Ukraine

Introduction As the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues into its second year, Ukraine’s reconstruction and recovery is estimated by the World Bank to cost, at a minimum, $411 billion. With no realistic prospect of a negotiated settlement to the conflict in sight, Ukraine and its international partners are rightfully seeking pathways to fund…

This morning the Nova Kakhovka dam in Ukraine was destroyed, in circumstances which remain unclear. Thousands of people are in peril, while the devastation of downstream communities and the environment will be immense. The dam appears to have collapsed, and the reservoir behind it is now draining at speed. In this post I will just briefly set…

On 22 May 2023, two Russian paramilitary groups – the Liberty of Russia Legion (LSR) and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) – conducted a cross-border raid from Ukrainian territory into the Belgorod region of Russia. After briefly ‘liberating’ some border villages, the fighters were forced to retreat on to Ukrainian territory again. This was not the first such…

Before Spring 2022, only the real connoisseurs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were familiar with the so-called Moscow Mechanism enabling any OSCE participating State to request the establishment of an ad hoc expert mission to investigate specific questions related to the OSCE human dimension. In the first thirty years of…