Prisoner Swap Between Russia and Ukraine 

On August 24th, 2024, Ukraine and Russia exchanged 115 prisoners of war (POW) on each side. This deal was the first exchange since Ukraine launched a surprise invasion of the Kursk region on August 6th (Al Jazeera 2024). The United Arab Emirates (UAE) facilitated the deal between the two countries (Al Jazeera 2024). This exchange is a crucial reminder of the human cost of war and the ongoing need for diplomatic intervention. It underscores the ongoing humanitarian efforts amidst the brutal conflict and highlights the importance of diplomatic channels, such as the UAE’s mediation, in easing tensions.

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Space Lessons Learned from the War in Ukraine

With each passing conflict, the space industry is gaining more and more relevance in the operation command chain, especially during interstate wars. The war in Ukraine is the perfect example of this, revealing the most significant trajectories in the space domain, and highlighting flaws and rapid developments; in a nutshell, this war is shaping the future of space, especially in the military sector. The focus of this paper will be first on the Russian entanglement in the conflict, followed by an analysis of the Ukrainian rapid adaptation of the new rules in space guided by Western help, and finally, conclusions will be drawn from the very interesting evolvement of the space industry in this war.

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The Future of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) after February 24th: Implications for Russia’s Hegemony in Post-Soviet Asia

Since February 24th, the world seems to live every minute of the war on Ukraine to its fullest. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has not only sent shockwaves through the rest of Europe but also shattered the widely held belief that the horrors of the Second World War were a thing of the past. Since then, powerful undercurrents of change have been at work in the new understanding of the security challenges of the twenty-first century. Very few in the West were able to predict that Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea would durably transform the entire international system into an increasingly bipolar confrontation between newly emerged military blocs. Even fewer strongly warned against the temptation of thinking that the world was right back on the track of the old Cold War logic.

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