In the West, Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy is often described as one of “escalate to deescalate”. The thinking goes that Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons at an early stage in a conflict in order to “deescalate” and terminate the confrontation quickly in its favour....

According to the US government, the Russian government is developing a programme to arm some of its satellites with nuclear warheads. Should the Kremlin acquire this capability, it could destroy key parts of the civilian satellite infrastructure by detonating a single nuclear weapon in low Earth...

For the past three years, Ukraine has not allowed Russia to win its illegal war of aggression. During long periods of the war, the parties have found themselves in a military and diplomatic stalemate. Now US President Donald Trump has sided with the aggressor. "Nothing about Ukraine without...

Authoritarian states are increasingly leveraging non-state cyber capabilities to expand their operational reach, thereby challenging conventional distinctions between state and non-state activity. This practice complicates attribution and presents obstacles for coordinated international...

Russia apparently aims to be capable of attacking targets in the Baltic Sea region from Lake Ladoga, which is located north of Saint Petersburg and only 40 kilometres from the Finnish border. Since 2023, Russia has been evaluating the deployment of corvettes equipped with cruise missiles there....

Russia is going to great lengths to ensure that the war in Ukraine is perceived by its citizens as a distant military operation that does not affect them directly. But the consequences of both the war and the forced integration of the occupied Ukrainian territories are large-scale, diverse and...

Turkey is at risk of descending into autocracy. That risk persists even though the resistance put up by the opposition Republican People’s Party following the arrest of Mayor of İstanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu has saved the party - at least for now - from being placed under a trustee and the...

In der Entscheidung Moskaus vom 24. Februar 2022, erneut in die Ukraine einzumarschieren, kulminiert der seit 2008 zu beobachtende Trend zur Militarisierung der russischen Außenpolitik. Zugleich legt der Krieg die Schwächen der 2008 gestarteten Streitkräftereform offen. Die hohen Verluste der...