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Russia’s foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) operations are diverse, entrenched, well-resourced, and coordinated. They are also linked globally to culture through ‘Cultural Heritage Exploitation’, or CHX. CHX is a multi-institutional endeavour with spatial, temporal, cognitive, and material aspects. In practice, it fuses pro-Russian historical propaganda to cultural objects, and it is one of the tools deployed to legitimise Russia’s war against Ukraine a

Ukrainian Droid Raw 12.7 UGV fitted with M2 Browning heavy machine gun during field trials. (Source: Ukrmilitary Pages / X) Ukrainian army officials claim to have made military history in late 2025 by deploying a single land drone armed with a mounted machine gun to hold a front line position for almost six weeks. The remote-controlled unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) reportedly completed a 45-day combat mission in eastern Ukraine while undergoing maintenance and reloading ever

Russian attacks against energy facilities in winter were designed to freeze Ukraine into submission. Russian disinformation narratives justify these attacks and blame Ukraine’s leadership for them. Targeted attacks to break Ukraine’s resistance Russia has recently used a bitter cold snap in Ukraine to inflict terrible pain upon Ukrainian citizens by attacking the country’s energy infrastructure. Among other strikes, Russia launched a massive missile and drone assault against

Source: Kremlin.ru The new year has begun much as 2025 ended, with Russia rejecting key elements of peace proposals aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. In early January, Russian Foreign Ministry officials confirmed they would not accept the presence of European troops in Ukraine as part of proposed postwar security guarantees for Kyiv. This followed a series of similar recent statements from Kremlin officials reiterating Moscow’s uncompromising position and dismissing a 20

The US Secretary of War’s acquisition reforms can find inspiration and assistance in Kyiv. Ukrainian small-sized Peklo cruise missiles / Illustrative photo: Office of the President of Ukraine “The defense acquisition system as you know it is dead,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared at the National War College in December as he addressed America’s top defense-industry leaders.  “Speed replaces process, money follows need, joint problems drive action, experimentati

Ukraine is suffering badly, with implications for significant population movement. Western allies can help, if they acknowledge the threat. Blackout in Kyiv Cornered by an ever-narrowing range of options to advance his war of aggression, Vladimir Putin is making decisions that worsen his position. The chess term is zugzwang, and it explains why the Kremlin has decided to play one of its few remaining cards. Unable to defeat the Ukrainian army, Putin has declared war on Ukrain

Ukraine has made huge strides in its military technology but ingenuity alone won’t be enough for Kyiv to prevail. Photo: Sergey Okunev / NV Ever since the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has compensated for its disadvantage in traditional firepower through  innovation . Unmanned systems, particularly first-person view (FPV) drones, helped its forces  blunt  Russian offensives and impose heavy costs on attacking units. Over time, this approach hardened into what was described as

The aircraft have a near-unique ability to hit Russian targets but only if Europe provides them with the right munitions. Ukrainian F-16 with GBU-39 aerial bomb, November 2025. Photo credits: martes1k ( t.me/maratix1 ) In a virtuoso display of air-defense prowess unimaginable for any European member of NATO, Ukrainian forces shot down 34 out of 35 cruise missiles on December 22. It was even more notable given Ukraine’s defenders were also warding off another 638 Russian rocke

F-16 fighter jets patrolling over Greenland. Photo: The Danish Armed Forces Bottom lines up front: In responding to recent rhetoric from the White House about “taking” Greenland, European leaders need to look beyond the legal infeasibility. The White House is correct that Greenland and the waters around it are a strategic asset—one that Europe has failed to recognize in recent years. If Europe wants to ensure that no outside power can exercise control over Greenland, then it

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has increasingly militarized the Black Sea region, presenting a threat to both NATO and its littoral partners, especially Ukraine and Moldova. Indeed, the region has become a testing ground for Russian hybrid warfare operations. These operations, which engage adversaries below the threshold of war, often seek to undermine civil society with tactics such as assaults on the integrity of elections, attacks on infrastruct

Photo: Sergey Okunev / NV Ukraine is currently at the epicenter of radical changes taking place in the way modern wars are fought. However, much of the world is still busy preparing for the wars of yesterday. European armies are only combat-ready on paper, while the invincibility of the United States military is based largely on past victories. The current state of affairs is far from unprecedented. In early 1940, Polish officers tried to warn their French counterparts about

Europe needs to share intelligence and exploit legal “gray zones” to tackle Russia’s sanctions-busting shadow fleet. Russian shadow fleet tanker Kiwala detained off the Estonian coast between the island of Aegna and the port of Muuga, east of Tallinn, Friday, April 11, 2025. Source: Priit Mürk/ERR The fleet, hundreds of ships strong, enables Moscow to circumvent curbs on oil sales and engage in sabotage, particularly in the Baltic, posing security, environmental, and economic

2025 was certainly a bad year to be flying in or out of Lithuania. According to the Ministry of the Interior , 320 flights have been disrupted at Vilnius and Kaunas airports because of cigarette-smuggling air balloons crossing from Belarus, causing sixty hours of closures and affecting 47,000 passengers. But the fallout has been even harsher for around 185 Lithuanian lorries stranded in Belarus over Christmas, after the authorities there barred them from returning home. Alth

Source DJI / CineD When cyberattacks and missile strikes converge on the same targets, infrastructure resilience becomes more than a technical mandate; it becomes a matter of national survival. For Ukraine, this is not a hypothetical future scenario. On the contrary, it has been daily reality for more than a decade. Since 2014, Ukraine’s power grid, banking system, telecommunications networks, and digital infrastructure have faced sustained and increasingly sophisticated atta

Russia will step-up its shadow war on Europe in the New Year, attacking infrastructure and disrupting democracy in a bid to exploit Western disunity. Russian drone on the roof of a barn in Moldova / Source Belcy 24 In 2026, the Kremlin will seek to demonstrate that Russia retains the initiative and remains a great power despite its economic and military decline. This is designed in part to emphasize a country on the brink of historic success and to build on images of Presiden

Russia’s Geran attack drones have morphed from crude versions of Iranian Shahed UAVs into an affordable and flexible strike system, with deadly results. Russia’s Geran 2 attack drone / Source Sergej Flesh Facebook page Moscow’s forces have launched nearly 50,000 Geran/Shahed drones into Ukraine since the full-scale invasion of 2022 and shifted to a near-continuous rhythm of strikes that have overwhelmed defenses, disabled infrastructure, and killed families in their homes.  

Mass grave site discovered in a forest near the Ukrainian city of Izium after its recapture from Russian forces in September 2022 / Source Insider Media The recent Hollywood movie “Nuremberg” provided a timely reminder of the role played by Soviet consent in the creation and legitimacy of the International Military Tribunal established to prosecute Nazi leaders after World War II. The broad outlines of the tribunal had been agreed before the end of the war during the February

While Russia's hybrid tactics are not new, their scale and sophistication in the digital age present unprecedented challenges. By Eitvydas Bajarūnas Executive Summary Hybrid warfare is not episodic, but a permanent feature of Russia’s strategy, rooted in Soviet “active measures” and enhanced by modern tools like artificial intelligence–enabled information manipulation and cyber operations. It exploits the seams of open societies — disinformation, cyber, sabotage, coercion — b

Is the Baltic now a NATO lake? Changing strategic geography, and the accession of Sweden and Finland to alliance membership might make it seem so, but the reality is more fraught. NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea / Source U.S. Navy Eight of the Baltic Sea states are now in NATO, and just one littoral country, Russia, is not. That might seem a mismatch of force — the so-called NATO lake — but appearances can be deceptive, and no one should underestimate the ability of Moscow’

Source: 47th separate mechanized brigade As Europe races to strengthen its defenses against the mounting threat posed by Russian drones, more and more countries are looking to learn from Ukraine’s experience. Speaking in October, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged that Ukraine is currently a world leader in drone warfare and called on her European colleagues to “take all the experiences, all the new technology, all the innovation from Ukraine, and put it in