Conflict and Peace

President Roch Kaboré has been arrested and is being held by soldiers who initiated a coup d'état in Burkina Faso. Media reports say that the military, frustrated by the inability of the government to address the attacks by radical Islamic militants, initiated the coup. The soldiers say president Kaboré is not supporting the army sufficiently thus the need for a military regime. Sources close to the military say the president is being held in a safe place. 

The US, NATO, the EU and their members and partners believe Russia is about to intervene militarily in Ukraine. The message from US Secretary of State Blinken to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, at their talks in Geneva on Friday was clear and simple, "Don't do it, because the consequences will be swift and severe".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Kiev for talks with the Ukrainian leadership as fears increase of an imminent Russian invasion. In Brussels, European Union officials are bracing themselves for the biggest crisis on the European continent since the war in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. There are still some hopes that Russia will de-escalate the situation, but most observers think this is now unlikely and that some sort of aggression - even if not an all-out invasion - is imminent.

There has been widespread international condemnation of a drone attack on Abu Dhabi International Airport. The Yemeni Houthi Group, which is backed by Iran, has claimed responsibility for the attack which killed three persons. The attack on the airport of the UAE capital is seen as a serious escalation of the ongoing conflict in Yemen where a regional coalition including Saudi Arabia and the UAE is assisting the internationally recognised government of Yemen in its efforts to regain control of the country from the Houthi movement which seized the capital and large swats of the country in 2015.

"We need time to understand better what happened in Kazakhstan, and why", writes Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed. Whilst sending CSTO troops to Kazakhstan was clearly President Putin's decision to support President Tokayev in the internal fight between Kazakh local elites, the deployment has implications also for other countries participating in the mission, including Armenia.

Dozens of people were killed in protests in Kazakhstan's largest metropolis, Almaty during the night from Wednesday to Thursday (6 January), according to local police. On Thursday, Russia sent airborne forces to Kazakhstan as part of a "peacekeeping force". According to Moscow, they will be used to guard important buildings and sites, among other things. The Kremlin has not said how many troops have been deployed.