Author: Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

There has been much and justified focus on the implications of a likely deal between US president Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the overwhelmingly negative consequences this will have for Ukraine and Europe. But if Trump and Putin make a deal, there is much more at stake than Ukraine’s future borders and Europe’s relationship with the US. As we are nearing the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s future is more in doubt than it has ever been since February 2022. For once, analogies to Munich in 1938 are sadly appropriate. This is not because…

Kyiv has finally turned off Russia’s gas supply to Europe, ending a source of income that helped pay for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The decades-old deal, which allowed the transit of natural gas produced by Russian energy giant Gazprom through Ukraine, ended at midnight on December 31, shutting down Russia’s last major gas corridor to Europe. Europe’s dependence on Russian energy had already drastically reduced since the invasion in February 2022, so the gesture is mostly symbolic. But it doesn’t make the decision less important or mean there are no consequences for the remaining Gazprom customers in Europe. Russia will…

The death of a spy is rarely newsworthy, due to the secrecy surrounding it. But when a white beluga whale suspected of spying for Moscow was found dead in Norwegian waters in September, the animal soon became a minor celebrity. Hvaldimir (a play on the Norwegian word for whale, hval, and the first name of Russian president) was even given an official autopsy by the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries. The whale had been uncovered as a spy in 2019, and is one in a long line of animals which have been used by the intelligence services. Among them was a…