News & Comment

The death of the founder and head of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), one of the country’s largest and most violent organised crime groups, is primed to escalate violence.

If the state is to try to attack significant leaders within the cartel, the cartels wants to make clear that there will be a price to pay, and that price that they are trying to exact is not only in human lives, but also economically. Whether it be closing airports or blockading roads, the point is to make it as infeasible to continue the sustained pressure against the cartels as possible."

Nick Reynolds, a research fellow in land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, said Russia “pretty consistently” penetrates the Ukrainian front line. “The Russian military is operating at a scale where it can and does put pressure across the front in all places,” Reynolds said. He added that the fortress belt towns in the east are strategically important because the region’s topography grants the high ground to whoever controls them... “Ukraine is under huge amounts of pressure,” said Reynolds. “It’s a much smaller country, so while both sides have manpower issues Ukraine is feeling it much more acutely. Although the Russians are losing more personnel, it is comparatively easy for them to be replaced.”