Editorial

Analyses of the international security environment have increasingly drawn attention to what is often referred to as the gray zone.[1] A RAND study exploring hybrid warfare/gray zone challenges defined this part of the competition continuum as “an operational space between peace and war, involving coercive actions to change the status quo below a threshold that, in most cases, would prompt a conventional military response, often by blurring the line between military and non-military actions and the attrib

In the turmoil in the spring of 2014, immediately following the Revolution of Dignity, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered an attack on Crimea and instigated and supported the separatist activities in Donbas. Encouraged by Russia’s early successes in its war on Ukraine and the lukewarm approach of some Western countries to imposing sanctions, Putin ordered the massive February 2022 invasion, initially focused on Ukraine’s capital and leadership.