Spotlight
War in Ukraine
How Russia Lost it's Pride and why Putin wants it Back?
KEY POINTS - The Soviet fall in 1991 left deep pain and shame in Russia. - The 1990s made many Russians distrust the West. - Putin sees 1991 as a disaster and wants Russia's greatness back. - Critics say Ukraine chose independence freely, and Russia promised in 1994 to respect its borders. - In my view, pride, and not only land or money, is the deepest root of this war.
The War That Will Not End: Ukraine's Fifth Year of Fire and Fatigue
Clausewitz never lived to see a drone, but he understood something that explains this war better than any modern strategist has managed: war does not end when one side is exhausted, it ends when one side's leadership decides the cost of continuing has finally outgrown the cost of stopping. In his unfinished masterwork On War, the Prussian general argued that fighting is never really about the battlefield alone. It is about willpower, about which government can absorb pain for longer without breaking. Ukraine and Russia have now spent more than four and a half years testing exactly that idea, and neither government has broken yet.
The Front Line Nobody Is Watching
A quiet stretch of the war is quietly deciding its outcome.
What Winter Means for the Grid
Energy infrastructure is now a battlefield in itself.
The Diplomacy Happening Off-Camera
Backchannel talks are moving faster than headlines suggest.