The Latest Breaking News from Stefan Wolff

You can generally tell when Vladimir Putin appears rattled by an adverse event in his war on Ukraine. He (or one of his proxies) ramps up the bloodcurdling rhetoric. And so it is with Ukraine’s “Spiderweb” drone attack on four airbases inside Russia, which reportedly destroyed or damaged as many…

In the past few days, discussion around whether Israel is committing acts of genocide in Gaza has intensified. On May 28 The Guardian reported that “380 writers and groups” had signed an open letter calling Israel’s military campaign in Gaza “genocide”. The letter reads, in part:

When it comes to the sincerity, or otherwise, of Vladimir Putin’s apparent willingness to talk peace with Ukraine, the Russian leader has given us plenty of hints. He may insist he wants to see a deal done and an end to the killing. But his insistence that any agreement would…

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It’s getting hard to figure out who all the US-sponsored talks over ending the conflict in Ukraine are supposed to benefit. Listening to Donald Trump over recent weeks, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s all about him.

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While Donald Trump’s special envoy was en route to Moscow to talk about a possible ceasefire deal with his opposite numbers in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin enjoyed a meet-up with his old friend Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, and the atmosphere was reportedly congenial.

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If you want to get an idea of how Donald Trump’s mind works (and this can change from day to day, as we know), it’s worth taking a look at his TruthSocial website. As I write, beneath a video pinned to the top of his feed featuring an AI-generated vision…

Browse through Donald Trump’s ghostwritten memoir, The Art of the Deal, and you’ll come across an aphorism which will go some way to explaining the US president’s approach to negotiating. Having established that he would do nearly anything within legal bounds to win, Trump adds that: “Sometimes, part of making…

Steve Bannon may no longer be in Donald Trump’s inner circle, but the newly reinstated US president appears to be adhering to a dictum the conservative disrupter-in-chief outlined back in 2018 as he reflected on his role in getting Trump elected the first time. “The Democrats don’t matter. The real…