The Latest Breaking News from Stefan Wolff

Ukraine is alive. Ukraine lives. Ukraine fights. Ukraine advances, Ukraine overcomes the path. Ukraine gains. Ukraine works. Ukraine exists.

While it may seem glib to repeat the notion of a new cold war, winter 2023-2024 has brought with it the sense that there is now an ever-more uncertain faultline between the west and an increasingly aggressive Russia – perhaps more vividly than at any time since the late 1980s.…

Where were you when you heard that Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aircraft had crashed and he was presumed dead? For Ukraine watchers it was something of a surreal JFK moment. And, like the Zapruder tape, the video footage of the Russian mercenary group commander’s Embraer Legacy 600 private jet…

Stefan Wolff professor of international security at the University of Birmingham explains how Yevgeny Prigozhin is just another in a long line of those who have faced an early demise after opposing Vladimir Putin. 

Google the words “Ukraine counteroffensive” and the adverb you will most commonly find associated with them is “slowly”. The popular misconception in the months leading up to the launch of Ukraine’s summer push was that, like last autumn’s lightning counter-attacks around Kherson in the south and Kharkiv in the north-east…

Reports from the front lines of the various conflict zones reveal daily just how difficult Ukraine is finding its summer counter-offensive. Russia has had months to build defensive fortifications and Ukrainian troops are having to fight their way through territory which – according to Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s…

Ukrainian units are forcing their Russian foes back by what on some days seems like a few metres at a time. But on June 24, at least some Russian troops moved much more rapidly toward their own capital.

Britain must be ready for the end of Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia, government insiders have warned following the Wagner Group’s failed revolt at the weekend.

So the Ukrainian counteroffensive is well and truly underway, even if progress is measured in metres rather than the rapid advances that characterised Ukraine’s highly successful push last autumn. Volodymyr Zelensky himself has confirmed this, saying progress has been “slower than desired” and noting that the Russian invaders have mined…