On Wednesday, more than 250 Ukrainian soldiers who were hiding out in a steel plant in Mariupol surrendered to Russian forces and were swiftly detained. Speculation about what will happen to them has been intense, given Russia’s poor adherence to the Geneva Conventions since its troops invaded Ukraine in February. According to Reuters, at least one Russian negotiator involved in talks with Ukraine has called for the prisoners to be executed, an act that is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. Ukrainian officials, as well as the soldiers’ families, have expressed hopes for a prisoner exchange. Another possibility, though, is [...]
While Europe gets ready to tune into this year’s Eurovision Song Contest taking place Saturday in Turin, Italy, European Union officials in Brussels are engaged in a competition of their own: to spin the outcome of the recently concluded Conference on the Future of Europe that EU leaders say will shape the future of the 27-member union. The conference, which had been running for the past year, consisted of citizens’ groups that contributed policy proposals for reforming the EU, which were presented to EU leaders at its close on Monday. The brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron, who conceived of [...]
Today’s standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine can be traced back to 2004, a little more than a decade after the end of the Cold War. At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin was just embarking on his second term, and he began nurturing a cult of personality, voicing grievances about perceived threats on Russia’s security perimeter, and positioning himself as the defender of Russia’s great power status. By some accounts, Putin’s sense that Russia is under threat goes back to historic invasions of Russia: Batu Khan’s in the 13th century, Karl the XII’s in the 18th, Napoleon’s [...]
