Conflict & Security | 2026-05-06
Russia's Mali retreat puts its African model in question
Russia's Africa Corps withdrew from its most symbolic position in Mali the same week Western forces demonstrated exactly the model Moscow claimed to have replaced.
Conflict & Security | 2026-05-05
No fleet, no problem: How Ukraine rewrote naval warfare
Ukraine entered this war without a navy. What it built instead is now a model for how modern maritime conflict works.
Conflict & Security | 2026-05-05
Russia's military has a criminal infection
Violent convicts recruited to fight in Ukraine brought the gulag's hierarchy with them, and the Russian military can't stop them.
Society | 2026-05-04
Russia is turning its students into soldiers -- or exiles
Russia has blacklisted at least 19 Western universities and is now ordering campuses to deliver recruits for the front.
Society | 2026-05-04
Russia puts combat veterans on urban patrol duty
Russia is deploying veterans of the so-called special military operation as street patrols. It is framed as a crime solution, but analysts say it's a warning to the public.
Society | 2026-05-01
Why foreigners keep coming to Ukraine -- even as bombs fall
While millions fled Ukraine, a different group made the opposite choice, and they're not leaving.
Society | 2026-05-01
The Kremlin is losing Russians over the internet
For millions of Russians, the internet crackdown was the first time the state crossed into their personal lives, and they're saying so.