High above the choppy, steel-gray waters of the Baltic Sea, the routine hum of allied air patrols recently gave way to something far more calculated, aggressive, and consequential. In a...
MOSCOW — On the darkened outskirts of Moscow, the hum that preceded the fireball sounded less like an advanced cruise missile and more like the rattling engine of a lawnmower....
NEAR THE EASTERN FRONT, Ukraine — For as long as armies have clashed across open ground, the opening seconds of an assault have demanded a blood sacrifice. Someone must climb...
Across Russia’s major metropolitan hubs, a quiet, desperate calculation is unfolding in living rooms, corporate offices, and private chat channels. For months, the Kremlin has projected an aura of unshakeable...
HELSINKI — For centuries, the icy waters of the Baltic Sea served as imperial Russia’s coveted window to the West and one of Moscow’s most potent instruments of geopolitical intimidation....
MOSCOW — For nearly four years, the unspoken social contract that anchored Vladimir Putin’s wartime Russia was deceptively simple: ordinary citizens would surrender their political agency and ignore the battlefields...
In the subterranean operations rooms of Ankara and the high-security corridors of the Pentagon, the night of August 18 unspooled with the quiet terror of an impending regional catastrophe. Radar...
When Vladimir Putin stepped ashore on the windswept island of Iturup in the disputed Kurils, the spectacle was orchestrated to project imperial resolve. Flanked by missile corvettes staging menacing drills...
SAMARA, Russia — For decades, the Russian defense establishment operated under the doctrine that vast geography was its ultimate armor. High-value aerospace factories, rocket assembly complexes, and strategic research installations...
On the night of August 21, the sirens over Kryvyi Rih did not sound like an ordinary warning. In the sprawling industrial city of central Ukraine—best known internationally as the...