Ukrainian Orthodox Church Freed from Russian Oversight
By Stephen Fortuna What began as the straightforward territorial claim and annexation of Crimea in 2014 has now become a protracted, multidimensional conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. While the two countries continue to exchange economic, political, and physical blows, Ukraine has moved its fight for permanent independence into…
FaceApp’s Russian Connection: Is it Actually Dangerous?
By Izatt Folkman FaceApp recently came back into vogue after going viral for the first time in 2017. FaceApp uses AI to alter a person’s face with various filters (Giancaspro). This time around, however, many people began to realize that FaceApp was collecting metadata on all of the pictures they…
Russia Building up in Crimea
By Marren Haneberg In a “significant” military buildup over the past 18 months, Russia has increased its troops, aircraft, and weapons in Crimea and improved its Soviet bases and S-400 anti-aircraft systems (13). One U.S. official described Defense One’s satellite imagery analysis of the region “a deliberate and systematic buildup…
The Man Vladimir Putin Fears Most
By Clayton Chudleigh This is how The Wall Street Journal described Alexei Navalny back in 2012 near the beginning of his prominence in Russia as a political activist. Navalny has been an outspoken critic of political and governmental corruption as well as a critic of President Vladimir Putin himself, calling…
Zelenskiy’s Party Wins Big in Snap Elections, Signals New Direction for Ukraine
By Marren Haneberg In July’s snap parliamentary elections, Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People Party secured a majority with 91 percent of the vote counted. Ukraine has a mixed-party system; half of Verkhovna Rada’s seats are determined by party lists and the other half by “first-past-the-post constituency…
