Author: Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

Within 24 hours last week Donald Trump performed yet another pivot in his approach to the Russian war against Ukraine. It’s become a familiar pattern of behaviour with the US president. First he expresses anger and frustration with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Then he threatens severe consequences. And finally – usually after some contact […]

Two statements from world leaders this week bear closer examination. On May 27, the US president Donald Trump took to his Truth Social social media channel to proclaim that if it wasn’t for him, “lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia”. The following day the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, announced that […]

After a two-hour phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on May 19, US president Donald Trump took to social media to declare that Russia and Ukraine will “immediately start negotiations” towards a ceasefire and an end to the war. He did, however, add that the conditions for peace “will be negotiated between the two […]

If the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, meet in Istanbul on May 15, territory – and who controls it – will be high on their agenda. Putin offered to start direct talks between Russia and Ukraine at a press conference on May 11. Donald Trump pushed Zelensky to accept this […]

The visit of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House has not gone to plan – at least not to his plan. There were extraordinary scenes as a press conference between Zelensky and Trump descended into acrimony, with the US president loudly berating his opposite number, who he accused of “gambling with world war […]

European leaders are scrambling to respond to what looks like the end of reliable US protection of the continent. It is unclear what the “main European countries” (which includes the UK) might be able to agree at a hastily convened meeting in Paris on Monday February 17. But individual countries, including the UK and Germany, […]

In an unprecedented decision on December 6 2024, the Romanian constitutional court annulled the November 25 presidential elections after it received credible intelligence of large-scale external interference rigging the results of the first round in favour of a hardly-known far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu. Georgescu’s massive last-minute surge was largely blamed on the creation of thousands […]

Donald Trump’s return to the White House on January 20 2025 is widely seen as ushering in a period of significant upheaval for US foreign policy, and a change in the way diplomacy is done. Trump’s favoured style of bluster and threats against foreign leaders already seems to have paid off in helping to craft […]