Episodes
In this episode of War & Peace, Olga and Elissa are joined by Alissa de Carbonnel, Crisis Group’s Deputy Europe and Central Asia Director, and Simon Schlegel, Senior Ukraine Analyst, to talk about the latest developments along Ukraine’s front lines and the uncertainties emerging around support from Kyiv’s Western backers. They talk about the Russian takeover of Avdiivka on 17 February, what it means for the progress of the war and whether further Russian gains should be expected given...
Published 02/23/24
Published 02/23/24
In this episode of War & Peace, Olga and Elissa are joined by Camille Lons, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, to talk about how Europe is responding to rising tensions in the Red Sea. They discuss what’s behind the recent string of attacks on commercial shipping by Houthi rebels in Yemen and how disruptions to supply chains in these strategic waters might affect prices of energy and consumer goods in Europe. They assess the EU’s proposed naval mission Aspides,...
Published 02/06/24
In this episode of War & Peace, Olga and Elissa are joined by Hanna Notte, Director for Eurasia at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, to assess Russia’s stance on the war in Gaza, how Russia is looking to benefit from the war and its approach to the Middle East. They look at how Moscow is trying to leverage the conflict to strengthen diplomatic and military ties with Gulf Arab states and ask just how much all this will damage its relations with Israel in the long term....
Published 12/20/23
In this episode of War & Peace, Olga and Elissa talk with Julien Barnes-Dacey, Middle East and North Africa Program Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), to assess Europe’s response to the Gaza war. They unpack different EU Member States’ positions on the war and why it has been difficult for European leaders to find common ground on policies toward Israel-Palestine. They ask how much leverage Europe has over the conflict actors and what its role might be in Gaza...
Published 12/05/23
In this episode of War & Peace, Olga talks with Samuel Charap, Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, about whether the current moment makes negotiations to end the war in Ukraine more or less advantageous for all concerned. They discuss Russian narratives about negotiations, various parties' goals and whether or not Moscow has the upper hand in the wake of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. They also unpack the prerequisites for and attainability of sustainable security for Ukraine...
Published 11/21/23
Throughout history, women have been involved in conflict: as soldiers, as insurgents and as civilians. Yet, the ways in which men and women are treated on and off the battlefield and the contributions they make can vary widely, shaped in large part by deeply ingrained societal views about gender. In this episode of War & Peace, Olga Oliker and Elissa Jobson are joined by Jessica Trisko Darden, Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University, to discuss how...
Published 10/24/23
In the first episode of a new season of War & Peace, Olga Oliker is joined by Crisis Group’s South Caucasus experts, Olesya Vartanyan and Zaur Shiriyev, to talk about the implications of Azerbaijan regaining control of Nagorno-Karabakh in a one-day military operation on 19 September. The immediate consequences were the end of the enclave’s three decades of de facto self-rule and a mass exodus of ethnic Armenians. Olya, Zaur, and Olesya discuss the new refugee crisis, Armenia’s response...
Published 10/10/23
On 12 July, NATO concluded its two-day summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. At the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the decision to hold the meeting in one of NATO’s newer members and a country claimed by the Soviet Union for decades was seen as a sign of commitment to the alliance's eastern flank. The war in Ukraine was unsurprisingly the focal point of the summit, with NATO members committing to continued support for Kyiv and revamped deterrence in Europe as a whole and the...
Published 07/28/23
War, by definition, takes terrible tolls on civilian populations. Just what risks a given person faces depends on many factors, including gender, class and geography. While international law has evolved to protect both civilians and combatants at war, it is not always followed, to say the least, and governments often fail to adequately protect even their own civilian population. In Ukraine, the government's decision to ban most men aged eighteen to 60 from leaving the country has had...
Published 07/12/23
Western support for Ukraine’s war against Russia has faced continued scrutiny. Critics have compared the conflict to past American wars of choice, such as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which were informed by neoconservative foreign policy, aiming to promote peace and democracy through military means. Ukraine and its backers present a contrasting narrative, emphasising both defence against Russia's unprovoked invasion, and forwarding a narrative of this war as the frontline for...
Published 06/30/23
Today we're bringing you a bonus episode on the attempted insurrection by Wagner forces in Russia from Crisis Group's global podcast Hold Your Fire! Over the weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian private security company known as the Wagner Group, spearheaded an insurrection in Russia. In response to Kremlin moves to bring Wagner under the Russian army’s command and, according to him, attacks on a Wagner base by the Russian military, the group seized the southern Russian city of...
Published 06/29/23
On 29 May, a group of ethnic Serb protesters clashed with troops of the NATO peacekeeping force KFOR in the town of Zvečan in northern Kosovo. Demonstrators were angry at the Kosovo government’s decision to instal ethnic Albanian mayors, elected in a poll boycotted by the region’s majority ethnic Serb population, in the country’s northern municipalities. The mayors’ installation and ensuing clashes followed months of escalating tensions and efforts by the EU to return the parties to pragmatic...
Published 06/13/23
This week on War & Peace, Olga Oliker speaks with Crisis Group’s Türkiye Director Nigar Göksel about the Turkish elections and how President Erdoğan’s new term might shape the country’s domestic and foreign policy.  Last Sunday, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan secured another five years in office after winning the presidential runoff election against the opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. While the election was one of the most closely fought in Turkish history, the runoff...
Published 06/02/23
The EU’s relations with China have long been complex. With China’s influence expanding globally and the U.S. increasingly viewing Beijing as its primary competitor, the EU and its member states have choices to make, choices further complicated by China’s close ties to Russia and the role it might yet play in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. Beijing, for its part, also faces choices as it continues to build up ties with Moscow  and maintain trade with the EU and its members. Finally,...
Published 05/16/23
Israel’s new governing far-right coalition under Benjamin Netanyah has proposed judicial reform that would weaken the country’s judiciary. In response, Israelis have taken to the streets in protests, activism that has now gone on for months. The protests reflect not just the reforms, but frustration with this government, which took office in December 2022 and is often described as the most right-wing in the nation's history. To Europe, the shift to the far-right is concerning but not...
Published 04/18/23
In early March, Georgians took to the street in Tbilisi to protest a bill that would have classified organisations and media groups receiving more than 20 per cent of their funding from abroad as foreign agents. Although the ruling Georgian Dream party eventually dropped the bill, many Georgians remain frustrated at the government for what they see as a deliberate effort to turn the country’s back to the EU in favour of Russia. This particularly rankles those who see echoes of the five-day...
Published 04/04/23
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has marked a watershed for Europe. The European Union (EU) and its member states acted quickly to implement sanctions against Russia, bolster Ukrainian defences and improve their own energy security. Now, over a year later, with no end in sight to the fighting, EU members and their allies and partners are faced with new challenges as they strive to ensure their policies are sustainable and start thinking about how best to define and ensure their...
Published 03/21/23
This episode of War & Peace draws on a live Twitter Spaces discussion between Olga Oliker, Elissa Jobson, Crisis Group’s UN Director Richard Gowan and its Senior Adviser for the U.S. Brian Finucane regarding the prospects for a crime of aggression tribunal to hold Russian leadership accountable for the invasion of Ukraine. Their conversation explains what crimes of aggression mean from the standpoint of international law and delves into the roles the UN, the U.S. and the international...
Published 03/07/23
Accusations of anti-semitism and nazism have been a leitmotif of the Russian-Ukrainian war from its start. Russian propaganda has consistently accused Ukraine’s government of ultra-nationalist and fascist tendencies since the conflict began in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin drew on years of this narrative in February 2022 when he paired Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with promises to "denazify" the country. As fighting continued throughout 2022 and since, both Moscow and Kyiv...
Published 02/21/23
2022 was a turbulent year for Kazakhstan. In early January, anti-government protests erupted across the country. The resulting clashes between police and demonstrators led to thousands of arrests and left more than 200 people dead. In response, President Kassym-Jomart Tokaev promised political reforms. Tokaev also quickly began distancing himself (in public, at least) from his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan has faced further challenges in the wake of Russia’s invasion of...
Published 01/24/23
From 2009 to 2014, Catherine Ashton served as the European Union’s (EU) first high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. In that role, she was the EU’s senior  negotiator for some of the most important international agreements of the early 21st century, including the 2013 Serbia-Kosovo settlement and the lead-up to the Iran nuclear deal. In her forthcoming book And Then What?, Ashton shares her personal insights into modern diplomacy and her experiences in dealing with some...
Published 01/10/23
On 13 November, a bomb detonated in Istanbul’s busy Istiklal Avenue, killing six and wounding 81 people. Ankara blamed the attack on the PKK, a Kurdish militant insurgency, which has been in a decades-long battle with the Turkish military. The PKK denied involvement in the attack. Subsequently, Türkiye launched a series of airstrikes in northern Syria and Iraq on the PKK and affiliated groups and threatened a new ground offensive in northern Syria. These events mark the latest chapter in a...
Published 12/21/22
For more than a decade, Russia has made a concerted effort to strengthen its influence on the African continent. It has had some success. In countries like the Central African Republic and Mali, Russia has become the preferred partner for the provision of security services through private military companies like Wagner. Meanwhile, France and other Western countries have struggled to maintain their foothold in Mali and elsewhere amid strong anti-colonial sentiment and growing authoritarianism...
Published 11/29/22