Given how centralized the Soviet Union was and President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is today, the role regions within the Russian Federation have played in promoting Kremlin policies in neighboring countries is often overlooked. But in Soviet times, Moscow regularly employed regions and republics along the... MORE

On the Donbas battlefields, Russian troops still strive to advance, but in the global arena of confrontation with the collective West, Russia keeps losing ground. A sequence of heavy blows breached Russian defensive geopolitical positions last week, and Moscow’s attempts at counterstrikes only aggravated the... MORE

Introduction How often do Taiwanese people think about China? Given growing evidence that Beijing could use military force against Taiwan, and with President Tsai Ing-wen stating that the threat from China grows “every day,” it would be reasonable to expect the public to be increasingly... MORE

On June 18, Lithuania blocked the transit by rail of sanctioned goods between Kaliningrad Oblast and the rest of Russia , a step that Russian propaganda immediately claimed could be a harbinger of a larger war in Europe involving Moscow and the North Atlantic Treaty... MORE

As a result of its full-scale re-invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24, Russia presently occupies most of Kherson Oblast, a southern region with a million inhabitants that borders on Crimea. In fact, Russian troops captured Kherson with a strike from the Crimean Peninsula, which... MORE

On June 15, several Ukrainian media outlets reported that another top Russian military officer was killed in battle (InformNapalm, June 15). This time, it was Colonel Sergei Postnov, who headed the information response group within the 1st Bureau of the National Guard’s (Rosgvardia) Media Relations... MORE

Introduction Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February, People’s Republic of China (PRC) officials and state media have promoted and amplified key elements of Moscow’s narrative that the war has been provoked by the United States and its NATO allies in... MORE

On May 11, Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) channels on Telegram shared a new magazine produced by the group’s media wing, al-Azaim Foundation. In Pashto, the title of the magazine is “Khurasan Ghag”, which is the same title as the English magazine “Voice of... MORE

On June 8–10, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov paid a two-day visit to Yerevan, where he met with Armenian leaders and attended a foreign ministerial session of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) (Armeniasputnik.am, June 8). His talks with the Armenian representatives and his statements... MORE

The full-scale re-invasion of Ukraine, ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24, came as a shock for many groups within the Russian elite. They are still assessing the consequences of that autocratic decision and adapting to the fast-deteriorating political and economic environment. Meanwhile,... MORE