PRIO Blogs
Tuesday, 5 Nov 2024
The US presidential election, which has been dominating the global news, will come to its natural culmination on November 5, even if the outcome remains uncertain for many more days. Even in Russia, where war and inflation are major concerns, official sources report that more than 60 percent of adults ...
Thursday, 14 Nov 2024
The Kremlin had confidently expected confusion and turmoil following the US presidential election. Instead, a definite outcome and the commitment to a smooth transition of power are set to shape the US political environment for the next couple of months. The significant majority of Russians preferred Donald Trump as the ...
Tuesday, 29 Oct 2024
The BRICS summit on October 22–24, held in Kazan, Russia, was met with great fanfare in Russian propaganda, which hailed it for its “epochal” significance. The BRICS summit, held in Kazan, was met with great fanfare in Russian propaganda. Propagandists hailed it for its “epochal” significance. Moscow commentators promoted the ...
Tuesday, 10 Sep 2024
From the chaos of the conflict in Shan State, the United Wa State Army has emerged as a potentially decisive force. On the morning of July 28, a convoy of soldiers from the United Wa State Army (UWSA) drove through Lashio, the capital of the northern Shan State and home ...
Thursday, 12 Sep 2024
China presents itself as a different kind of development actor compared to Western donors — more equal and with less imposition and interference in national affairs, based on the belief that economic development leads to peace. However, many doubt this is the case. A look at Pakistan shows that local ...
Wednesday, 18 Sep 2024
Since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the US-led Western coalition has demonstrated remarkable determination in supporting Kyiv. Yet, every practical step in providing military support to defiant Ukraine has involved protracted deliberations (Kuzio, “Crimea: Where Russia’s War Started and Where Ukraine Will Win,” July 8). Moscow has sought to exploit and ...
Thursday, 19 Sep 2024
The far right and far left have partly overlapping views on issues of global economic cooperation. Why don’t they unite? “We have moved from ‘we the workers’ to ‘we the French,’” said the French sociologist Didier Eribon to Libération recently, to explain the working class’s support for the populist party Rassemblement ...
Tuesday, 6 Aug 2024
It was an unprecedented and historic moment that unfolded in Bangladesh on 5 August 2024 when Prime Minister Sheik Hasina hastily fled the country in a military helicopter. The protesters had demonstrated in the streets for several weeks, and that moment marked a ‘second independence’. This was not an independence ...
Wednesday, 14 Aug 2024
Forced displacement places increased pressure on host communities. Refugees are often hosted in resource-scarce areas with high unemployment and poverty. Local, national and international collaboration is therefore crucial to mitigate social conflict and prevent instability from traveling with those fleeing war. Uganda, with its progressive refugee policies, is often presented as a ...
Thursday, 30 May 2024
Norway, Spain, and Ireland recognized a Palestinian state that does not yet exist. This is why it still matters. On Wednesday May 22. Norway, Spain and Ireland declared that they would recognize Palestine as a state on May 28. The recognition has now become official. During a 22 May press ...
Friday, 31 May 2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued reassurances of his readiness to negotiate an end to his war against Ukraine many times over the past 27 months, which Kyiv has duly rejected as attempts to pressure it to capitulate (see EDM, January 29, February 6, 26, April 15). A maneuver executed last week may, however, ...
Thursday, 4 Apr 2024
The shock from the March 22 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall is continuing to generate angst and confusion throughout Russian society while failing to inspire unity. The Russian population may have grown accustomed to the perpetual shocks caused by the war in Ukraine, but the people are unprepared for ...
Friday, 12 Apr 2024
Every Russian stereotype about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been disproven by the alliance’s surge of activity in its 75th year. Moscow portrays NATO as an aggressive and indecisive institution, rigidly controlled by the United States, and disunited. As NATO takes steps to increase its solidarity, Russian propagandists ...
Wednesday, 17 Apr 2024
Against all strategic rationale, Russian troops keep pushing Ukrainian defenses beyond Avdiivka and Bakhmut, paying a heavy price in casualties for every inch gained. The primary reason for these self-destructive attacks is to maintain the initiative necessary to prove Russia’s upper hand in the “long war.” This illusion of control ...
Saturday, 20 Apr 2024
Many strategic surprises have come from the combat operations on the Black Sea theatre in the last 25 months, and they keep coming as the long Russo-Ukrainian war continues to evolve, while the prospect of peace is barely visible through its fog. In the domain of politics, one surprise is ...
Tuesday, 30 Apr 2024
The recurring refrain that there is a route to a two-state solution diverts attention from what is truly urgent: ending the famine and securing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. It is difficult to believe, but after more than 200 days of war, there is still no ceasefire between Israel ...
Tuesday, 5 Mar 2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual address to the Federal Assembly last Thursday was grander in length and style than his usual domineering performances. He did not attempt to persuade the audience of loyal bureaucrats that victory in Ukraine is near. The Kremlin’s war strategy relies on the ideas that Russian ...
Tuesday, 26 Mar 2024
The official results from last week’s Russian presidential election were precisely what the Kremlin ordered, but they have hardly brought the incumbent Vladimir Putin much satisfaction. Falsifications in the results were so blatant that Putin’s desire to prove overwhelming public support for the continuation of his autocratic rule has remained ...
Wednesday, 7 Feb 2024
On Friday, February 2, the United States conducted a massive airstrike, targeting terrorist militia bases in Iraq and Syria but reverberating across Russian geopolitical designs. In Russia’s grand strategy, the escalation of tensions in the broader Middle East triggered by the shocking attack by Hamas terrorists on Israel on October ...
Tuesday, 13 Feb 2024
The war in Gaza is the most deadly in modern times for journalists and UN personnel. Despite the seriousness of the situation, these killings are under-reported. The war in Gaza is an exceptionally gruesome conflict, as shown by all the relevant statistics. Since Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) attacked ...
Wednesday, 14 Feb 2024
At the start of 2024, the deadlocked European war reached the balance point where Russia was at the peak performance, while Ukraine arrived at the dangerous minimum of its capabilities. Massive budget allocations ensured that Russian defense-industrial complex expanded production to the maximum possible level, while North Korea supplied wagon-loads of artillery shells and Iran delivered ...
On February 1, the European Council unanimously approved the 50 billion euro aid package to Ukraine. Although this package will not alter the course of the battles for Avdiivka or Kupyansk as it does not include funding for armor or ammunition, it will deliver a boost to Ukraine’s struggling economy. ...
Thursday, 22 Feb 2024
This year’s Munich Security Conference recently took place on February 16 but was soon overshadowed by other events, which is becoming a tradition for the annual conference. In early February 2022, most high-level participants did not believe a Russian attack on Ukraine was imminent. In 2023, many expected decisive success ...
Wednesday, 28 Feb 2024
Russians still do not call the full-scale invasion of Ukraine what it actually is — a war. Now in its third year, the war continues to be referred to in Russia by its awkward abbreviation SVO, short for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s so-called “special military operation.” Russian war propaganda pushing ...
Wednesday, 3 Jan 2024
On the night of December 29, 2023, Russia conducted a series of massive missile strikes on Ukrainian cities. This operation was meant to add weight to President Vladimir Putin’s confident and unwavering words in a series of public events that concluded the year. It produced another failure, however, as most ...
Monday, 15 Jan 2024
The Russia-Ukraine war exhibits a stark asymmetry: Russia pursues aggression while Ukraine fights to preserve sovereignty, leading to divergent societal attitudes. The deadlocked Russia-Ukraine war remains strikingly asymmetric in its character and key features. The core of this asymmetry is plain clear: Russia persists with the crime of aggression and Ukraine ...
Wednesday, 31 Jan 2024
Russian propaganda on the war against Ukraine illogically, but deliberately, combines three different narratives. First, President Vladimir Putin insists that his goals for the “special military operation” remain unchanged. Ukraine must be “neutralized,” and a pro-Russian government will be installed in Kyiv (Interfax, December 14). Second, Putin repeatedly confirms his ...
