With NATO mired in its internal tensions, Russia and Ukraine have decided to intensify the strategy of inflicting maximum possible damage on each other, before any talk of negotiating their immediate future resumes.

Russia does not loosen its pressure on Ukraine. This Monday in the early morning, Moscow has once again bombed Kyiv, just four days after the last fatal attack on the Ukrainian capital. At least 14 people have died in Kyiv and six more have lost their lives in the neighboring town of Vyshneve, where 500 people have been evacuated due to the risk of new explosions following attacks on fuel depots. In addition, according to the balance of the Ukrainian authorities, 87 people have been injured.

It is not at all common to see Putin take responsibility for political or military errors with words equivalent to self-criticism. Such as acknowledging that Ukrainian drones are putting Russia in difficulty. He said it just ten days ago. The head of the Kremlin promised security to Russians with a tone of humility. Citizens who for weeks have been forced to endure air raid alerts, drone explosions, and the surprise of discovering fuel shortages for their vehicles. Shocks that are added to figures that can no longer be hidden, not in the kitchens, nor in the air shafts, nor on the street sidewalks: half a million Russian soldiers could have died in the war in Ukraine according to the latest data from British intelligence services.

In Russia, the fight against Satanism is not a relic of the past, but a state policy. The powerful Russian Orthodox Church has promoted the persecution of this belief as a catch-all to accommodate an ultraconservative agenda and repression of identities that deviate from traditional Russian values. Heavy metal bands, Halloween festival organizers, or psychics are the latest victims of a crusade that authorities also use to demonize the LGBTI community and justify the war in Ukraine as a "de-Satanization" operation.

Ukraine is determined to de facto turn the occupied peninsula of Crimea into an island. On Sunday morning, Kyiv's drones attacked the ports on both sides de facto the occupied Crimean Peninsula into an island. In the early hours of Sunday, Kyiv's drones attacked ports on both sides During the last few days, Ukrainian medium-range drones

In the great Russian metropolises there are no air-raid shelters, no emergency protocols, the sirens do not sound when drones approach. People record from home, between fascination and unreality, how the aircraft fly over buildings with an unsettling parsimony until they crash. No one wants to think that these explosions could affect their apartment or that they could be the next victims. In the fifth summer of the war, the bulk of Russian urban society refuses to accept that it is at war, even though it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to hide the ravages of the conflict within its cities.

The impact of a drone against the Kapotnya refinery, about 15 kilometers south of central Moscow, caused an explosion this Thursday that blew the roof off the plant. The striking moment, captured on video by dozens of residents, testifies to Ukraine's most massive attack on the Russian capital since the war began. In total, 555 aircraft flew towards Russian territory, of which 194 headed for the city. The bombing caused 17 injuries and once again highlighted the vulnerabilities of Russian air defenses and further aggravated the fuel crisis the country is going through.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for legislative elections on September 20. For the first time, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, the four Ukrainian provinces annexed by Moscow, will be able to vote in Duma elections. All four had already participated in the last elections in which Putin was re-elected.

Russia launched one of the most massive aerial attacks in recent months against Ukraine early Monday. Among the affected targets is the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, one of the great spiritual and cultural emblems of Ukraine and Orthodox Christianity, founded in the 11th century, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The attack caused a spectacular fire.

Practically no one discusses the positive effects the EU has had on the development of European societies over the last seventy years. In addition to the advantages in socio-economic matters –common economic space and currency, development, social rights, etc.–, it is a period of stability framed by the absence of internal wars between member states. It is a positive outcome arising from the nefarious wartime experience of the Second World War.Today this European internal peace is not in danger. The same cannot be said, however, for the international situation in which the EU (and NATO) states are involved. As things stand, it is not out of the question that a war with Russia could occur in the short term. This would represent an irresponsible stupidity, as war interests neither of the two potential sides. Let's take it step by step.1. Western discourses on “European security” are neither analyzed nor conducted in parallel with the objectives of Russian security. The lack of Hobbesian empathy – analyzing the world of international relations from the perspective of “the other” – tends to erode the possibilities of resolving conflicts through diplomatic means. The security sought is never only one's own.2. It is partly demagogic to present Russia as the "aggressor" state, silencing NATO's prior expansionist policy towards Eastern Europe. An expansion that violated the previous agreements (Gorbachev) that made possible – with Russia's acceptance – the unification of Germany in 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet regime. As I have said on occasion, the subsequent will of the USA (NATO) to win the post-war period after winning the Cold War is at the origin of the current problems.3. As highlighted by the North American academic Jeffrey Sachs, European states are not reliable actors when it comes to respecting international agreements: they have constantly violated them. A small list: the aforementioned expansion of NATO; the disregard for Russia's collaboration proposals in the early years of the 21st century (summits of Munich and Bucharest), which led to the predictable invasion of Crimea, a Russian territory since the end of the 18th century, in 2014; the recognized European deception (ratified by Merkel) of the Minsk II agreements (2015) despite the collaboration of France and Germany. It does not seem that the subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022) was precisely a surprise. The Western boycott (USA, United Kingdom) of the Istanbul agreement of 2022 goes in the same direction.4. Wars have changed. The economic costs of attack missions are lower than the costs of a defensive nature. The combination of drones, missiles, and the growing strategic weight of artificial intelligence are a further factor of instability, as well as possible errors and tactical decisions without human control. Wars are currently easier to start and harder to end.5. Germany and Japan, the two main defeated powers in World War II, are beginning to be immersed in a program of strong militarization. Defense (or war) budgets of these two states are expected to increase significantly in the next decade. Germany's case, seen from Russia, can only be read as a real threat. It was the Germans who invaded Russia just a few decades ago. Furthermore, a (US) general and an (Lithuanian) Foreign Minister of NATO have threatened to attack Kaliningrad, a Russian settlement in the Baltic. An example of irresponsible irrationality.

Brussels banned the Russian news agency Sputnik and the television station Russia Today, considered instruments of Kremlin disinformation, throughout European territory shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine more than four years ago. But in France, Russian propaganda did not die with that decision by the European Commission. Added to the entire disinformation apparatus operating through social networks is the strange phenomenon of Xenia Fedorova, the journalist who directed Russia Today in France until it had to close.

NATO aircraft shot down a drone in Latvia's airspace on Monday. This was reported by the Baltic country's military, after issuing an air threat alert for its eastern regions bordering Russia and Belarus, in which it asked the population to stay home. Minutes later, it deactivated the alert. An army spokesperson told the Reuters news agency that at least one drone had entered Latvian airspace from Russia.

There was no surprise in Armenia's legislative elections. The party of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has achieved a comfortable victory that will allow him to form a government and continue with the strategy of approaching the European Union and the United States and distancing himself from Russia. These results also validate the peace process initiated by the Armenian leader almost a year ago to put an end to a conflict of nearly four decades with Azerbaijan. However, the parliamentary majority is insufficient to amend the Constitution and remove the claim to the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, as Baku demands to finalize the agreement.

This Sunday, Armenia will hold its first elections since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan decided to leave the Russian orbit, convinced that his historical ally was no longer capable of guaranteeing its security. In recent years, Armenia has embarked on an unprecedented course towards Europe and the United States in search of new partners, and Western leaders openly support the current government, which is the favorite for re-election. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has launched a campaign of economic pressure to sow fear among the population.

For the first time, Vladimir Putin is concerned about the results of parliamentary elections in Armenia like those of this Sunday. If the polls are confirmed and the prime minister, the liberal Nikol Pashinyan, renews his mandate, the Kremlin may find itself with an Armenia willing to stop being a Russian protectorate.

No face-to-face meetings or concessions. The letter that Volodymyr Zelensky sent to Vladimir Putin in which he asked him to end the war in Ukraine has received the expected response: an unappealable no. The Russian president appeared at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum amidst escalating bombings and with his soldiers struggling to advance a few meters on the front, but he showed himself convinced, once again, that the conflict can only end with Russia's victory. 

A window of opportunity for Ukraine. This is how various military analysts describe the situation of the conflict with Russia, after Kyiv has taken the lead in the dominance of medium-range drones, those sent about 150 kilometers from the front line and crucial for disrupting enemy logistics, which are sent about 150 kilometers from the front line and are crucial for disrupting enemy logistics. The Ukrainian army has managed to slow down the Russian offensive on the southern front and is now threatening the roads that supply weapons, food, and fuel to the soldiers. If it is capable of isolating the Russian lines, it could even launch a counter-offensive, some experts point out. However, Moscow will react sooner or later.

“Don’t you dare say I surrendered Karabakh!”, shouted Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan a few weeks ago at a refugee from that territory with whom he started arguing on the Yerevan metro. In September 2023, Azerbaijan invaded the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, a territory in dispute since the fall of the Soviet Union, and expelled the more than 100,000 ethnic Armenian inhabitants who remained there. Neither Pashinyan, nor Karabakh’s ally Vladimir Putin, nor any leader from the Western world did anything to prevent it. That defeat is still an open wound today for tens of thousands of displaced people and a national trauma that the Armenian candidate for re-election, in Sunday’s legislative elections, is trying to bury.

The image of the foreign delegates of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum entering the exhibition center with columns of smoke from Ukrainian drones in the background is probably the last thing Vladimir Putin would have wanted to see. Kyiv has launched an attack on the oil export port of the country's second city, coinciding with the inauguration of this event, which the Kremlin wants to present as its alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Russian president plans to attend on Thursday and Friday.

The impact of a drone against an apartment block in the Romanian city of Galati, near the border with Ukraine, highlights the danger that the war could end up involving NATO more directly. Friday's incident has not been the first incident with Russian drones or missiles outside Ukrainian territory, while the Baltic countries also warn of the risk they face due to the deviation of Ukrainian drones entering their airspace. We analyze this with Tony Lawrence, head of the Defence Policy and Strategy Program at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) based in Tallinn (Estonia).