While Yerevan seems to be in a weaker position and interested in negotiations, Baku is seeking to assert its advantage. The outbreak of a new conflict on Europe's borders would clearly be detrimental to EU security.
In this Marshall Paper, Ashley Tellis looks at the broad sweep of America’s grand strategy in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and argues that policymakers must remain committed to preserving U.S. hegemony in order to “shape evolving trends to its advantage.
In the 23 years since his de facto accession to power, Putin has not only built a regime of great brutality. He has also succeeded in hypnotizing much of the Russian population to an extent that civil society has been driven largely into the catacombs and his rule appears to be unshakable.
By contrast, if Ukraine can regain military momentum before the end of 2022, it will be much easier for leaders of Western democracies to argue that their people should tighten their belts over the coming winter.

In the Kremlin’s logic, resource-rich Russia is in a better position to weather the crisis than other countries. Therefore, Moscow should seize opportunities to create crises not only on the gas market, but on the oil market too.

Rather than consolidating Russian society, the conflict in Ukraine has exacerbated existing divisions on a diverse array of issues, including support for the regime. Put another way, the impression that Putin now has the full support of the Russian public is simply incorrect.

Once the conflict is over, Russia will still be able to offer gas at very low prices, but Europe, in all likelihood, will not only not want to buy it by then; it will simply not be able to.

Moscow-based Carnegie Endowment Senior Fellow Andrei Kolesnikov and Levada Center director Denis Volkov sit down to discuss their latest paper and its implications for Russian society.
There's no doubt about it that the consensus among most countries is that the war will drag on but maybe it could be shortened if Ukraine could get a victory.

Albeit unwittingly, the Soviet Union’s last president paved the way for complex democratic transformations across Eastern Europe. The values these countries fought for must now be protected within the EU itself.