Who Lost Out And Who Made Big Money From The Iran War? – Analysis

June 18, 2026 
By Richard Rousseau

Since Israeli-American airstrikes against Iran began, speculators and oil companies have been making huge profits. Airlines and consumers, on the other hand, are the ones losing out. In the face of inflation, only the strength of currencies such as the Swiss franc, and of commodities such as gold, silver, copper and oil, is providing a counterbalance.

Generally speaking, there are more losers than winners in a war. The stock market indices reflect this: since the start of the war on 28 February, the S&P 500 fell by around 8% in the initial weeks, but has since surged to new highs and is now trading substantially above pre-war levels, in line with the tech-focused Nasdaq. While companies are generally in a difficult position due to soaring energy prices, institutions based in the Middle East, including banks, have been targeted by the Iranian regime.
Speculative gains on commodities

Oil and gas price volatility has not been this high since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. Following the strikes against Iran, the price of a barrel of Brent crude, which was around $70 in February, neared $150 in the first few days before falling back below $100. Since the peace deal was announced between Iran and the United States on 14 June, the Brent price has fallen to $83, offering opportunities for high returns to speculators. Some hedge funds specialize in betting on volatility and are profiting from instability in the commodities market.

For example, between 1 and 6 March, the commodities fund managed by Doug King, a London-based trader at RCMA Capital, surged by 9.5%. Year-to-date, it has gained 20%, thanks to bets on oil, European gas, base metals, coal and agriculture:

The fund managed by Ron Ozer, a trader at Statar Capital in Florida, gained 6.25% in the first week of the conflict thanks to its natural gas investments. Meanwhile, the energy-focused Saber Capital fund from Barclays Bank also gained 6.7% in the first week, with results reaching 13.5% by the end of April. Others profited from bullish bets on gold, silver, copper and tin. Market commentators anticipate that the gains will continue as commodity volatility shows no signs of abating.

Super profits for oil companies

‘A barrel at $100 is the jackpot,’ said a commentator in Le Monde, referring to the expected profits for TotalEnergies this year. As during the war in Ukraine, oil companies such as the French giant and Britain’s BP have benefited greatly from high oil prices.

As the price per barrel increases, so do these companies’ profit margins. So do their refining margins, which are linked to the prices of diesel and kerosene. TotalEnergies and BP are also major players in the gas market, and gas prices have also skyrocketed. TotalEnergies’ stock price has risen by 28% on the stock market this year, and BP’s by 22%. The stock prices of Exxon, Chevron and Shell are also rising, enriching the portfolios of investors who bought these stocks from the outset.

Gains in the arms industry

As with every war, it is a grim reality that arms stocks are among the big winners. Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms company, has seen its stock rise by 20% since the start of the strikes against Iran, having already gained twice as much during the 2.5 years of war in Gaza as it had over the previous five years.

In the United States, Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35, has risen 30% since January. The surge began before the conflict in Iran started, but has continued since then. Northrop Grumman, known for its missile defense systems, was up 26% in March.

In Europe, Leonardo, an Italian group, has seen its value increase by 27%, while Dassault, a French company, has seen its value soar by 25%. In contrast, Germany’s Rheinmetall, the big winner of the war in Ukraine whose market value rose from $4.5 billion to $104 billion between October 2021 and October 2022, is not benefiting from the current conflict outside Europe this time.

Cryptos seen as a safe haven

Bitcoin is one of the winners of the war in Ukraine: after a long downtrend in which it lost 50% of its value over the past year, the leading cryptocurrency has managed to reverse this trend since the start of the Israeli-American strikes, gaining 18%. Ethereum, the other major cryptocurrency, has also benefited from the war, rebounding by 22% since the start of the strikes after declining since January.


The crypto community has always promoted the idea that cryptocurrencies play the role of safe haven during turbulent times. However, the Iranian crisis has not vindicated the idea that Bitcoin is a safe haven, but it has offered the clearest real-world test of this theory in the current cycle.

Furthermore, Reuters reports that significant volumes of cryptocurrency funds were transferred from Iranian platforms such as Nobitex to other parts of the world from the outset of the conflict on Saturday, 28 February. The Iranian government cannot control crypto assets in the same way that it controls traditional money. This allows for secure capital flight, even if the volumes — amounting to a few million dollars — have remained modest.

The consumer is the big loser

American and European consumers were the big losers from the return of inflation following the war against Iran. As a result of the global oil shortage, gas prices in the US have risen sharply, increasing by around 40% since the US and Israel began the war. According to data from motor club AAA, gas prices have risen to an average of over $4 per gallon, putting a strain on household budgets nationwide. Higher fuel costs have led to increased transportation costs, which in turn have driven up food prices and the cost of everyday goods. Electricity and heating bills have also increased, as have grocery prices.
Companies weighed down by energy costs

Many companies sensitive to rising energy prices have been penalized. In Europe in particular, companies are more dependent on energy imports than in the US.

Among the biggest losers are airlines. For groups such as Lufthansa (which also owns Swiss) and Air France-KLM, fuel alone often accounts for 20–35% of costs. Fuel prices are also crucial for shipping companies such as the Geneva-based giant MSC and the Danish container shipping firm Maersk, as well as the French company CMA CGM, which has a strong presence in emerging markets.

The booming data center sector is highly energy-intensive and is currently undergoing a historic AI-driven infrastructure boom. It is therefore highly exposed to rising energy costs.

Finally, not all currency and stock market traders have come out of the armed conflict ahead, with some losing out on inflation. Some were on the wrong side of their bets, particularly those who were betting on an expected decline in inflation this year.


About Richard Rousseau
Richard Rousseau, Ph.D., is an international relations expert. He was formerly a professor and head of political science departments at universities in Canada, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and the United Arab Emirates. His research interests include the former Soviet Union, international security, international political economy, and globalization. Dr. Rousseau's approximately 800 books, book chapters, academic journal and scholarly articles, conference papers, and newspaper analyses on a variety of international affairs issues have been published in numerous publications, including The Jamestown Foundation (Washington, D.C.), Global Brief, World Affairs in the 21st Century (Canada), Foreign Policy In Focus (Washington, D.C.), Open Democracy (UK), Harvard International Review, Diplomatic Courier (Washington, C.D.), Foreign Policy Journal (U.S.), Europe's World (Brussels), Political Reflection Magazine (London), Center for Security Studies (CSS, Zurich), Eurasia Review, Global Asia (South Korea), The Washington Review of Turkish and Eurasian Affairs, Journal of Turkish Weekly (Ankara), The Georgian Times (Tbilisi), among others.
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Growing Water Shortages In Central Asia Threaten Region And Its Neighbors – Analysis




Border of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan


June 17, 2026
By Paul Goble

The water shortage in the five Central Asian countries continues to worsen. It has now reached the point where the “water surplus” upstream countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan no longer have sufficient water to send more downstream to the three other “water short” countries of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (Window on Eurasia, March 3, 2024). That problem and its purported solution—one that drove policies in Soviet times, when Moscow controlled the distribution of water, and still dominates the thinking of many in the region and elsewhere—no longer apply (see EDM, April 9). Climate change, burgeoning population growth, and poor irrigation policies mean that there are no longer any “water surplus” countries in the region (Window on Eurasia, March 3, 2024). This new reality is something the international community is only slowly coming to recognize.

Even as the water crisis undermines the growth and stability of each Central Asian country, it is also increasing tensions among them. Each country is forced to look individually and collectively beyond the region as a whole, sounding ever more warnings that unless they get help and soon, there will be instability in Central Asia and massive refugee flows into these neighboring states (Window on Eurasia, December 6, 2025;RITM Eurasia, June 12).

Unless more comprehensive approaches are adopted, the ever-growing need for water in Central Asian countries and the impossibility of solving this problem on their own will be a major and growing cause of instability and conflict within and among them. Tensions will mount between them again individually and collectively, on the one hand, and Afghanistan, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the Russian Federation, on the other. Each of these countries has its own domestic water problems and agendas for using the water crisis in Central Asia to promote its national interests (see EDM, July 11, 2024;Fond Strategicheskoy Kul’tury; Vecherniy Bishkek; Spik.kz, June 8;Stoletie, June 10).

Drought conditions over the last several years have pushed the water crisis in Central Asia to unprecedented dimensions. Even those countries long identified as “water surplus” no longer have enough water to ensure that their major lakes will not disappear as the Aral Sea already has, that critical food crops will supply the growing cities, and that the latter will not begin to empty with their residents fleeing abroad to find water (Window on Eurasia, September 8, 2024, December 6, 2025; see EDM, April 9). This perfect storm is the result of the convergence of three factors, any one of which would be a challenge, but together pose a threat to the region. First, global warming has reduced the flow of water from the mountains where glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates (Window on Eurasia, June 11). Second, still-burgeoning population growth is occurring beyond the capacity of the governments there to cope with (Window on Eurasia, April 18). Third, water distribution systems both in cities and especially in agricultural areas remain both inadequate and wasteful (Window on Eurasia, December 21, 2025).


The countries of Central Asia are increasingly being forced to seek to obtain water from their neighbors. Most importantly, they are being forced to obtain water from the Russian Federation with talk about revisiting earlier plans to divert Siberian river water to Central Asia (seeEDM, April 1, 2025). They are also being forced to seek water from the PRC, some of whose river flows might be diverted to Central Asia (Window on Eurasia, July 31, 2025). Additionally, water is being sought from Afghanistan, where Central Asians are alarmed by a major Kabul water project that will further reduce the flow of water into Central Asia’s riverine system (see EDM, July 11, 2024). To date, progress on these fronts has been limited by two factors.

On the one hand, all three of these countries face mounting domestic water problems and oppose spending massive amounts of money to help others when they themselves need water (Window on Eurasia, June 27, 2025; see EDM, July 3, 2025). On the other hand, the Central Asian countries, instead of adopting a common approach, have adopted contrasting national programs. This is a choice that Moscow, Beijing, and Kabul have been quick to exploit, offering water to those who cooperate on other issues but not doing so for others who refuse (Window on Eurasia, December 6, 2025; RITM Eurasia, June 12).

The resulting impasse in turn has sparked increasingly apocalyptic talk about what will happen if the neighboring countries do not help Central Asia. Not only are there now increasing references to the possibility of economic and social collapse and the rise of extremism, but some in the region and elsewhere are now suggesting that as the countries of Central Asia run out of water, that by itself will force millions of the people there to flee to other countries, including Russia. One Uzbek scholar, Ravshan Nazarov, for example, has gone as far as to suggest that unless Central Asia gets more water from its neighbors and soon, as many as 100 million Central Asians will decamp from their homeland and create what would be the world’s largest refugee problem in the Russian Federation (Vostochniy Ekspress, December 8, 2023).


Especially ominous for many Russians now focusing on this issue is that international bodies such as the World Bank have echoed this apocalyptic vision and warned that steps must be taken now to avert it (Window on Eurasia, April 2, 2023; The World Bank, December 12, 2024). There have been three responses to such suggestions. First, some in Russia, for example, are now warning that Moscow has no choice but to give the Central Asians water lest more Muslims move into the Russian Federation. Second, others are saying that the Kremlin should beef up its military along the borders with Central Asia to prevent such an influx. Third, still others are saying that the water crisis is affecting more than just Central Asia and that Moscow should demand that the international community get involved to solve that rather than bear all the burdens of doing so by acting on its own in Central Asia (Window on Eurasia, December 13, 2023; see EDM, July 3, 2025; Stolitie, June 10). The PRC has a freer hand to act because it has less water at stake and thus has proved more willing to be cooperative (Window on Eurasia, July 31, 2025;Vecherniy Bishkek, June 8). Afghanistan has been willing to talk but has not scaled back its own water projects the way Central Asians would like, to their increasing annoyance and the two other countries as well (seeEDM, July 11, 2024; Fond Strategicheskoy Kul’tury, June 8).

There are few signs that Central Asia’s water problems will be resolved anytime soon (RITM Eurasia, June 12). As a result, the water problem in Central Asia is likely to explode, possibly as early as this fall, when harvests there fail. If that happens, this will affect not only the five Central Asian states and their three neighbors but the international community as a whole.

This article was published at The Jamestown Foundation

About Paul Goble
Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at paul.goble@gmail.com .

The Price Of Dissent: Russia’s Turn Toward Nationalist Authoritarianism – Analysis

June 17, 2026 

By K.M. Seethi


On the morning of 16 June 2025, Robert Kuzovkov — known to the world by his artistic name Semyon Skrepetsky — was shot dead near his home in Biała Podlaska, eastern Poland, close to the Belarusian border. The 44-year-old satirist had spent years producing caustic caricatures of Vladimir Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov, and the machinery of Russian nationalism. Days before his murder, he had stood outside the Russian embassy in Berlin holding placards comparing Putin to Stalin. Two Belarusian nationals were detained for questioning. Polish investigators opened a politically motivated murder inquiry. No formal charges had been announced at the time of writing.

The killing of Kuzovkov comes in a line of cases that have grown steadily across two decades. Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium in London in 2006. Anna Politkovskaya was shot in Moscow the same year. Boris Nemtsov was killed within sight of the Kremlin in 2015. Sergei Skripal survived a Novichok attack in Britain in 2018. Alexei Navalny — poisoned in 2020, imprisoned upon his return to Russia, and dead in a penal colony in February 2024 — became the most prominent symbol of what happens to those who make themselves ungovernable. Vladimir Kara-Murza, himself poisoned twice before his eventual imprisonment, is currently serving twenty-five years. Boris Kagarlitsky, a Marxist sociologist who condemned the invasion of Ukraine, was sentenced to five years in a penal colony in 2024. Alexander Skobov, a Soviet-era dissident who was already persecuted under the USSR, received sixteen years from a military court in St. Petersburg in March 2025, partly for anti-war statements — his case haunted by the historical detail that a young KGB officer named Vladimir Putin reportedly encountered him during an earlier investigation in Leningrad. These are glaring instances about what Russia has become.
Dissent and Societal Character

Any serious assessment of a political system must begin with how it treats its citizens, sociopolitical forces and critics. The imprisonment of Kagarlitsky, the death of Navalny, the long sentence handed to Gorinov for holding up a blank placard, the targeted killings abroad etc are not mere instances requiring individual explanation. Over years, if not decades, criticism of the state has been reclassified, gradually but unmistakably, as a threat to state security.

Whether one agrees with these individuals or not, all of them have the basic right to express their views. We know Kagarlitsky is a Marxist, Kara-Murza is a liberal, Navalny’s politics combined anti-corruption populism with moments of nationalism, and Skrepetsky was a provocateur with a paintbrush. Their ideological diversity is precisely the point. What they shared was a refusal to accept the terms of public life as the Russian state defined them. And it is that refusal that made them ‘dangerous’ in the eyes of power.


Freedom House classified Russia as “Not Free” in its 2026 report, awarding it 12 out of 100 points — 4 for political rights, 8 for civil liberties. That score places Russia among the world’s most restrictive systems by the methodological standards applied to every country in the index. The report describes courts, law-enforcement agencies, and “foreign agent” and “extremism” designations as instruments routinely deployed to silence dissent. A society measured at 12 out of 100 is one in which the indicator of political health has broken.
Construction of an Authoritarian System

Russia’s present condition was built, carefully and incrementally, over a quarter century. When Putin came to power in 2000, the context mattered enormously. The 1990s had been catastrophic for millions of Russians – the collapse of state institutions, hyperinflation, the Chechen wars, the accumulation of national assets by a narrow oligarchic class, and the humiliation of a superpower reduced to economic dependency. Against that background, the early Putin years offered something that a substantial portion of the population genuinely valued – order, rising incomes, and the restoration of state coherence. The bargain was stability in exchange for political deference, and for a time it appeared to function.


Over time, however, stability became its own justification, and the conditions attached to it multiplied. Power concentrated in the presidency. The Federation Council, the Duma, and the judiciary became instruments of the executive rather than counterweights to it. Regional governors, once elected, were replaced by appointed loyalists. Television networks were brought under state control. Opposition parties were permitted to exist but deprived of the resources and legal protections necessary to compete meaningfully.

What scholars of comparative politics describe as “electoral authoritarianism” — a system in which democratic institutions formally exist but operate under conditions that prevent genuine competition — describes contemporary Russia with increasing precision. Elections are held, opposition candidates are disqualified or harassed, state media presents a single narrative and the result is determined before the count.
War, Nationalism, and the Expansion of Control

The invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 showed a qualitative turn. Wars have historically served as accelerants of executive power. The argument is simple: emergency requires unity, unity requires discipline, and discipline requires the suppression of dissent. What distinguished Russia’s case was the speed and comprehensiveness with which this logic was institutionalised.

Within weeks of the invasion, new legislation criminalised the publication of “false information” about the armed forces, carrying sentences of up to fifteen years. The word “war” became legally hazardous and journalists were instructed to use “special military operation.” The category of “foreign agent” — already applied to NGOs, journalists, and civil society organisations before 2022 — was expanded and weaponised more aggressively. Terrorism-related charges were applied to anti-war statements. Alexei Gorinov received seven years for holding up a blank sheet of paper during a Moscow city council meeting. Kagarlitsky received five years for a social media post. Skobov received sixteen years for statements he made publicly about a war he opposed.


The Jamestown Foundation has documented how this repression has moved into the digital sphere. Hundreds of thousands of websites blocked, global platforms restricted, VPN services criminalised, and penalties extended not only to creators of dissenting content but to its consumers. The logic is systemic: the goal is not merely to punish those who speak but to prevent the formation of the social networks and informational environments in which opposition could organise.

Alongside legal repression, a coherent nationalist ideology hardened. Official discourse became centred on civilisational confrontation with the West, the defence of “traditional values,” the moral authority of Orthodox Christianity, and a historical memory constructed around the Great Patriotic War. Nationalism ceased to be merely a sentiment and became a political architecture — a source of legitimacy that simultaneously justified the concentration of power and the persecution of those who questioned it. Critics were branded as traitors, foreign agents, enemies of civilisation.
Why Authoritarianism Retains Support

Over years, Russian public life experienced the feel that repression is the sole mechanism of political control. However, authoritarianism in Russia draws support from genuine social experience, and any analysis that ignores this is incomplete.

The 1990s left deep marks. For many Russians, especially those over fifty, the comparison point is not liberal democracy but the chaos and poverty of the Yeltsin years. State capacity, the ability to pay pensions on time, to maintain territorial integrity, to project national dignity — these are not minor concerns, and Putin’s system delivered on enough of them, for long enough, to generate durable legitimacy.

The fragmentation of the opposition since Navalny’s death illustrates the difficulty of building an alternative. Figures such as Yulia Navalnaya, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov, and Ilya Yashin command international attention and run active media and investigative operations from exile. But they remain divided by ideology, strategy, and the fundamental question of whether the goal is military defeat of Russia in Ukraine, democratic transformation from within, or the construction of institutional alternatives for an eventual post-Putin order. Without organisational unity and a common political programme, the opposition cannot build the broad social coalitions that sustained democratic transitions elsewhere.

Many Russians who do not actively support repression, nonetheless, tolerate it because they associate political disruption with national catastrophe. State-controlled media reinforces this association constantly. Perceptions of Western hostility — amplified by genuine Western policy decisions as well as by systematic propaganda — provide additional justification. The result is a population in which active dissent is dangerous, and the space for genuine political deliberation has shrunk to near invisibility.

The Human and Institutional Costs

The costs of this system are clear enough – going far beyond the individuals who have been imprisoned, poisoned, or shot. When independent media is shuttered, universities are pressured to dismiss academics who deviate from approved narratives, NGOs are designated as “foreign agents” and driven out of existence, and lawyers who represent political defendants face disbarment and prosecution, the society loses something less visible but more consequential than any individual critic. And it loses the mechanisms by which errors are identified and corrected.

Political prisoners accumulate, and not only the prominent cases that attract international attention but the thousands of anti-war activists, protesters, and ordinary citizens swept up in the expanded repression since 2022. Self-censorship spreads further and faster than any law, because individuals learn to anticipate what is prohibited before it is formally prohibited. The attempt on Vladimir Osechkin, the founder of Gulagu.net who documents torture in Russian prisons and was reportedly targeted by a foiled assassination plot in France in 2025, illustrates that exile offers diminishing safety. The message to Russian critics living abroad is that distance is not protection.

Emigration fast tracks. Since 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russians -disproportionately educated, internationally oriented, and professionally mobile – have left the country. Among them are journalists, scholars, software engineers, medical professionals, and artists. A society can sustain this loss for a time and it cannot do so indefinitely without consequences for its capacity to innovate, to generate knowledge, and to sustain the institutional competence that modern economies require.

The Jamestown analysis identifies an additional paradox: the very extensiveness of repression may indicate growing anxiety. A regime that must monitor online searches and prosecute people for social media likes is a regime uncertain of its own social foundations.
Stability or Stagnation?

Russia’s greatest challenge may not come from external pressures such as sanctions, military support for Ukraine, or diplomatic isolation. It may emerge from the internal consequences of systematically suppressing the mechanisms through which a society learns about itself, addresses its failures, and adapts to change

Authoritarian systems often appear strong precisely because the weakness of opposition makes them appear uncontested. But the absence of visible opposition is not the same as the absence of discontent. Reports from within the Russian political elite — regional governors, Duma deputies, military commanders — suggest growing unease over the war’s costs, economic pressures, and the long-term trajectory of a system that concentrates risk at the top while distributing costs downward. Elite dissatisfaction does not threaten Putin’s control in the short term, the coercive apparatus remains intact, and there is no organised alternative within the state. But it is an indication that the system’s apparent stability depends on conditions that may not be reproducible indefinitely.


The longer-term question is one about political legitimacy and institutional capacity. A modern society requires the ability to identify policy failures, change course, generate new ideas, and sustain the social trust that makes complex institutions function. All of these capacities depend, in different ways, on the freedom to criticise — to say that something is wrong, that a decision was mistaken, that a course of action is failing. When criticism is criminalised, these feedback mechanisms are severed. The system continues to function, after a fashion, but it does so with diminishing information about its own condition.

This is the greater significance of cases like Kuzovkov, Skobov, Kagarlitsky, and Navalny. Their persecution, documented across a widening catalogue by organisations from TRT World to Deutsche Welle is seriously human rights crisis. It is evidence of a political system that has concluded, fatally, that it can afford to silence its critics. History suggests that systems which reach this conclusion are often the last to learn how wrong they were.

The repression of dissent in contemporary Russia is a window into the transformation of the Russian state from a managed democracy into a nationalist-authoritarian system whose apparent stability may come at the cost of political freedom, institutional flexibility, and long-term social development. The killing of a satirist in Poland, the imprisonment of a Soviet-era dissident for the second time in his life, the foiled assassination plot in France, the digital surveillance of ordinary citizens, etc are manifestations of a political order in which dissent is increasingly treated as a threat to state security and national unity.


About K.M. Seethi

K.M. Seethi is is Director, Inter University Centre for Social Science Research and Extension (IUCSSRE), Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU), Kerala. He also served as ICSSR Senior Fellow, Senior Professor of International Relations and Dean of Social Sciences at MGU. One of his latest works is "ENDURING DILEMMA Flashpoints in Kashmir and India-Pakistan Relations."

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Celebrate The Fourth Of July, But Don’t Forget The Twelfth Of June

George Mason National Memorial. Photo Credit: Tim Evanson / Flickr

June 13, 2026
By William J. Watkins, Jr.


Naturally, the main event of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations will be the Fourth of July, in honor of the Declaration of Independence. But a little tailgate party would be appropriate for the Twelfth of June. For it was on that date, 250 years ago, that Virginia’s Declaration of Rights was adopted.

Written primarily by George Mason, Virginia’s declaration inspired Thomas Jefferson in writing the nation’s founding document. It set forth in plain language America’s first principles and provided guideposts for the establishment of a republican government.

It’s no accident that this seminal declaration originated in Virginia. Jamestown, founded in 1607, put many of those principles and structures into action well before 1776. As Lyon Gardiner Tyler—son of President John Tyler and himself president of William & Mary from 1888 to 1919—observed, “jury trial, courts for the administration of justice, popular elections in which all the ‘inhabitants’ took part, and a representative Assembly” were created in the Old Dominion “before any other English settlement was made on this continent.”

In the Declaration of Rights’s first section, Enlightenment thought and Christian principles intersect to affirm the equality of all men and their possession of rights such as “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” If this language sounds familiar, it’s because another Virginian—Jefferson—borrowed from it when composing the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.


The Virginia declaration’s second section rejects the British idea that an artificial body such as Parliament could possess ultimate authority. In the commonwealth, “all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people,” the declaration states. Government officials are thus “trustees and servants and at all times amenable to” the people.

The third section proclaims that “government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community.” If a government fails to achieve these ends, “a majority of the community has an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”

In the next four sections, the declaration rejects the hereditary offices found in the British system; asserts that power should be divided among three branches of government; commands frequent and free elections so the people can deliberate on the conduct of their magistrates; and prohibits the suspension of duly enacted laws without legislative consent.

After setting forth these principles of republican government, the Declaration of Rights turns to individual liberties necessary for a free society. Many of these provisions would later appear in the Bill of Rights—the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, ratified in 1791.


Section 8 deals with the rights of an accused person in criminal cases. A criminal defendant has a right to confront the government’s witnesses, present evidence in his own defense and demand a speedy trial by a jury of his peers. Prosecutors are prohibited from compelling the accused to give evidence against himself or hiding the nature of the charges from the defendant.

The ninth section, mirrored almost exactly by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, avers “that excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Section 10 outlaws the British colonial practice of using general warrants—a legal process that authorized searches and seizures without specifying the premises to be searched or the alleged contraband to be seized. No such fishing expeditions would be allowed in Virginia. Similar prohibitions in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment are modeled on the Declaration of Rights.

The remaining sections protect civil jury trials, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and civil control of the military.

A society can remain free, the Virginia Declaration of Rights teaches, “but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

So, yes, on July Fourth, by all means heartily cheer the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. But to understand the principles behind the American Revolution and republican government, dust off George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights and study its plain language. It is essential to discerning the pillars of America’s government and the purpose of the nation’s independence.

This article was originally published in The Washington Post

About William J. Watkins, Jr.
William J. Watkins, Jr. is a Research Fellow at The Independent Institute and author of the Independent books, Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America’s First Constitution, Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy, and Patent Trolls: Predatory Litigation and the Smothering of Innovation.
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Moscow Tells Baltics NATO Will Not Come To Their Rescue – Analysis

 June 10, 2026  

By Paul Goble

Whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will launch an attack on the Baltic countries, as many now fear is possible, remains uncertain (seeStrategic Snapshot, June 8, 2025; see EDM, September 4, 2025, May 8;Novaya Gazeta Evropa, June 5). Moscow is pushing a propaganda line that has consequences not only for the Baltics but for all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Senior Russian officials are now very publicly declaring that the three Baltic countries, all members of NATO, cannot count on the alliance to come to their aid if Moscow attacks them, as Article 5 of the treaty requires, because they, not Russia, are the aggressor (Re:Baltica, June 4). Such a claim—one arising from Putin’s assessment of NATO’s current state amid changes in U.S. policy and divisions in Europe—will intimidate some alliance members and pave the way for further Russian aggression unless NATO unequivocally rejects it (see EDM, February 2).

As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on in its fifth year with no path to a Russian triumph clear, many are speculating that Putin will try to get a victory elsewhere to recover his image as a strongman who always wins. Among the places where experts have most often suggested he might attack are islands in the North Atlantic and Baltic Seas with complicated legal regimes (see EDM, June 11, August 15, September 24, 2024,September 16, 2025).

In recent months, however, speculation about a new vector of Russian aggression has focused increasingly often on the possibility of a Russian move against one or more of the Baltic countries, given their former status as Russian possessions. Their current membership in the Western alliance is especially irritating to Putin and is something he would very much like to change (Novaya Gazeta Evropa, June 5). Such suggestions have become increasingly frequent given Russian provocations such as the recent redirection of Ukrainian drones onto Latvian territory by Russian forces (Window on Eurasia, June 1).

The Baltic countries have responded in three ways. They have taken the lead among Western countries in supporting Ukraine, have sought new security relations with their immediate neighbors, such as Poland, and with the new NATO members Finland and Sweden, and have built up their own defense capabilities (see EDM, February 2). They have done so, however, in every case with confidence that Article 5 of the NATO Charter remains in place. This article specifies that an attack on any NATO country will be treated as an attack on all and that NATO’s leaders will consult with one another on how to respond. Until recently, most Baltic leaders and many observers in the West have stressed the first part of that arrangement and assumed that the alliance would respond vigorously and militarily to any Russian move against a NATO member state. Now, however, given changes in U.S. policy and divisions among some European NATO members, there is an increasing tendency to question the open-ended nature of Article 5, which promised to consult on what to do in the event of an attack rather than to respond immediately and forcefully, as many had assumed.

Unsurprisingly, Moscow has sought to exploit these divisions. That approach reached a new high on May 19 when Vasiliy Nebenza, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, pointedly told the Latvians that their support for Ukraine and opposition to Russian actions there meant that “NATO membership will not protect you” in the event of a Russian action against the Baltics because the Baltics themselves will have provoked it. The U.S. representative at the UN Security Council, Tammy Bruce, responded by criticizing Nebenza for his attack on another UN member state and insisted that Washington would continue to fulfill its responsibilities as a NATO member (Facebook/dw.russian, May 19). Whether that will be enough to stop this Russian campaign and the actions it appears to be pointing toward remains to be seen.

Anastasija Tetarenko-Supe, a Latvian foreign policy expert and journalist, points out that Nebenza’s words are especially troubling. They were not an isolated move but part of what she calls “a perfect storm” of Russian actions against the Baltic countries (Re:Baltica, June 4). On the same day the Russian diplomat made his remarks at the UN Security Council, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) released a report saying that Ukrainian military personnel were already in Latvia to prepare drone strikes against Russia and that Moscow “knew the coordinates of the relevant ‘decision-making’ centers” (SVR, May 19). This is something Russian Telegram channels had earlier claimed, but it now has the imprimatur of the Russian government, even though it is quite clear that, similar to many other Russian statements on such subjects, it is itself a provocation and untrue.

Titarenko-Supe says major Russian propaganda channels and state-affiliated news wires amplified support for the Nebenza–SVR version of events. These outlets particularly included  “TASS, Readovka, Voekony Russkoy Vesny, Solovoyev, Skabeyeva, [and] ANNA,” among others. Channels targeting Baltic audiences then picked it up, including “Baltnews, Sputnik Lithuania, Sprats in Exile, The Latvian Bump, Shadows of the Baltics, Baltic Anti-Fascists and The Baltic Bridge.” She explained, “Some of these are linked to former RT (formerly Russia Today) contributors who once lived in the Baltics, as well as local activists who fled to Russia” (Re:Baltica, June 4).

Some channels went even further, portraying denials by Latvian officials not as rebuttals but as “proof” that the SVR had struck a nerve. Titarenko-Supe says, citing Latvian disinformation researcher Mārtiņš Hiršs’s conclusions, that what Moscow is doing is consistent with its past actions on other issues. The Kremlin floods the media with its version in the hopes that volume will outweigh the facts and that journalists seeking to be balanced will report its version of events, one that makes Latvia the aggressor and Russia the defender of international law, alongside more accurate reporting that shows just the reverse is true. (For Hiršs’s study on such patterns, see Echoes from Kremlin: New Platforms, Old Narratives, July 2025.)  

Echoing Hiršs, Titarenko-Supe argues that Moscow’s “objective” has been to spread fear while recasting the Baltics from bystanders to participants. This makes Russian threats appear less like aggression and more like a response” and “to weaken support for Ukraine and erode trust in Latvian democratic institutions by suggesting that governments conceal the truth, the media lies and the truth is told by Russia—or [a] Tiktoker broadcasting from Belarus” (Re:Baltica, June 4). One could add to this list of Russia’s goals the reduction in trust in NATO and its Article 5 guarantees, a development that would threaten far more than Latvia and the other Baltic countries and make Europe an even more unstable place unless and until NATO makes it crystal clear that it will not be deterred from fulfilling its Article 5 guarantees by Russian threats and propaganda campaigns.

• This article was published by The Jamestown Foundation

French NATO jets destroy mystery drone over Latvia as Ukraine war intensifies

French NATO fighter jets stationed in the Baltic region shot down a drone that had entered Latvian airspace on Monday, marking a rare interception under the alliance’s Baltic Air Policing mission. It follows a series of similar incidents linked to the war in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv step up drone strikes on each other.


Issued on: 08/06/2026 - RFI

A French Rafale fighter jet flying a NATO mission shot down a “foreign” drone over Latvia on 8 June 2026 (illustration) AFP - CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT

Latvia’s military said in a statement that the unmanned aerial vehicle had crossed into its territory "as a result of Russian electronic warfare", without specifying its origin.

Officials suggested the drone may have been diverted from its intended course amid ongoing interference linked to the war in Ukraine.

Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze praised the operation, writing on social media platform X: "Thank you, our French Allies, for taking down the drone that flew into Latvian airspace!"

According to Lithuanian military spokesperson Gintautas Ciunis, two French jets deployed at the Siauliai airbase in northern Lithuania were scrambled and neutralised the drone at around 10:00 local time.

Drone incident near French carrier in Sweden points to possible Russian link

The incident is the first confirmed case of NATO aircraft intercepting and destroying a drone over Latvia as part of the Baltic Air Policing mission, which has operated since 2004 to safeguard the airspace of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, both Russian and Ukrainian drones have crashed in the Baltic states and beyond, raising concerns over airspace security and the risk of escalation.

FILE - A Romanian Air Force F- 16s military fighter jet, left, and a Portuguese Air Force F- 16s military fighter jets participating in NATO's Baltic Air Policing Mission operate over the Baltic Sea, Lithuanian airspace, on May 22, 2023. The United States has given its approval for the Netherlands to deliver F-16s to Ukraine, the Dutch defense minister said Friday, Aug. 18, 2023 in a major gain for Kyiv even though the fighter jets won’t have an immediate impact on the almost 18-month war. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File) AP - Mindaugas Kulbis


On 19 May, a Romanian jet stationed in Lithuania shot down a Ukrainian drone over Estonia after it strayed off course, while a day later Lithuania issued its first public air alert when another drone approached Vilnius.
Escalation

Elsewhere, Moldova reported on Monday that a drone had crashed and exploded on agricultural land near the eastern village of Lopatna after entering its airspace overnight.

Authorities said no injuries were reported and suggested the drone was most likely of Ukrainian origin, though officials in Chisinau stressed that Russia ultimately bears responsibility for such incidents.

Moldova has had its airspace breached dozens of times since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.

Zelensky to urge EU leaders to speed up Europe’s drone shield plan

Moldovan President Maia Sandu said the country needs to strengthen its anti-drone and jamming systems.

"We must begin producing drones capable of intercepting and shooting down other drones," she said in an interview over the weekend.

Romania, an EU and NATO member bordering both Moldova and Ukraine, has also seen two drones explode on its territory in recent weeks.

Officials across the region warn that Russian electronic warfare systems are increasingly disrupting navigation, causing drones to veer into neighbouring countries.
Nuclear storage unit hit

Moscow and Kyiv have intensified drone strikes on each other in recent months, as US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war – now in its fifth year – remain stalled and sidetracked by the conflict in the Middle East.

On Monday, a Ukrainian drone strike on a passenger train killed one of its drivers and wounded the other, Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed head of the Crimea region wrote on Telegram.

France, UK, Germany back face-to-face Ukraine-Russia ceasefire talks

The attack came hours after Russia fired waves of drones and other munitions at Ukraine, with one of the attacks damaging a nuclear storage facility near the Chernobyl disaster site, Ukrainian officials said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was dispatching a team to inspect the damage, calling the incident "deeply concerning".

Russia And Belarus Preparing For Potential Escalation With Ukraine And NATO – Analysis

June 8, 2026 
By The Jamestown Foundation
By Alexander Taranov

On May 15, following consultations with the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) General Staff, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR), the Foreign Intelligence Service, and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Russia is seeking to draw Belarus more deeply into the war against Ukraine. Zelenskyy also said that Russia is examining operational plans for actions from Belarusian territory against either Ukraine or a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member state. Ukraine says it has obtained intelligence regarding ongoing negotiations between Russian and Belarusian leadership on this matter.

According to this intelligence, Russia is assessing operational plans to be launched from the south or north border of Belarus—either against the Chernihiv–Kyiv axis in Ukraine, or against a NATO member state. Zelenskyy cautioned that Ukraine would defend itself should Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka allow these operations. Zelenskyy has directed Ukraine’s Defense Forces (UDF) to reinforce Ukraine’s border with Belarus and to submit a contingency plan (Telegram/@ V_Zelenskiy_official, May 15). Zelenskyy’s statements came in the wake of a telephone conversation between Lukashenka and Putin, during which the two leaders discussed defense cooperation (Telegram/@pul_1, May 15).

AFU Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi regards the threat of a Russian offensive from Belarusian territory as credible. According to Syrskyi, the Russian General Staff is actively war-gaming and planning offensive operations from the Belarus–Ukraine border with the objective of stretching the front line to exploit Russia’s numerical superiority in manpower and equipment (Telegram/@milinua, May 22).


According to Ukrainian intelligence, the Russian General Staff is developing five scenarios for expanding the war through northern Ukraine. These plans may encompass both the use of Belarusian territory in proximity to the Russian border and operations conducted directly from Russian soil without Belarusian involvement. According to Ukrainian intelligence assessments, the most credible of these five scenarios—should Russia decide to launch a new offensive operation—is an attempt to establish a buffer zone in Chernihiv oblast extending 10 to 20 kilometers (6 to 12 miles) into Ukrainian territory. The least credible scenario is an advance on Kyiv. Under all potential courses of action, the Russian Armed Forces would not be able to initiate offensive operations before autumn at the earliest. To this end, the Kremlin is planning a new mobilization wave of an additional 100,000 soldiers (RBC-Ukraine, May 22).

On May 21, Zelenskyy visited Slavutych in northern Ukraine, where he met with the heads of the Kyiv and Chernihiv oblasts. He stated that Ukraine is reinforcing its defenses along its northern border with Belarus, including its protective infrastructure and the defense and security forces deployed in that direction. Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine possesses the capability to act pre-emptively against Russian territory from which threats may emanate, and against Belarusian leadership (Telegram/@V_Zelenskiy_official, May 21).


The next day, in Rivne, he said that there is a threat of an attack from Belarus against Volyn, Zhytomyr, and Rivne oblasts in addition to the Kyiv and Chernihiv oblasts (Telegram/@V_Zelenskiy_official, May 22). Ukraine receives some supplies from Western partners through these regions, making a potential attack particularly problematic. Moreover, the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant, which supplies electricity to Kyiv and surrounding areas, is located just 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border with Belarus. Russian control over this area would open the way for the encirclement of Kyiv and create a potential axis of advance toward Lviv oblast—a key logistic hub via which Ukraine gets almost all military and economic support from the West.

Kyiv has already transmitted the relevant intelligence through diplomatic channels to its NATO partners and has tasked the relevant agencies with developing diplomatic pressure and conveying direct signals to the Belarusian leadership (Telegram/@V_Zelenskiy_official, May 20; X/@andrii_sybiha, May 21). According to Ukrainian intelligence assessments, activity along the Chernihiv–Kyiv axis and the overall threat level from Belarus remain low. Ukrainian leadership is, however, tracking several indicators that may point to Russian preparations for potential offensive action there (RBC-Ukraine, May 22).

The first indicator is that four battalions—approximately 1,900 troops—of the Belarusian Armed Forces (BAF) remain deployed on a continuous rotation basis at the Belarus–Ukraine border. At present, however, there are insufficient Russian forces on Ukraine’s border with Belarus or Russia’s Bryansk oblast to conduct offensive operations (RBC-Ukraine, May 22). The second indicator, which has not yet been openly observed, is an intensification of reconnaissance and sabotage-reconnaissance activity on the part of Belarus and Russia along the axis of a potential strike.


The third indicator is Belarus’ expansion of logistics routes and the construction of training ranges and bases near its border with Ukraine that could be utilized by Russian forces within the framework of their Union State treaty. Ukrainian intelligence indicates that road construction toward Ukrainian territory and the preparation of artillery positions are underway in the Belarusian border zone (Telegram/@V_Zelenskiy_official, April 17). Ukraine has also reported that Russia has deployed ground control stations for long-range drones in Belarus for strikes against Ukraine’s Kyiv oblast (Unian, April 5). Furthermore, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on defense technologies, stated that Russian Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are utilizing Belarusian cellular roaming in the border area during strikes against Ukraine (Facebook.com/@Serhii.Flash, April 17).

During recent large-scale strikes against Ukraine, Russia once again used Belarusian airspace for drone transit (Telegram/@kpszsu, May 13). Russia could therefore once again employ air attack assets on a large scale from Belarusian territory—especially given their significant qualitative and quantitative expansion compared to 2022—even without deploying ground forces into Ukraine. Russia and Belarus are close to completing the implementation of two new military infrastructure programs, indicating preparations for more large-scale conflict. These were developed because of operational shortcomings encountered during the first phase of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched from Belarusian territory in 2022:Improvement of military infrastructure facilities designated for joint use in support of the Regional Troops Grouping (RTG) of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation in 2023–2026;
Modernization of rear support facilities designated for joint use in support of RTG of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation in 2023–2027 (Belarus Segodnya, November 14, 2024).

The fourth indicator comprises joint Belarusian–Russian nuclear exercises. Some of these exercises have taken place on Belarusian territory, designed as a demonstration of force as well as preparation for nuclear strikes directed at Ukraine and neighboring NATO member states (see EDM, April 30, June 17, 2024, April 17, 2025; President of Russia, May 21). Under the cover of such exercises, Belarusian and Russian forces may increase their troop presence along Ukraine’s borders. To this end, and for the purpose of rehearsing joint operations, Belarus and Russia may attempt to conduct additional unscheduled exercises similar to Zapad-2025 or Souznaya Reshimost-2022 (Union Resolve-2022), which served as cover for the large-scale concentration of Russian forces ahead of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Putin has already announced a joint exercise with Belarus designated Schit Soyuza-2027, and the possibility of a snap exercise along the lines of Soyuznaya Reshimost-2022, which the Kremlin used as cover to mass troops, equipment, and logistics in Belarus for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine from February 10–20, 2022, cannot be ruled out (Interfax, May 21). In such a scenario, the primary indicator of preparations would be the planning of a mass railway transfer of Russian forces into Belarus. The redeployment of a 100,000-strong grouping would require approximately three to four weeks and some 15,000 railcars and flatcars—at least twice the volume recorded ahead of the Souznaya Reshimost-2022 exercise (see EDM, September 15, 2025).


In April, former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Belarus is systematically preparing for military escalation, and is examining the possibility of opening a second front against Ukraine or the Baltic states under Russian direction (YouTube/@Dmytro_Kuleba, April 18). He identified five key signs of Belarusian military preparation: continuous combat training conducted under Russian instructors, an emphasis on combat mobilization readiness and large-scale command-and-staff exercises, the reinforcement of air defenses with Russian systems, and the deepening of command coordination between Russian and Belarusian military structures. According to Kuleba, Moscow views potential activation of the Belarusian front as a way to stretch AFU resources, compelling Kyiv to redeploy experienced units from other sectors of the frontline to defend the northern border. Kuleba does not exclude the possibility that Belarusian military activity may be directed at intimidating the Baltic states and Poland, generating additional pressure on the region in the event of further Russian escalation (YouTube/@Dmytro_Kuleba, April 18).

Moscow may be pursuing several additional objectives simultaneously. Preparations in Belarus are an element of Putin’s plan to establish a “buffer zone” around Russia’s border with Ukraine. The Russian president assigned this objective to his military commanders two years ago. Military buildup in Belarus also creates psychological pressure on the Ukrainian population, with the aim of rendering Kyiv more amenable to Moscow’s terms. Finally, should Putin ultimately decide to advance on Kyiv from Belarus, he would attempt to decapitate and seize Ukraine’s military–political leadership. Currently, however, this scenario appears to be the least probable (RBC-Ukraine, May 22).

In a May 21 statement, Lukashenka was quick to assert that he has no intention of attacking neighboring states and even proposed holding talks with Zelenskyy to dispel Ukrainian concerns. He stated that Belarus would be drawn into Russia’s war against Ukraine only if aggression were committed against its territory. In such a scenario, Belarus and Russia would conduct military operations jointly (BelTA, May 21). Given that Belarusian political and military leadership were involved in a strategic disinformation campaign denying even the possibility of an attack being launched from Belarusian territory in the run-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, such assurances are met with little trust in Kyiv (RBC-Ukraine, May 21).

If Russian forces use Belarusian territory as a staging ground for an attack on Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine would then conduct retaliatory strikes against Belarusian territory, thereby “legitimizing” the involvement of the Belarusian Armed Forces in the conflict. Two parallel combat readiness inspections conducted from January to April—one ordered by Lukashenka and the other initiated by the Belarusian Ministry of Defense—indicate that the Belarusian leadership is preparing for the possibility of a major regional escalation. In an article released on April 17, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktar Khrenin stated that the comprehensive inspection of Western Operational Command, responsible for Belarus’ border with Poland and Lithuania, provided a cross-sectional assessment of the overall level of readiness of the BAF to repel aggression, which he claimed persists on the European continent (BelTA, April 17). On April 1, Lukashenka said that Belarus is preparing for a war and underlined the need for the BAF to adapt to highly maneuverable, high-intensity combat operations concepts (President of Belarus, April 1). Such statements indicate anticipation of escalation involving the expansion of Russia’s war against Ukraine. In this context, preparations are underway for the involvement of the BAF in military operations against Ukraine and for potential military actions against NATO’s eastern flank.


During a May 12 briefing from Khrenin regarding the comprehensive combat readiness inspections of the BAF, Lukashenka stated that he intends to continue selectively mobilizing military units to prepare them for war (President of Belarus, May 12). The fact that the Immediate Reaction Forces, a grouping of the most combat-ready formations and permanently ready units of the Belarusian military, are being transitioned to a wartime footing serves as another indicator of Belarus’ preparation for military engagement (Telegram/@Tsaplienko, May 22).

Ukraine accordingly views the possible reopening of a northern front as a credible threat. Should this happen, Kyiv would likely seek to transfer military operations onto Belarusian territory as rapidly as possible. These developments, if they occur, could destabilize the Lukashenka regime and deprive Russia of the ability to continue using Belarusian territory as a staging area for operations against Ukraine and NATO’s eastern flank states.

About the author: Alexander Taranov is an expert on Russian military and nuclear affairs.

Source: This article was published by The Jamestown Foundation

About The Jamestown Foundation

The Jamestown Foundation’s mission is to inform and educate policy makers and the broader community about events and trends in those societies which are strategically or tactically important to the United States and which frequently restrict access to such information. Utilizing indigenous and primary sources, Jamestown’s material is delivered without political bias, filter or agenda. It is often the only source of information which should be, but is not always, available through official or intelligence channels, especially in regard to Eurasia and terrorism.

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