©“Bucha. Faces of War. - Ukraine War Photo Exhibition 2023” by Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed byCC BY 2.0 In his speeches, Vladimir Putin portrays the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a national struggle that unites all the Russian people. Yet Putin’s claims do not hold up under closer scrutiny. In reality, Russia has increasingly relied on poverty as a key recruitment tool both within and outside its borders. Russia weaponises poverty by turning economic despera

Vladimir Putin and Ursula von der Leyen at the International conference on Libya, 19 January 2020, http://kremlin.ru/ Russian Assets held in the European Union have been frozen by the EU for more than 3 years now. With recent plans outlined by Merz concerning the use of these assets and their inclusion in both EU- and American-led peace plans, their fate has re-entered the spotlight. Some people believe confiscation of these assets will form the basis of just reparations for