russia

In a nutshell Conflict fatigue is prompting new approaches to fund Ukraine aid Seizing Russian assets could undermine Western currencies The West cannot easily avoid hard financial choices over the war   For more than two years, Ukraine has been defending itself against the onslaught of the Russian invasion. For just as long, the West […]

  The track record of economic sanctions against Russia has proven what everybody in the West knew, or should have known, from the outset: this is a dubious weapon. The threat of sanctions had provided zero deterrence against Moscow’s ambition to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since the war, the subsequent implementation of sanctions […]

  The message in today’s media is that the West is heading toward war with Russia. Politicians are now joining in. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has been very direct on that point. French President Emmanuel Macron has echoed him recently. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz is petrified of provoking Russia. And Europe […]

A few years ago, China treated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a supplicant and the country itself with benign neglect. North Korea has enormous economic problems, and Mr. Kim’s megalomania has made the country a pariah on the global stage. It was only through the brazen testing of missiles and nuclear saber-rattling that Pyongyang […]