War in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin is reportedly under increasing pressure to take a more aggressive approach to his war against Ukraine and introduce a full-scale mobilization, but the Russian president is stalling over concerns doing so would break from the propaganda narrative he's been pushing for more than 18 months, experts tell Newsweek. ... Neil Melvin, Director of International Security Studies at British defence and security think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), agreed, telling Newsweek that Putin's propaganda message has meant that he "continues to walk a tightrope over the issue of mobilization." Melvin said that so far, Putin has been able to conduct the war without having to conscript significant numbers of young men from the large urban areas of Russia, with the main brunt of the fighting conducted by troops drawn from minorities, and from rural areas and smaller towns.
