Russia - The Deeping

What are tactical nuclear weapons? An international security expert explains and assesses what they mean for the war in Ukraine

Oct 3, 2022

This Russian short-range cruise missile, the Iskander-K, can carry nuclear warheads for several hundred miles. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Tactical nuclear weapons have burst onto the international stage as Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing battlefield losses in eastern

Russia is building a closer alliance with the world’s autocracies – the west should beware

Sep 20, 2022

Barbara Yoxon, Lancaster University Russia is planning to buy “millions” of Soviet-era weapons from North Korea, a recent US intelligence report revealed. Britain’s defence intelligence has also confirmed that Russia is already using Iranian-made drones in Ukraine. The revelations follow a series of diplomatic exchanges between Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korean

Unexpected Ukrainian resistance continues to thwart Russia’s initial plans for quick, decisive victories

Sep 5, 2022

A Ukrainian soldier inspects a residential building after it was damaged following a Russian shelling attack In Kyiv. Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Liam Collins, United States Military Academy West Point As Ukrainian forces fight a late-summer counterattack to wrest the southern province of Kherson from Russian control, Russian President Vladimir Putin

Gorbachev and glasnost: how his fragile legacy of free speech has been destroyed by Putin

Sep 5, 2022

Jennifer Mathers, Aberystwyth University Mikhail Gorbachev was only Soviet leader for a little over six years, from 1985 to 1991, but they were six years that changed both his country and the world. His policies of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness) gave ordinary citizens the opportunity to exercise real political freedoms, including freedom

Are Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats a bluff? In a word – probably

Aug 1, 2022

Matthew Sussex, Australian National University Russian President Vladimir Putin habitually rattles his nuclear sabres when things start looking grim for Moscow, and has done so long before his ill-advised invasion of Ukraine. In February 2008, he promised to target Ukraine with nuclear weapons if the United States stationed missile defences there. In August

Russia says peace in Ukraine will be ‘on our terms’ – but what can the West accept and at what cost?

Jul 25, 2022

Getty Images Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato The recent assertion by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council (and former president), that the invasion of Ukraine will “achieve all its goals” and that peace will be “on our terms” raises an obvious question: what are those terms? History suggests the answer may

Russia’s neighbours are looking towards the EU or China for protection

Jul 19, 2022

Christoph Bluth, University of Bradford Russian president Vladimir Putin’s increasingly explicit imperial ambitions to reconstitute a Russian empire from the ashes of the Soviet Union has raised considerable fears among former members. The only former USSR state that has fully endorsed and supported the Russian campaign against Ukraine is Belarus, where President Alexander

The Truth behind the Myth of Russia ‘Threatened’ by NATO

Jun 27, 2022

Facts give the lie to Russia’s claim to be defending itself against an expansionist NATO. Moscow has always been the biggest threat to its neighbours, to freedom and to the whole of humanity. The regime of Vladimir Putin spends more than $300 million annually on disseminating its propaganda and disinformation in various languages

New ‘Business As Usual’ with Russia Affects Arctic Climate Response, Experts Say

May 19, 2022

As global heating brings dire ecological challenges and new resource opportunities to the Arctic, international security experts agree that stakeholder nations must work together to navigate the changing security dynamics—with the exclusion of Russia, whose war in Ukraine is threatening international order. “Climate change is increasingly referred to as a defining threat in

Ukrainian propaganda: how Zelensky is winning the information war against Russia

May 17, 2022

Paul Baines, University of Leicester As well as success on the battlefield, wars are often won or lost through information advantage. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, we might have expected Russia -– an old hand at propaganda -– to have bested Ukraine early on. Russia’s deception operations have had a long history of global

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