Conflict Zone

Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, discusses the stalemate on the battlefield and the future of Western support.

More than 800,000 people have fled to UN emergency shelters in central and southern Gaza, Juliette Touma of the UNRWA told Conflict Zone, adding that number exceeded her agency's "worst case scenarios." Touma says the coming winter will exacerbate already desperate circumstances in Gaza. Her agency, which cares for Palestinian refugees, has had more than 100 staff members killed in the conflict.

Ex-Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon asks the international community to "tell us our mistakes" and how to avoid human suffering in Gaza while removing Hamas.

The Swedish Foreign Minister tells DW only a two-state solution will bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians. Tobias Billstrom said the immediate priority was the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas and bringing aid to the people of Gaza.

"In both cases ... people think that they can just brutally, by force, rewrite the rules," said Lithuanian PM Simonyte, adding she is confident Western support to Kyiv will continue despite the Israeli operation in Gaza.

"Netanyahu is history, he's done," Ehud Olmert told DW. He called the current Israeli leaders "violent, messianic thugs" and said that long term, Palestinians must be able to "exercise their right to self-determination."

Russia's former deputy foreign minister Andrei Fedorov says Russia would need to change strategy and launch massive missile strikes across Ukraine to win the war.

A former NATO Deputy Commander tells DW the only way to stop Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling is to build credible defense. 

A senior Ukrainian defense official tells DW that Kyiv's goals remain the same despite the slow progress of its counteroffensive. Yuriy Sak says territorial concessions have not worked with Russia.

Pakistan's former prime minister has said a "total crackdown" against his party is underway. Imran Khan welcomed fresh elections, but wondered whether his party would be allowed to contest them.

After leaving Ukraine and marching towards Moscow, Russian Wagner Group mercenaries were branded traitors – but just days later, its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, met with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Are there more surprises coming from this so-called rebellion?

Following the failed Wagner mutiny, one analyst with sources within Russian security services says Yevgeny Prigozhin is not the biggest threat. "The reaction of the army is what matters now," Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist and expert on Russian security services, tells DW.

As the US tries to halt the slide in relations with China, Beijing’s determination to "reunify" Taiwan with the mainland is still the sticking point. Taiwan's foreign minister, Joseph Wu, talks to DW's Tim Sebastian from Taipei.

Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive is underway. Can Kyiv deliver enough success to keep Western aid flowing? Deputy PM Olha Stefanishyna tells DW that victory means Ukraine's sovereignty is restored, as well as the international order.

Sudanese-British billionaire Mo Ibrahim, who has spent much of the last two decades addressing the importance of good governance in Africa, says Sudan has no government. Ibrahim called for an arms export ban.

Speaking to DW's Conflict Zone after Moscow's "subdued" Victory Day parade, Nina Khrushcheva says, "the question of prestige is no longer that relevant for Putin."

"We need to convince our citizens across the EU what's at stake is the future of the European Union," says EU Council chief Charles Michel. But is Brussels doing all it can to ensure a Ukrainian victory?

US lawyer Alan Dershowitz says the proposed Israeli judicial reforms are none of Europe's business. The longtime Harvard law professor says that even if the reforms put forward by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were enacted, Israel would remain a "vibrant, vital democracy." Dershowitz does oppose what he calls a "weakening" of the court.

A leading Russian economist tells DW Putin has always acted like a mafia boss. Sergei Guriev, Professor of Economics and Provost at Sciences Po in Paris, was a top economic advisor and banking official who fled Moscow in 2013. He now says the Russian president will use every additional dollar to "kill Ukrainians" but added that sanctions are keeping cash from the Kremlin.

Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu says his country is "managing to manage" in a "very difficult region" following Russia's war of agression in Ukraine. Popescu told DW's Tim Sebastian that Kyiv "liberating all of its territories is the best way to keep Moldova's path to the EU open." He also said his country had been the target of Kremlin hybrid attacks for more than 30 years.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze called for a tribunal to bring Russians who commit war crimes in Ukraine to justice. The Ukrainian MP told DW the recent arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court against Russian President Vladimir Putin would further isolate Moscow. She called the cases of Ukrainian children taken by Russian authorities in occupied territories "genocide."

The fates of Ukraine and Belarus are "intertwined," says Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of Belarus' opposition now living in exile. But why is Kyiv reluctant to offer its support to her movement?

The EU has said it will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes — but has it overpromised and underdelivered? Katarina Barley, a vice president of the European Parliament, speaks with DW’s Conflict Zone.

As the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine nears, DW sat down with Ukrainian Member of Parliament Oleksiy Goncharenko, himself a veteran of the fighting. "We just want to be alive, with our families, on our land," he told Tim Sebastian for Conflict Zone. The parliamentarian discussed Western promises and his own experiences since February 24, 2022.

A retired senior Chinese military officer told DW that the balloon incident was an "inadvertent" accident, but Senior Colonel Zhou Bo also expressed concern that "extreme competition" could lead to conflict with the US. Zhou also told host Tim Sebastian that if China took sides in Russia’s war in Ukraine, it would lead to World War Three.