Live Arena, a huge concert venue in the military park outside Moscow, was conceived as a direct challenge to the West’s high-level gatherings. The Kremlin announced that the Forum, held at the end of May, would be an alternative to the Munich Security Conference, which for t

Source: Wix Europe’s electricity grids were not built for the demands now being placed on them. The proliferation of large-scale data centers has fundamentally altered the continent’s energy arithmetic. This energy demand growth has exposed a structural power deficit that European policymakers have yet to adequately address. The bloc’s planning and permitting system has been widely criticized as fragmented and ill-suited to the pace now required. Meanwhile, Ukraine, whose inf

With the US summit behind it, China is squaring up for the next defining trade battle. It’s very confident that it will win. Source: Unspash Europe and China may be heading for a trade war. The European Commission said on May 29 that its economic and security interests will require “a more robust and coherent response” to a surge in Chinese exports to the bloc. The current situation is “not sustainable,” it said. For its part, China accused the Commission of seeking a scapego

The days when Chinese industry received a free pass from the Budapest government are over. A water shortage has seen to that. Source: PAP/EPA/Zsolt Czegledi HUNGARY OUT/TVP World Hungary faces an unprecedented water crisis. There are several causes, among them the years-long campaign by Viktor Orbán’s government to lure heavily polluting and water-hungry Chinese battery factories to the country. During Orbán’s 16 years in power, he guaranteed to Chinese investors vast amounts

According to Danish state authorities, there were no major foreign influence campaigns to speak of in the lead-up to Denmark’s March 2026 parliamentary election. Local fact-checkers and journalists tracked pro-Russian narratives and fringe propaganda channels, but nothing resembling a broad, coordinated campaign with significant reach emerged. Monitoring and analysis by Defense Innovation Highway and OpenMinds of part of the Danish online information environment during the ca

Europe will struggle to defend itself against Russia without the aid of Ukraine’s battle-tested legions. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Russia’s recent missile and drone strikes and follow-on attacks against Ukraine represent a cruel exercise in signaling. Following a brief ceasefire, Russia revealed that it can breach Ukraine’s aerial defenses. By deploying an unparalleled barrage, Putin arguably sent a veiled warning to Europe that their cities and fac

Dating apps promise connection, chemistry, and maybe even love. For Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services, they also offer something else: data, emotional vulnerability, and a private channel to manipulate targets. When Russia launched its full-scale illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the front lines extended beyond the physical battlefield into the digital space. Among many other sites, dating platforms such as Tinder and its local equivalents became operati

Drones are powerful — and can cause chaos. Remedies are urgent to deploy them safely. Source: Jessica Tisemann / Neue Deister-Zeitung A busy commercial airport cancels all flights twice in quick succession. The trigger? Small, remote-controlled, low-flying objects. Safety concerns over drone activity and the defensive measures in place to deal with drones caused chaos this year at El Paso’s international airport. Cheap, expendable drones also dominate modern battlefields. Th

How Georgia’s billionaire Ivanishvili misread Moscow, and why Washington shouldn't reward his overtures. Bidzina Ivanishvili / Source TV Pirveli Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze flew to Yerevan in May, shook hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after years of poisonous relations, and spoke about the Middle Corridor transport and energy route. Weeks earlier, the ruling Georgian Dream party had announced the first, belated arrests of law-enforcement offic

The Kremlin’s intention to control its digital environment is not new. Even Russians’ most widely used messaging app, Telegram, was not spared from it. However, a failed 2018 effort to block the app exposed the limits of direct restriction. Despite regulatory pressure, the platform continued to operate, creating a ‘grey zone’ where even pro-government voices could express limited forms of dissent. In 2026, this phase appears to be ending. Besides blocking external platforms,