Free Republic

It’s not clear what drove Belarusian strongman Aleksandr Lukashenko to force down a Ryanair passenger jet transiting through his national airspace last month and to kidnap dissident journalist Roman Protasevich from it. But it’s clear who’s on his side in the resultant outcry: his ambivalent patron Russian President Vladimir Putin. Even as Europe has suspended flights to Belarus, Putin has kept airspace open on the eastern side of the border and threatened retaliatory action against the European Union. The codependent, if unequal, relationship between Minsk and Moscow is now set to deepen, especially after the European Union and United States...

Russia’s spring 2021 saber-rattling on the Ukrainian border helped guarantee that Ukraine would be high on the international agenda during June’s G7, NATO, and US-Russia summit meetings. Fears of a major military escalation also served as a reminder that this unresolved European conflict remains at the heart of international affairs. Ever since the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine in early 2014, the undeclared war between the two countries has unfolded alongside an avalanche of deliberate disinformation. Most of this has come from Russian state media or the Kremlin itself, but an ideologically diverse range of Western sources have also...

On April 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed Kremlin officials to draw up a list of “unfriendly countries.” Although the identity of these “unfriendly countries” has yet to be officially confirmed, Russian media reports citing leaked information suggest the list will be dominated by Russia’s neighbors. According to a report published by Izvestia newspaper, the nations set to feature on the list of “unfriendly countries” are the United States, Poland, Czechia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ukraine, and Australia. The most striking thing about this group is the fact that five of the ten featured countries share land...

The Russian government is escalating its confrontations with the West in order to test the Biden administration's resolve. Contrary to some assertions, however, we are not witnessing a second Cold War. The Cold War was essentially a stalemate until the Soviet empire imploded. Instead, President Vladimir Putin is engaged in an intimidating international offensive to regain world stature, reconstruct a Muscovite empire, and divide the West. A credible transatlantic alliance that marshals the strength of NATO and the European Union must be geared toward ensuring the freedom of wider Europe. If these states fall under the control of the Kremlin’s...