The frantic rate of attacks from the air seems to have contributed to the recent retreat of Ukrainian forces on the Donbas front.

Thomas Gomart is a French historian and director of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). In an interview with Le Monde, he analyzed the new global strategic situation and gave a first assessment of the disruption caused by the Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin is not a military strategist, and the decision to shift Russian forces from around Kyiv to the southeast in order to be in a position to defeat the Ukrainian army rather than go all out to achieve regime change now in Ukraine shows that, Dmitri Minic of the Paris Institute for International Relations says.

Alice Pannier is leading a new programme looking at the relationship between technology and geopolitical alliances. Recent events have proven this to be more important than ever.

Western powers appear unable to thwart Putin’s strategy to reassert Russian influence

Rarely in recent years has the Kremlin been so popular with European visitors. French President Emmanuel Macron arrives Monday. The Hungarian prime minister visited last week. And in days to come, the German chancellor will be there, too. All are hoping to get through to President Vladimir Putin, the man who singlehandedly shapes Russia’s course amid its military buildup near Ukraine and whose designs are a mystery even for his own narrow inner circle.

After the recent intensification of dialogue between official Kyiv and President Biden’s administration, in the wake of the rising threat to Ukraine posed by Russia and in anticipation of President Biden’s visit to the UK and EU, President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team began sharpening their rhetorical stance toward Ukraine’s Western partners.

Zelensky’appeal for help in Paris follows Biden’s condemnation of Russian ‘aggression’.

Kremlin stance is blow to European countries which favour outreach to Moscow. Russia’s combative treatment of the EU’s top diplomat during a landmark trip there has triggered a political outcry — but little expectation that the European bloc will end divisions over how to handle the Kremlin.