Image — UNHCR’s Philippe Leclerc, Irpin city head Oleksandr Markushyn and UNHCR representative, Karolina Lindholm Billing, at a construction site in Irpin, Ukraine. Photo: Eugen Kotenko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images.

During more than two years of full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia has launched 8,000 missiles and 4,630 drones, targeting densely populated cities, energy-generating facilities, large shopping centres, schools, hospitals, railway stations and high-rise buildings.

Failing to make significant progress on land, Putin’s strategy is to make Ukraine uninhabitable by causing a humanitarian disaster, depriving its enterprises of energy supply and thereby push Kyiv’s leadership to accept a false peace deal.

Recovery price tag

The estimated price tag for rebuilding Ukraine has already reached $486 billion. In 2023 alone Russia caused destruction totalling $75 billion. Most of these funds would reach Ukraine once open military hostilities are over, but Kyiv is already seeking not only military assistance but also micro-financial aid and investments to sustain the resilience of its home front. It is estimated that immediate rebuilding needs for 2024 are $15 billion.

Ukrainian officials and international partners will gather in Berlin on 11-12 June for the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) to discuss how best to provide this non-military support. Compared to the 2022 Lugano URC and the 2023 London URC, the focus is shifting from planning a post-war rebuilding and an ambitious Marshall Plan to replenishing Ukraine’s resilience and capacity to win the war.

Restoring energy supply is key to survival

Survival of Ukraine’s energy system will dominate the discussion. Funders must ensure that Kyiv has the financial means and technical solutions to heat homes and provide energy to businesses during the upcoming winter. 80 per cent of Ukraine’s energy generation capability has been destroyed or damaged by Russian missile strikes. But wartime resilience has other key elements that require policy attention and dedicated investment.

Ukrainian civil society wants a greater role

Given civil society’s active involvement in supporting resistance, Chatham House asked Ukrainian non-profit organizations what they see as key priorities for recovery. Over 200 civil society organizations (CSOs) from all over Ukraine responded to our online survey.

One of the main findings is that Ukrainian civil society’s contribution to recovery is growing and organizations want better inclusion by the state and Western donors. Around 80 per cent of respondents report engagement in recovery. They assist internally displaced persons (IDPs), cooperate with government officials in planning post-war recovery and support various vulnerable groups affected by the war.

CSOs want to create a collaborative framework to design and implement innovative solutions to acute societal problems created by the war. Establishing the civil society advisory group at the Multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform (MADCP) could be a first step in the right direction towards such a framework. Discussions about the business advisory group are much more advanced.

Focus on institutions

Ukrainian civil society has a highly reformist agenda. In Kyiv and the regions, organizations name the modernization of institutions as the top priority for recovery – even during the war. Ukraine’s capacity for effective statecraft is key to its success on the battlefield.

A first step towards institutional reform is establishing the rule of law and fighting corruption. When asked to assess the most important elements of Ukraine’s internal resilience that require immediate support, 68 per cent of survey respondents selected fighting corruption that undermines institutions, 56 per cent said strengthening the rule of law, and 47 per cent said the accountability and effectiveness of institutions.

Reforms that help improve the internal generation and allocation of resources could be a game-changer for Ukraine, and key for sustaining the trust of funders and investors. Given how unpredictable external funding is, especially from the US, Ukraine’s key aim should be to stamp out corruption and ensure that public investments into new infrastructure, roads and housing comply with high standards of integrity.

Transparency underpinned by digital tools, such as the new DREAM system, could help and be made compulsory for use on all recovery projects. But accountability ensured via anti-corruption agencies and the court system is equally important. The State Audit Service of Ukraine needs urgent reform. Civil society is particularly keen to ensure civic oversight with over 40 per cent of regional CSOs willing to monitor local reconstruction projects.

The Ukraine Plan that underpins the new EU Facility (a new funding mechanism providing a total of €50 billion over four years) will sustain reform momentum. It outlines measures that should improve public administration and strengthen the fight against corruption. Opening EU accession negotiations would give powerful impetus for completing Ukraine’s institutional reforms.

Veteran community a top priority

Years of Russian aggression have also created new societal challenges. Survey respondents singled out the reintegration of veterans as one of the most acute challenges facing Ukraine. This issue is also key for resilience and social cohesion. The state register currently includes 900,000 veterans and Kyiv may have to support as many as four million after the war.

Failure to enact domestic reforms will fuel feelings of sacrifices being in vain and could undermine unity and resilience inside Ukraine.

Veterans struggle with societal integration and face many health issues, including mental health conditions. This group should be given dedicated attention, especially with regards to integrating them into the labour force, which has been significantly depleted due to war mobilization and refugee outflow.

Read more: Chatam House

Chatham House survey of Ukrainian CSOs – 2024 update

Pre-read for Berlin Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) 2024

Key takeaways and summary of survey results

This document presents the findings of a survey of 218 Ukrainian civil society organizations (CSOs), conducted online by Chatham House in May 2024. This 2024 update follows on from a November–December 2022 survey, the results of which were published in June 2023.
The focus of our latest survey is on recovery and reconstruction, on the role CSOs can play in assisting with that process, on the obstacles to their doing so effectively, and on how those obstacles can be overcome.
For the full survey results and more on the methodology, see the Annex on page 15.
1. Amid the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine, a concerted Ukrainian and international effort is needed to replenish societal and individual resilience and embed the principles of resilience in recovery and reconstruction – both in the short term to support Ukrainian resistance amid current hostilities, and for a future post-war context.
2. Ukrainian civil society is already very active in supporting recovery.
Kyiv-based CSOs report an improvement in the state’s effort to engage civil society compared to 2022. Volunteers remain the most trusted group among all social institutions. However, CSOs view the state’s cooperation in delivering recovery as inadequate.
3. CSOs are seeking a collaborative approach that would enable them to support and share the burdens of the state. They wish to ensure that the interests of vulnerable groups are considered, and that innovative solutions replace old ways of providing public services.
4. A prolonged war risks weakening the functioning and accountability of Ukrainian state institutions. Related to this are potentially increased risks both of misuse of recovery funds and of ineffective decision-making.
Such risks indicate a need for civil society to take on a strong watchdog function at both the national and regional level. CSOs consider the need to modernize institutions and enforce the rule of law as priorities for Ukraine, both to ensure successful delivery of recovery projects and to enable wartime resilience.

5. The civil society sector is seeking special attention and cooperation from the Ukrainian state, the private sector and international donors around the issue of reintegrating veterans. This group stands out prominently as being in need of assistance and a new dedicated programme of policymaking. Also in need of special support is a wartime generation of children and youth whose education has been disrupted or interrupted by the war. CSOs view addressing both issues as critical to fostering social cohesion and resilience.

Continue reading: Chatam House

The Kremlin has responded with predictable theatre to comments from foreign secretary David Cameron, after he said Ukraine is free to use weapons supplied by Britain to launch strikes inside Russia.

That theatre was both diplomatic, with the British ambassador summoned to the foreign ministry in Russia on Monday to warn of retaliation, and nuclear: Moscow announced it would be holding exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons in the near future to remind the world yet again that it has them.

The UK position is a sharp contrast to that of the US, which has consistently forbidden Ukraine from using the weapons it supplies to hit targets in Russia. The US has even discouraged Kyiv from doing so using its own home-grown capabilities.

Deployments to Ukraine

Britain has repeatedly taken the lead in supplying weapons systems such as long-range missiles or main battle tanks to Ukraine. In the process it has shown that fears of ‘escalation’ in Washington and Berlin stem from a highly successful Russian con trick.

But the UK’s moral authority has been shaken over recent months by its reluctance to re-equip its own armed forces in the way it is urging other European states to do: grand announcements of defence investment have turned out on closer inspection to be inadequate.

Cameron has also suggested that Britain’s long-term commitment to supporting Ukraine would now be largely financial, since ‘we’ve just really emptied all we can in terms of giving equipment’.

And sadly, he immediately undermined the effect even of that commitment by once again ruling out the presence of Western troops in Ukraine.

French president Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly warned that European troops could be forced to intervene if Ukraine is unable to halt Russia’s aggression. It’s vital that Russia understands that, since the last thing Moscow wants is a direct military clash with NATO countries.

And yet, other European leaders have reacted with horror to the suggestion. ‘I don’t think it is right to have NATO soldiers killing Russian soldiers,’ Cameron said at the end of his visit to Ukraine. That may be true today, but as Russia’s ambitions have grown more apparent, it’s served as a reminder that the purpose of NATO should be to stop Russian soldiers being where they have no right to be.

Publicly ruling out a Western troop presence in Ukraine makes no sense, whether or not it’s a realistic proposition for some NATO countries.

In any case, publicly ruling out a Western troop presence in Ukraine makes no sense, whether or not it’s a realistic proposition for some NATO countries. Just the possibility is one of the Kremlin’s greatest fears.

When Cameron and others publicly bar that option, all it does is reassure Putin he can continue the war with much less concern for the possible consequences.

Instead, more European leaders – and the UK – should follow Macron’s lead and preserve ‘strategic ambiguity’ (that is, not telling your adversary what you’re not going to do).

Russia stepping up aggression

Over the course of the last two weeks, Europe as a whole has woken up to the campaign of sabotage and disruption that Russia has been waging across the continent. There’s no doubt Russia could step this up still further. Moscow’s war on the West is now barely hidden, and for as long as the West does not respond, there are few downsides for Russia in waging it.

The West should expect proxy attacks against the UK and across Europe to continue.

Using an extended network of proxies means the Kremlin’s intelligence chiefs won’t be too concerned if they are caught in the act. The crooks and patsies it recruits abroad will be considered even more disposable than its own personnel. And since Russia is already overtly acting as a rogue state, there’s no damage to reputation or relationships to be concerned about.

The West should expect proxy attacks against the UK and across Europe to continue. As well as hampering support to Ukraine, they have another useful purpose for Moscow. Whether or not they succeed, they’re useful for gathering information on a country’s will and capacity to prevent and respond to sabotage.

There’s one traditional way of hurting the West that Russia may not yet have employed. Throughout the Cold War and even in tsarist times, Moscow poured effort and resources into sponsoring terrorist groups to carry out attacks against European cities. That would be a more random campaign of violence than the targeting of European logistics and supporters of Ukraine that we see now. It would also have much greater impact.

Europe must not be just a passive victim. At the beginning of this year, I wrote about the West’s under-used ability to influence Russia’s choices.

The UK made its deliveries of Storm Shadow an explicit consequence of specific Russian actions. Now, it seems, the US has done the same with its long-awaited supply of longer-range ATACMs missiles.

To nobody’s surprise, except perhaps in the White House, the sky has not fallen.

Britain’s explicit endorsement of strikes into Russia could also have been presented as a consequence for Russia’s attacks against Europe, and with a promise that more would follow. What’s more, explicitly allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with British weapons as well as its own opens up other possibilities for targeting Russia’s ability to wage war.

Ukraine has already struck Russian locations where drones and missiles used to kill its innocent civilians are stored. It has also launched strikes at Russian energy infrastructure. These limited pinpoint strikes are in stark contrast to Russia’s lengthy campaign of indiscriminate bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

But further attacks could see Ukraine helping Europe, instead of the other way round. European countries can do little about Russian electronic warfare installations that have been sowing havoc with European air and maritime traffic. But for Ukraine, no holds should be barred and it’s in everybody’s interest that the jamming should be deterred or disrupted.

When considering how far the West should go in working with Kyiv, the fundamental question is still the same: whether Europe wishes to stop Russia in Ukraine, or allow Moscow’s war of reconquest to claim more victims further West.

Simple morality and practical common sense have always argued for the maximum possible support for Kyiv. Britain’s endorsement of Ukraine’s right to defend itself is a long overdue step in the right direction.

Source: Chatam House

In conversation with Ban Ki-moon and Mary Robinson.

— Experts discuss the UK’s role in driving forward climate action.

This event is now fully booked for in-person registrations.

In December 2015, 195 countries adopted the new and historical Paris Agreement on climate change, reinforcing the demand for developing countries to deliver US$ 100 billion towards climate action by 2020, and per year from then onwards. UN Secretary General at the time, Ban Ki-moon, called it “a monumental triumph for people and our planet.” Although slightly delayed, developed nations may have achieved this target in 2022, as reported by the OECD.

Despite celebration of this news, it became apparent that this amount is significantly lower than what is really needed. Finance for adaptation, in particular, still falls short. The 2023 Adaptation Gap Report stated that the world needs to be pumping at least 18 times as much into adaptation efforts as it currently does. Furthermore, climate action is becoming more urgent and important as the cost of extreme weather events climbs.

As global negotiations focus on setting a new finance goal, this event will cover:

With the future of food under threat, notably for millions of smallholder farmers, how can governments support their adaptive capacity?
How should the global community support developing countries hit by worsening climate change-fuelled disasters?
How can governments set an ambitious new finance goal that reflects the needs and priorities of developing countries, particularly on adaptation?
What lessons can we draw from previous experience on setting global goals?
What role can the UK play in driving forward climate action and how can we unlock the UK’s leadership potential on delivering an ambitious outcome at COP29?

Source: Chatam House

With a general election imminent, it is already clear that the next UK government will take office in an immensely challenging environment for foreign policy. From wars in Gaza and Ukraine to concerns about climate change, China’s assertive global agenda and the durability of America’s commitment to European security, the next UK government will face many pressing international problems and have limited resources with which to tackle them. This paper examines how the next government – regardless of which party wins the election – could use its foreign policy assets to best effect in the context of fiscal and other capacity pressures.

‘Realistic ambition’ should be the guiding principle, with the UK recognizing its limits and constraints but remaining actively engaged and agile in its foreign policy. The paper outlines, in particular, three long-term priorities for foreign policy: navigating unpredictable great power dynamics that are complicated by rising Sino-US tensions; improving the UK’s relations with the EU, in part to offset the risk of reduced US engagement in Europe, and in part to fill post-Brexit policy gaps; and reinvigorating the UK’s role in global governance and international development, an area of historical strength.

Summary

Whichever party wins the UK general election, the next government will have tough choices to make on foreign policy. There will be little funding for international relations, given low forecast economic growth, high debt interest payments and severe pressure on public services. At the same time, the UK faces difficult global challenges: an assertive China; tension between China and the US; questions about the US’s commitment to European security; the war in Ukraine and the threat from Russia; and an unfolding Middle East crisis. Many other problems persist, including climate change, risks from new technologies, more fragmented global trade, and weaknesses in arms control and pandemic preparedness.
This research paper, rather than issue prescriptions in each of these areas, sets out three long-term priorities for UK foreign policy. The first is navigating unpredictable great power dynamics, as rising US–China friction complicates the UK’s relations with both countries and its diplomacy around the world. The second is improving the UK’s relations with Europe: to deal with the prospect of a US retreat from internationalism; to defend against Russia and other shared risks; and to address policy gaps created by Brexit. The third is strengthening the UK’s role in global governance and international development. This means building partnerships with a broad swathe of countries – mid-sized powers, emerging economies and many countries in what is sometimes called the Global South – to advance British interests and contribute the UK’s expertise and reputation to the solution of international problems.
We refer to this approach as ‘realistic ambition’: the UK should be practical about its resources and limits, but it should not retreat from international affairs, which are critical to its own interests, values and prosperity, nor downplay its obvious strengths. The UK has played a decisive role in European security, and has significant defence, diplomatic, cultural and scientific assets to offer. The proliferation of problems overseas, and their implications for the UK’s fortunes, are all the more reason for an agile, active foreign policy.
On the first priority, the next UK government will have to work with a US that is still a crucial ally but that is reluctant to play as prominent a role in European security as in the past. The ‘special relationship’ will endure, but the US is becoming more focused on other parts of the world, and susceptible to partisan divisions that render it a less reliable partner. This will be immediately apparent should Donald Trump win the 2024 US presidential election, but the trend is likely to continue even if he does not. Both major US political parties are becoming more protectionist than in the past. Rather than pursue a comprehensive free-trade deal that is unlikely to materialize, the UK would do better to focus on sectoral agreements and continuing partnerships on military and critical technologies. It also needs to hedge against US unpredictability by deepening its relationships with Europe and middle-sized powers around the world.
At the same time, the next government will need to manage a more confrontational China. Engagement with Beijing will remain essential on trade, and desirable on global problems such as climate change, technology governance and developing-country debt. But the next government must balance trading with China against protecting the UK – a balance that has been hard to achieve in the past. The UK will need to strengthen its capacity to manage cyberattacks, interference and economic coercion. It should recruit or train more China specialists and develop more coherent decision-making on China across government departments. It should also be realistic about its broader Indo-Pacific strategy. Earlier ambitions for an ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’ have been moderated, acknowledging constraints on UK military capacity. But the UK could still usefully focus on enhancing trade, security and diplomatic links with Australia, India, Japan and South Korea, and on delivering agreed defence projects such as the AUKUS initiative with Australia and the US.
On the second priority, improving the relationship with the European Union, the next UK government starts with clear opportunities. The Conservative government’s vigorous support of Ukraine, maintained through three prime ministers since Russia’s 2022 invasion and echoed by the Labour opposition, has given the UK a prominent voice in the defence of Europe. This support has strengthened the UK’s conversation with EU countries about common risks, in turn opening up the chance for more constructive discussion of post-Brexit relations. The UK has a few options to improve the existing Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), up for review in 2026, although the economic and strategic benefits would be modest. Greater cooperation with the EU should also be feasible on energy security and emissions trading schemes. But above all, the UK could usefully reframe its relationship with the EU more in terms of geopolitical and security cooperation.
The UK should still seek to play an important role on global governance – bolstering international order in unstable times. This is the third priority. Although the UK is a mid-sized power, it has expertise and reputation in diplomacy, defence and security. Its alliances and membership of multilateral institutions provide foreign policy leverage. Given these strengths, the UK should play a consistent role on global issues where it has credibility – particularly on climate change, international development, arms control and technology governance. More broadly, it should advance principles of international law and order. The UK’s international reputation has often been associated with such principles, reflecting the country’s role in shaping the order and institutions of the world since 1945. But with a more vocal constituency worldwide challenging the perceived double standards of Western democracies, the UK will find this area of influence out of reach unless it brings its own behaviour, at home and abroad, more in line with the values it advocates.
This active contribution to global governance could bring added diplomatic benefits. The next UK government will confront a world with a more assertive Global South – including some countries inclined to side with China or Russia in challenging the international order – and a more influential and activist range of other mid-sized powers. Building shared goals, including around the meaningful reform of multilateral and international financial institutions, will be important for the UK to advance its relationships and alliances worldwide.
Paying for this agenda will demand hard decisions. The present government’s recent announcement that it intends to meet its target of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 is welcome. But there is a risk that this commitment – coming before an imminent election, and outside of a budget or other fiscal event that explains the trade-offs with other pressing concerns – defers difficult choices about how to fund spending and what to prioritize.1 Given the risks the UK faces, particularly from Russian aggression in Europe, and the existing gaps in UK defence budgets, a minimum target of 3 per cent of GDP spent on defence would be better. At the very least, the UK should maintain an army that can credibly meet operational commitments to NATO in the event of a crisis. It must ensure sufficient funding for AUKUS, and for the Global Combat Air Programme with Italy and Japan. Even if defence spending in other areas is constrained, the government must address problems of wasteful procurement and inadequate recruitment. It should prioritize defence and strategic investments that strengthen the UK’s science and research base and that promote development of critical technologies.
To support the UK’s global role, the next government will need to spend a consistent amount on international development. It will find it easiest to restore the UK’s previously high reputation in this field if it returns official development assistance to 0.7 per cent of gross national income. But at a minimum, the UK should introduce more predictability into its development spending. It should address a lack of clarity about the purpose of its aid spending, as much of the foreign aid budget currently goes towards housing refugees and asylum seekers domestically. It should also consider more predictable and proportionate spending on diplomatic capacity – which has historically been neglected while defence and development spending targets take up significant focus in government. Both the UK’s exit from the EU and increasing global instability require more investment in diplomatic capacity, not less.
This research paper has been written with a UK general election in mind. It draws on over 40 interviews and the discussions at 12 roundtables, and on the input of Chatham House research programmes, associate fellows, internal and external advisers, and the UK in the World Programme’s advisory council.2 The next UK government, of whatever stripe, will face many challenges and few easy answers. This paper recommends priorities and offers options to those deciding what the UK should do.

Source: Chatam House

The $300 billion of immobilized assets can only partly address the cost of Ukraine’s survival and reconstruction. There should be no qualms about confiscating it.

It seems odd, considering the scale of destruction caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that seizing Russian money immobilized in Western clearing houses is as hotly debated as it is.

The costs of Ukrainian reconstruction are difficult to agree. $1 trillion is sometimes stated. A more conservative estimate would be around half that – $500 billion.

But before reconstruction can even begin, Ukraine needs to finance its war effort – costing around $50 billion per year – and maintain its day-to-day economy.

In other words, Russian state assets, if repurposed, could cover the costs of five years of war, or three-fifths of the conservatively estimated reconstruction costs. Either way, these assets would only make a modest-sized dent in the catastrophic overall costs created by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Seen in these terms, the EU’s proposal to confiscate and repurpose only the $3-5 billion in interest generated by the $300 billion every year, cannot be considered a meaningful amount. It is also hard to understand the legal sophistry behind claiming the $300 billion is sovereign and ‘untouchable’, but interest accrued can be considered fair game. Russia, surely, holds the deeds to both the capital sum and its interest.

The principle

The most important question is simply: who will pay for the immense destruction caused by Russia’s war? No Russian government will do so willingly, at least in the short to medium term.

Effectively, the assets are already seized in all but name, and the West is just waiting for an agreement from Russia that will never come.

Russia has never in its history paid reparations for any of its illegal conquests. Indeed, frozen assets may be the only Russian funds that ever contribute to repairing the terrible damage its war has caused in Ukraine.

There should also be a principle that this money cannot ever be used as a bargaining chip, for instance in exchange for territory that Ukraine already owns according to international law.

Sending the money back to Russia is surely unconscionable: The G7 has publicly stated that the assets will not go back until Russia pays for the damaged its war has caused, and G7 countries would be discredited if they reneged on that promise. Effectively, the assets are already seized in all but name, and the West is just ‘waiting for an agreement’ from Russia that will never come.

To even consider returning any money to Russia, Ukraine would have to be fully reconstructed, territorially whole, and judicially satisfied with reparations paid. Russia would have to be contrite and democratic, with Putin removed.

In other words, a scenario where Russia’s sovereign assets can be returned is as close to a flat-out impossibility as can reasonably be imagined.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is in urgent need, willing to fight but lacking the means to do so. Almost everyone in the Western world says they want Ukraine to prevail. Yet saying it and taking obvious moral actions to support that aim – like confiscating frozen assets – seem to be worlds apart.

Legal issues and precedent

Two common arguments against confiscating Russia’s assets revolve around whether it is legal, and the precedent it supposedly sets.

History will not judge the West well if it allows Ukraine to fall because it does not wish to contravene international law.

To start with, history will not judge the West well if it allows Ukraine to fall because it does not wish to contravene international law.

According to some, the recognition of Kosovo in 2008 was legally dubious. But it was the moral thing to do in order to protect Kosovar Albanians from Slobodan Milosevic’s genocidal onslaught. It conceivably did set a precedent. Certainly, the Russians argued as much when they annexed Crimea – without any credible human rights pretext.

Arguably, if confiscating and repurposing Russia’s foreign-held assets sets a precedent, then it is a good one. It is hard to think of a conflict since the Second World War where there has been such moral clarity.

Russia’s breach of international law is already recognized by the ICJ in its binding provisional ruling. In cases where one country attacks another in clear transgression of international law, the invader’s foreign-held assets should surely not be safe and sacrosanct. Perhaps confiscating Russia’s assets for this invasion will have a deterrent effect on others considering similar actions elsewhere.

Many legal experts are arguing that the provision known as ‘countermeasures’ is applicable. Countermeasures are codified in the UN International Law Commission’s Articles on Responsibility of States. They have frequently been cited by the ICJ in its decisions. The US REPO Act is also an example of countermeasures.

Even if a country’s legal system does not have the legal mechanisms to enact countermeasures, those laws can certainly be legislated and enacted. The more fundamental points are that morality is the basis of law (along with precedent and multiple other factors) and that international law evolves with each new substantial ‘test’ it is subjected to. New thinking is emerging.

‘Global shock’

A further argument often deployed against confiscation is that it will destabilize the global economy and undermine confidence in the Eurozone as an investment destination.

Europe should not wish to be an attractive investment destination for ultra-nationalist authoritarian regimes.

But the notion that seizing the assets will create a ‘global economic shock’ is unproven.

It seems more reasonable to suggest that immobilizing the assets during the first days of the Russian invasion was the more destabilizing move – to say nothing of the unparalleled destabilizing act that was Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Certainly the dollar has remained strong despite moves towards immobilizing Russian assets. Global economic shocks do happen, and no doubt more will follow. But history shows the world bounces back. Even if using Russia’s own assets proves a shock to the system, it will stabilize. And it’ll be worth it to help Ukraine.

Nor is there any practical risk to the Eurozone. There simply is no viable alternative to the euro, dollar, sterling pound, or yen, which together make up 89.2 per cent of the world’s reserve currencies.

There should again be a principle involved: Europe should not wish to be an attractive investment destination for ultra-nationalist authoritarian regimes. Perhaps if it weren’t, the Western world would shed some of the accusations of hypocrisy that plague its international diplomacy.

What is the alternative?

Opponents of sanctions must always recognize that the alternative – that is to not sanction – means to keep trading with an opponent. This is perverse: to keep sending money to fund the opposing side of the war.

The question should not be ‘will we set a precedent?’ but ‘what kind of precedent do we want to create?’

This is no less the case with confiscating Russian sovereign assets. The alternative is to not confiscate them.

But to what purpose? Most politicians fail to realize that inaction is a policy choice in itself – and with policy consequences potentially just as profound.

The West will create a precedent whether it confiscates or does not. Therefore, the question should not be ‘will we set a precedent?’ but ‘what kind of precedent do we want to create?’

As with all wars, when this one comes to an end, multiple factors will have contributed to its outcome. Confiscating Russian state assets held in the West is just one piece of the puzzle. But it is a crucial element in the West’s overall resolve to ‘do the right thing’ and save Ukraine.

Source: Chatam House

The case of Britons allegedly working for Russian intelligence is just one example of how Moscow is actively disrupting normal life in Europe and the Baltic region.

A British man has been charged over an arson plot targeting a Ukrainian business after allegedly being recruited to act for the mercenary Wagner Group.

The suspect will face trial under the UK’s new National Security Act, in the first case brought under new legislation to crack down on foreign agents. Four other men have also been charged in connection with the arson plot.

But the case should not be seen as an isolated incident. A much broader, and more serious Russian campaign of sabotage is spanning the whole of Europe. More disturbingly, the patterns of behaviour match predictions of what Russia would attempt to do in advance of an open conflict with NATO.

It seems there are few parts of Europe that are not targets. Earlier in April, Germany arrested two individuals on suspicion of planning attacks on behalf of Russia, with a range of targets including US military bases. In Lithuania, Moscow has used organized criminal networks to arrange physical attacks on Russian opposition figures.

Swedish security police are investigating possible sabotage behind repeated railway derailments in the far north of the country, and the Estonian security services have logged intensified Russian efforts to recruit local citizens to attack their own government.

Recruiting proxies to carry out sabotage is just one of the ways in which Russia is already attacking Europe beyond Ukraine.

Poland has been a particular target. Key logistics points there for delivering supplies to Ukraine are of obvious interest for Russia.

Arrests by the Polish authorities include a man who was reconnoitring security arrangements at the important Rzeszow airport, apparently with the intent to aid an attempt at assassinating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was due to transit through there.

Poland has also disrupted at least one network of agents set up for reconnaissance and sabotage of the country’s rail network.

Signal interference in the air and at sea

Recruiting proxies to carry out sabotage is just one of the ways in which Russia is already attacking Europe beyond Ukraine.

Similar patterns are apparent in Russian electronic warfare disrupting flights around the Baltic Sea region. It is a problem that dates back years, covers an expanding area of Europe and is becoming increasingly serious.

In March Russia was reported to have jammed satellite signals affecting an aircraft carrying the UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps back from Poland, while similar signal interference was widely reported to be a problem for several British holiday flights in April.

Aircraft in the region have long run the risk of such interference but the scale of potential disruption is becoming a major problem.

It is now considered normal for a number of navigation systems to be unavailable over the Baltic and Black Seas.

In northern Norway too, Russian jamming of GPS is not only disrupting air traffic on a daily basis, but is hampering the work of police and emergency services.

This does not mean that flying in Europe is unsafe. Airliners are still able to use a number of fallback systems – but it does mean that some of the built-in redundancy of systems to ensure safe navigation and collision avoidance are no longer available.

Another issue arises for airports reliant on GPS-based services, in that landing becomes impossible and flights must divert or even return to their starting point.

Moscow’s ‘ghost fleet’ of vessels with mystery owners…has been particularly busy at sanctions evasion and espionage around the Baltic island of Gotland.

Airlines are understandably cautious about drawing attention to an issue that some passengers might see as compromising their safety, which has contributed to the problem being under-reported. However, economic costs and levels of disruption are high and increasing.

Flights between Finland and Estonia have been repeatedly abandoned and are now suspended, as of late April. The growing impact of flight cancellations and aborted landings is a cost directly attributable to Russian action. But Western inaction means there are no consequences for Moscow.

At sea too, Russia is hard at its disruptive work. Moscow’s ‘ghost fleet’ of vessels with mystery owners, suspect insurance and registrations in places like Eswatini (a landlocked country that is not traditionally seafaring) has been particularly busy at sanctions evasion and espionage around the Baltic island of Gotland, long recognised as a key target because of its importance for controlling sea and air traffic in the region.

Hostile action from Russia is becoming gradually normalized because nobody is willing or able to deal with it.

Vessels in the region reported in late April a wave of GPS outages, indicating that disruptive electronic warfare from Russia has stepped up a gear and is now affecting surface sea traffic.

Again, what appears to be a localized problem has immediate wider impacts in terms of disruption and higher shipping costs and insurance rates, as well as the long-term implications of what Russia may be preparing to do.

If nothing is done in response, the logical next step is for Moscow to attempt to block GPS for road traffic. With millions of navigation systems dependent on GPS location services, that could sow chaos on land across the Baltic region.

West should be ready for ever bolder aggression

All these examples demonstrate how hostile action from Russia is becoming gradually normalized because nobody is willing or able to deal with it. Russia pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable, or at least accepted, by doing something that should be outrageous – and then intensifies it when there is no response from the West.

But more may be in the pipeline. In 2020, colleagues and I wrote a study for the Swedish Defence Research Agency on what military planners call A2AD, or anti-access/area denial – in other words, how in the event of war, Russia could try to keep NATO forces from moving to where they were needed.

My chapter looked at the number of ways in which Russia could immobilize Europe even before a conflict, without firing a shot. What is alarming now is that so many of the methods described – including GPS jamming, sabotage, local proxies and much more – are already in play across Europe and in the UK.

Russia has sharply stepped up its campaign against the West, and this is a danger sign for what may come next. Russia’s methods have evolved. The murderous gangs that roamed Europe in the previous decade, whose targets included Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018, were made up of Russian military and intelligence officers.

Now, the pattern of attacks, including the recent arson attack in the UK, shows that Russia is recruiting freelancers to act on their behalf.

That could be because its own people are too easily identified, or too busy behind the lines in Ukraine.

But the pattern shows what has long been known: that Russia can always find unscrupulous individuals to attack their own countries on Moscow’s behalf.

The UK’s new National Security Act has come into force none too soon, since previously a wide range of hostile actions against the UK on behalf of foreign powers were perfectly legal.

Russia’s increasingly bold aggression across Europe and the UK shows that we are all under attack. While it is encouraging to see the new Act already in use, the West should be prepared for plenty more shocking cases to be heard, as Russia’s campaign continues.

Source: Chatam House

The government will need to be clearer on how the spending increase will be funded and where the UK will direct its focus.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to increase UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030, saying this would deliver ‘an additional £75 billion for defence by the end of the decade’.

Increasing the budget is a welcome boost for Britain’s armed forces and a prudent move in an increasingly hazardous geopolitical environment. However, it does not change the fact that even if this spending is fully delivered, hard choices remain for Britain’s military. For the UK to fund its existing ambitions, and respond to growing threats to European security, it may need to set a target closer to 3 per cent.

The increase is welcome – but less than it seems

As the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has pointed out, the amount pledged only works out at £75 billion if an assumption is made that defence spending would have been frozen every year from now until 2030, rather than rising in line with the UK’s existing defence spending of approximately 2.3 per cent of GDP. If that existing commitment is taken into account, the rise amounts to £20 billion total from now until 2030.

The increase may need to be used to plug existing funding gaps rather than provide additional resources.

This is still a significant figure. But the government has said the increase will be funded by cutting civil service jobs, without specifying how such cuts could feasibly add up to this figure. If the increase is to be more meaningful in practice than former prime minister Boris Johnson’s 2022 pledge to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030, more specific choices will need to be made.

The increase may also need to be used to plug existing funding gaps rather than provide additional resources. This year’s UK Defence Equipment Plan for 2023-33 has a gap of £16.9 billion between its requirements and its budget. The UK Public Accounts Committee has further warned that this deficit does not include estimated costs for all the capabilities the government has asked the armed forces to deliver – so there may be further budget gaps to fill.

The UK needs to make choices about its military

The prime minister framed the spending pledge with an eye-catching top line: that ‘an axis of autocratic states like Russia, Iran and China are increasingly working together to undermine democracies and reshape the world order.’ While this is true, it does not necessarily cover the span of tasks the UK’s armed forces may be called upon to perform between now and 2030. Parliament and other experts have raised concerns in the past that the UK military is being asked to do too many things – provide significant capabilities to NATO in Europe, potentially engage in disaster response, expeditionary tasks, military diplomacy, and sometimes respond to civilian crises at home.

Moreover, this framing risks conflating three distinct challenges. The prime minister’s speech implicitly acknowledged that the UK’s top priority is Ukraine. Of the three areas Sunak highlighted as the focus for the ‘bolstered defence budget’, backing Ukraine against Russia was the only specific challenge mentioned. The remaining two were more general: upgrading the UK defence industrial base and armed forces modernization.

This raises an important question: where will the UK armed forces focus their efforts? A role in the Middle East seems certain, given their ongoing contribution to the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea, defending international shipping against the threat posed by the Iranian-backed Houthis.

The Indo-Pacific is currently the focus of long-term British defence industrial collaborations, notably the AUKUS pact with Australia and the US, focused on cooperating on nuclear submarines and critical technologies; and the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) alongside Italy and Japan.

But the UK will struggle to upgrade its military presence in either the Middle East or Indo-Pacific while war still rages in Europe – even with an increased defence budget. The spending increase does not obviate the need for tough choices on where to focus, with the lion’s share of attention increasingly going towards Ukraine and the UK’s contribution to European security.

The government needs to make the trade-offs clearer – both in terms of how it will fund the increase, and where the UK is directing its efforts.

The government’s pledge on defence spending has also come in the year of a UK general election. The opposition Labour Party is also committed to a 2.5 per cent of GDP spend on defence but, as shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry clarified, Labour would hit the target ‘when circumstances allow’.

Labour has indicated it largely shares the government’s view that the global threat environment is getting worse. Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy described the outlook in mid-April, highlighting China’s accelerating ship-building capacity, and a need to take seriously the threat from Russia and show the US that ‘Europeans do enough to protect their own continent’s security’. Meanwhile, Labour leader Keir Starmer has reiterated Labour’s commitment to the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

In principle, the spending boost is welcome. It signals to allies and to defence industrial partners that there has been a shift in mindset about the seriousness of the threats the UK faces. But the danger remains that the UK will raise expectations it can play a significant role in multiple theatres at once, without sufficiently resourcing those ambitions. The government needs to make the trade-offs clearer – both in terms of how it will fund the increase, and where the UK is directing its efforts.

For Britain to fund its ambitions for a global defence role, it may have to spend closer to 3 per cent of GDP.

Rishi Sunak made the spending pledge during a speech in Warsaw. It is worth noting that Poland spent 4 per cent of its GDP on defence in 2023 and urges NATO members to aspire to a 3 per cent target. For Britain to fund its own ambitions for a global defence role, it may indeed have to spend closer to 3 per cent of GDP. The UK government should also explain more clearly where its priorities lie. Although new threats are appearing across the world, the UK’s most meaningful contribution will likely be to security in Europe.

Source: Chatam House

The essential aid package will allow Kyiv to slow down Russian forces. But the delay had a real cost for Ukraine, and a secure long-term funding model is required.

The new $61 billion US aid package for Ukraine, approved by Congress on 23 April, will improve Ukraine’s battlefield position – allowing stocks of ammunition from US bases in Poland and Germany to be shipped quickly to existing Ukrainian forces, and newly mobilized troops to be equipped.

Critics of Ukraine’s mobilization law, recently passed by the parliament in Kyiv, argued it made little sense to draft more men if there were no weapons to arm them: now that concern can be discarded.

The US package includes weapons Ukraine has long sought and which can make a significant difference in the war, like long-range ATACMS missiles. These will improve Ukraine’s capability to threaten and destroy Russian military targets in occupied Crimea, forcing Russia to withdraw its equipment and enhancing Black Sea security.

The US vote also provides an important boost to morale in Ukraine, restoring hope that Western partners are delivering on their promises and sending a powerful signal to Russia. Ukrainian soldiers have sent messages from the trenches, thanking the American people; MPs displayed American flags in Ukraine’s parliament.

Impact on the battlefield

In the short term, however, the battlefield situation will remain difficult.

Following the vote, Moscow will also likely intensify its drone and missile strikes, targeting Ukraine’s logistics routes, infrastructure and defense industrial base.

Ukraine’s defence intelligence chief has already warned that Russia might attempt a new offensive in May. Meanwhile Russian forces have already captured around 360 sq km of territory this year, according to the Institute of the Study of War, enabled by Ukraine’s shortage of ammunition.

Now the Russian military is pushing to seize the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, hoping to take it before Moscow’s Victory day parade on 9 May.

If captured, this would open the way for an advance to Ukraine’s Donbas strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, with severe consequences for Ukraine’s strategic position.

Homefront and civilian infrastructure

Following the vote, Moscow will also likely intensify its drone and missile strikes. These will target Ukraine’s logistics routes, infrastructure and defense industrial base, left dangerously exposed in recent weeks by a shortage of air defenses.

Recent Russian attacks have caused huge damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and completely destroyed the largest thermal power plant in the Kyiv region, leaving vast parts of the country in blackout.

The US is reportedly supplying one more Patriot missile defence system to Ukraine as a part of its aid package.

But that will not be enough to protect Ukraine’s sky. Officials in Kyiv said they need seven more Patriots. Germany has committed to sending one, and Spain and Greece are under pressure to transfer their systems to Ukraine.

Until they arrive, Ukraine will suffer more damage. Kharkiv, a city of 1.3 million people on the Russian border, is under particularly heavy daily bombardment – its mayor saying it was at risk of turning into a ‘second Aleppo’.

The crisis management model and European support

The six-month delay in provision of the US military aid has therefore had huge repercussions for Ukraine’s ability to defend itself, demonstrating that the unstable ‘crisis management’ model of Western aid actually emboldens Russia to escalate – perceiving Western hesitancy as weakness. It also shows that it is naïve to believe that the frontline in Ukraine can remain stable without a steady flow of Western military assistance.

Without a better plan for consistent aid delivery, sooner or later Ukraine will again find itself in a critical situation.

It is a welcome development that the new US bill acknowledges the need for more stable funding and calls for a ‘multi-year’ strategy with ‘specific and achievable objectives’ that hasten Ukrainian victory.

However, US support should not be overly relied upon. Europe must act too, using the time Ukraine has bought it to get serious about defence.

Germany’s Olaf Scholz should also follow the example set by the US provision of ATACMS systems to unblock the delivery of Taurus missiles to Ukraine.

European countries must follow up the US’s significant new commitment by urgently seeking to ramp up domestic ammunition production. It must move faster with the delivery of 1 million artillery shells, promised long ago. And it must finally get serious about increasing military spending budgets.

Europeans should also transfer more weapons to Ukraine, particularly air defence systems. Ukrainian officials say there are about a hundred Patriot missile defence systems in the world. Kyiv’s partners should use their diplomatic and financial heft to secure at least the seven Ukraine has requested.

Germany’s Olaf Scholz should also follow the example set by the US provision of ATACMS systems to unblock the delivery of Taurus missiles.

A new funding strategy

Most importantly, the bitter experience with the US military aid package shows that the whole approach to supporting Ukraine must change. The US only approved an aid package after realizing that Ukraine was on the brink of collapse. Many lives could have been saved if it had been released earlier. (At least 604 civilians were killed or injured in Ukraine in March 2024 alone).

A long-term, sustainable strategy that enables an uninterrupted flow of Western military aid, regardless of election cycles and political squabbles, must be developed by the US, Europe and Ukraine’s other allies. Vital assistance should never again be a hostage of domestic politics.

This can be achieved by legislatively committing to funding Ukraine in the long-term. Bilateral security agreements Ukraine has signed with six EU countries and the UK allow for that. More similar agreements, including one with the US, are upcoming.

Money for this can be found by increasing national defence spending, with governments informing their citizens that supporting Ukraine now prevents much greater future expense – and the need to risk their own servicemen and women’s lives.

Another option is to fund Ukraine’s defence effort with frozen Russian assets. Kyiv has been long campaigning for their seizure and transfer.

Popular opinion across the West is mostly supportive of continuing and boosting funding for Ukraine. A recent example in Slovakia, where citizens crowdfunded almost €3 million for artillery shells, shows that a solution can be found even in countries with reluctant governments.

There’s also the idea of issuing EU bonds to finance efforts to ramp up Europe’s defence capabilities, supported by presidents of France and Estonia.
Another option is to fund Ukraine’s defence effort with frozen Russian assets. Kyiv has been long campaigning for their seizure and transfer. The US bill authorizes that for assets on American soil: Europe should follow suit.

Finally, keeping momentum in integrating Ukraine with NATO is key. Most senior officials agree that it is now a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’. The Washington Summit in July must boost the process of supporting mutual interoperability and send another powerful signal to Putin.

The principle underlying support for Ukraine shouldn’t be for ‘as long it takes’, but ‘whatever it takes and as soon as possible’. A sense of urgency, and a clear understanding that the future of global democracy and peace is contingent on the success of Ukraine, should drive policymakers’ decisions. There is still time to save Ukraine and that future.

Source: Chatam House

Through its war against Ukraine and geopolitical revisionism in the Black Sea, Russia seeks to establish uncontested hegemony and project influence beyond its neighbourhood and into the Western Balkans, South Caucasus, Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. This would allow Russia to challenge European security from multiple positions.

The Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean have increasingly merged into one geopolitical space, where regional and great power rivalries play out.

Geopolitical competition in the Black Sea is redefining regional order, changing its geopolitical identity, and shaping relations between states in the wider region. It has also hollowed out the once popular idea of regional order premised on regional ownership and laid bare how the security of different regions is interlinked. The Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean have increasingly merged into one geopolitical space, where regional and great power rivalries play out. Turkey straddles the two regions and is emerging as a key actor and a potential beneficiary of the shifting geopolitics.

A divided regional (dis)order

The Black Sea is essential for Russia’s self-perception as a great power. Its regional policy is to create and leverage vulnerabilities by challenging the territorial integrity of littoral states, weaponizing energy and trade dependencies, disrupting connectivity, and increasing its military presence. As a result, Russia controls two-thirds of the Georgian coastline following the 2008 war and occupation of Abkhazia. It has annexed Crimea and four Ukrainian regions and is trying to establish control over the entire Ukrainian coast. Russia has also propped up a pro-Russian regime in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria to put pressure on Moldova’s government.

Russia’s attempts to dominate the Black Sea have inadvertently encouraged the region’s gradual integration into the Western political and security ecosystem.

But Russia’s attempts to dominate the Black Sea have inadvertently encouraged the region’s gradual integration into the Western political and security ecosystem. The two parallel processes have resulted in a deepening split in the regional order.

In response to Russia’s actions, countries in the region have sought integration into the EU and NATO. Three of the five littoral states are already NATO members (Turkey – since 1952 – Bulgaria, and Romania) and two (Georgia and Ukraine) are aspirants. Similarly, two (Bulgaria and Romania) are the EU members and the other three are candidate states.

Romania and Bulgaria have also sought to bolster US and NATO presence in their territories. Turkey meanwhile – despite refusing to allow NATO warships in the Black Sea – is deepening its cooperation with its Black Sea NATO allies Bulgaria and Romania, recently establishing a trilateral Mine Countermeasures Task Group. This aims to make the region safer for shipping and allow Ukraine to export its grain directly to the international market, avoiding the Russian blockade. Structured cooperation of the Black Sea NATO allies also sends an important signal to Russia.

Turkey and Ukraine are in many ways natural allies, as they both reject Russian domination of the Black Sea.

Ukraine is central to Turkey’s vision of regional order, in counterbalancing Russia. Although Ankara has close relations with Moscow, its relations with Kyiv are strategic. Their cooperation in the defence industry, in particular, has increased. Turkey and Ukraine are in many ways natural allies, as they both reject Russian domination of the Black Sea.

Towards a new containment strategy

In its confrontation with the West, Russia needs to regain its advantage in the Black Sea through military victory in Ukraine. Its immediate objective is to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea coast, secure the land connection with Crimea, and establish control over Odesa. This would enable Russia to dominate the maritime trade and energy routes, undermine Ukraine’s independence and statehood, and diminish its value to the West. Russia feels squeezed in the Baltic Sea after Finland and Sweden joined NATO and is likely to double down in the Black Sea to offset losses in the Baltic.

To limit Russia’s ability to achieve its objectives, the West should bolster Ukraine’s military capacity to repel Russian aggression. Ukraine has conducted a highly effective asymmetric campaign against the Russian navy, eliminating roughly one-third of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Greater capabilities would allow Ukraine to further reduce Russian naval presence and secure its ports for essential exports. In the long term, Ukraine could emerge as a considerable regional player and an indispensable pillar in containing Russian expansionism.

Russia feels squeezed in the Baltic Sea after Finland and Sweden joined NATO and is likely to double down in the Black Sea to offset losses in the Baltic.

In parallel to the Ukraine strategy, NATO and the EU should develop a joined-up approach to the region, focusing on boosting societal resilience, building military capacity, and deepening security cooperation among the riparian NATO allies and partners. Turkey is crucial in this respect. Russia has been unable to reinforce its Black Sea fleet due to Turkey’s strict adherence to the Montreux Convention. At the behest of Ukraine, on 28 February 2022, Turkey closed off its Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to warships, except those returning to a home base in the Black Sea. This was a positive step, potentially disrupting Moscow’s maritime logistical lines to Syria and the broader Mediterranean.

While Russia initially welcomed Turkey’s position because it also restricted NATO’s manoeuvrability in the Black Sea, its heavy naval losses against Ukraine could change this. Ankara should resist potential pressure from Moscow to relax its enforcement of the Montreux rule.

Regional interlinkages

For Russia, the Black Sea is a stepping stone into other regions, not least the Western Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. To counter Russian revisionism, the EU and NATO must keep the accession prospect fresh and credible to non-member states in these regions. They must also act upon growing interlinkages between the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, which is emerging as a single space with a considerable overlap in security dynamics.

Russia has considerably increased its footprint in Mediterranean security, not least through its Mediterranean Squadron which was established in 2013. It has been a key player in the Syrian and Libyan conflicts and has close relations with Egypt and Algeria. By securing a considerable foothold and influence for Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean, Putin has realised a long-held dream of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union.

The Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean illustrate how European security and neighbourhood security are intertwined. In both arenas, the security of EU member states and candidate countries are at stake.

As a NATO member that straddles the two regions, Turkey is key here too. As an immediate step, the EU and Turkey should launch a structured foreign and security policy dialogue that focuses on their shared neighbourhood, to further align their geopolitical aims and strategies. In the short to medium term, this dialogue should include other candidate countries such as Ukraine and Georgia.

With a depleting naval presence, Russian power and influence in the Black Sea is reduced. Yet Russian geopolitical revisionism is at its zenith. The most pertinent question for NATO is how to contain a reduced but revisionist Russia. The new containment strategy should adopt a holistic view of Black Sea security that considers how this is interlinked with the security of adjacent regions. This means the West must reimagine its place and role in Europe’s broader eastern and southern neighbourhoods.

Source: Chatam House