A year ago, in spring 2023, the mainstream Western media was issuing overoptimistic forecasts of the major Ukrainian counteroffensive that would crush the Russian defense and achieve a breaking point, turning decisively the course of the European (a.k.a. Russo-Ukrainian) War. Those predictions did not materialize. A year later, in spring 2024, the mood is in a U-turn: the depressive expectations of the imminent collapse of Ukraine’s ability to resist mounting Russian pressure are overflowing. But it appears to me that those projections are off-target again.

The Crimean peninsula, which for a time was largely inhabited by Tatars and under a kind of Ottoman protectorate from 1487 until its Russian annexation in 1783, is perceived to be a cultural bridge between the two nations until today. Indeed, the Crimean Tatars suffered tsarist brutalities, which reduced them to a minority, the majority becoming, by immigration and replacement, Russian by the middle of nineteenth century (this is still the case today).1 Then, the Stalinist deportation of 1944 emptied the peninsula of much of its remaining Tartar population, with some opting to return starting in 1991.

The West’s political and material support for Ukraine gives the impression that Russia faces them on its own. But that is a misconception. The advent of a continental, Russia-centered ad hoc coalition involved in the war in Ukraine is a sobering reality. Given its composition, I tentatively call it “BRINK” (Belarus, Russia, Iran, and North Korea). This geopolitical grouping is knit together by the akin nature of regimes, coincident interests, revisionist aspirations, a shared perception of their competitors (seen as adversaries), and other common denominators

The Ukrainian counteroffensive develops slowly and painfully. Thus far, not much progress is in sight (apart from limited tactical gains), and the Russian forces are mostly holding their ground. Still, there are at least three more months of active operations ahead before the arrival of the autumn season. This raises the possibility that the situation may shift in Ukraine’s favor through escalatory scenarios.

this IDD Analytical Policy Brief examines the course of action of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Beyond that, it focuses on the Wagner turmoil and its pending impact on Russia’s internal stability and the war effort. In addition, the paper addresses broader politico-military aspects of the European War as these impact upon global security.

This IDD Analytical Policy Brief evaluates the current operations, Ukraine’s counter-offensive preparations (including its strategic disinformation campaign), Russia’s adaptation to the war, and the strategic risks for each side in case of failure.

This IDD Analytical Policy Brief provides a retrospective assessment of the past winter campaign in Ukraine whilst also focusing on the details of the ongoing preparations by both sides for the approaching decisive standoff. This essay also examines some of the broader effects of what is best described as the European War.

This analytical policy brief provides an account of the military developments of the idle winter campaign and analyses trends and factors influencing the expected return of active warfare. Particular emphasis is placed on the parallel preparations, accelerated by both belligerents, in order to break the current stalemate in their own favor.

This IDD analytic policy brief assesses the shifting course of the war in the past two months, measures potential scenarios for the upcoming winter period, and evaluates the war’s increasing influence on Russia’s domestic political agenda, with an emphasis on the role of non-systemic and quasi-systemic militarized actors empowered by the war.

Two Forbes headlines three months apart: “Will Russia Invade Ukraine? (12 February 2022) and “Will the Ukrainian Army Invade Russia? (16 May 2022). And today, on 3 June 2022, the European (a.k.a. the Russo-Ukrainian) war turned one hundred days old. Within this period, its trajectory has been remarkable: from a botched blitzkrieg to an evident stalemate. At the moment, Russia continues pressing but cannot defeat Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine fights back but cannot harm Russia enough to force it to turn to a political solution.

The inaugural Chief of imperial Germany’s Great General Staff, General Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, wrote in Über Strategie (1871) that “no plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main force.” This explicit warning has found its proof once again on the Ukrainian battlefield, where Russian combat operations, which they call a “special military operation,” faltered from its beginning and appears to be far from achieving what have been reported as its strategic goals and objectives.

This analytic brief is the first of at least two such papers on this general theme that I will produce for the Institute for Development and Diplomacy.

The latest phase of the conflict over Ukraine has entered its second month. Although it has produced immediate ripple effects around the globe, its long-term repercussions will only begin cascading later. This analytic policy brief examines the multiple consequences thereof and its emerging new realities in the context of Europe.

The overt military phase of the lengthy conflict over Ukraine is now three weeks old. Shortly before the start of the armed hostilities that began on 24 February 2022, Pentagon sources suggested that Kiev would fall in just three days. I will come back to this forecast in the concluding section. The present policy brief focuses primarily on the military-strategic aspects of the present conflict, leaving aside political and other aspects for another time.

On 24 February 2022, the lengthy crisis over Ukraine escalated into a major conventional war with the deployment of a nearly 200,000-strong Russian force onto the territory of its neighbor. Although having become the largest war in Europe since 1945, Russia insists on calling it a “special military operation”—a rather Orwellian turn of phrase.