After failing to boost Russia’s fertility rate via pronatalist policies and to extend life expectancies, Putin “seems to have concluded that the only way to achieve a sizable increase in his population is by annexing and subordinating ethnically and culturally related neighbors, by force if necessary.”

The Prime Minister is set to warn that the threat posed by Moscow will persist even after the devastating war in Ukraine eventually comes to an end

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin warned that he might lift self-imposed restrictions on Russia’s development of short- and medium-range missiles, while warning that the West was pushing on “a red line we can’t step back from.