Conflict Zone

Amid some of the worst violence in years between Israelis and Palestinians, the US secretary of state has said the only way to end the conflict is a two-state solution — but is that still possible? DW asks the head of the Palestinian mission to the UK, Husam Zomlot.

"Consensus is not a liability," the US envoy to NATO says, referring to the recent debate over delivering Western tanks to Ukraine. Julianne Smith says each NATO member comes with its own perspective but that the alliance is united in its purpose. She also told DW it was up to Kyiv to determine when it was ready to negotiate with Russia.

Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats should be taken seriously, Russian foreign & defense policy expert tells DW. Dmitri Trenin who served in Russian military intelligence says the Kremlin sees the war in Ukraine as an "existential" fight.

Former Trump Russia advisor Fiona Hill tells DW that Vladimir Putin "still has his sights set on the capitulation of Ukraine."

Putin is trying to create a "puppet regime" in Minsk, the spokesman for Belarus' democratic opposition tells DW.

DW's Conflict Zone asks why Budapest has been at odds with EU members over Ukraine and made decisions that could please the Kremlin.

Eliot Higgins, founder of the open-source research nonprofit Bellingcat, explains how the group pieces together information to document Russian war crimes in Ukraine. This is the "best hope" of bringing accountability, Higgins told DW.

Belgrade is destabilizing the Balkans through illegal structures and its failure to acknowledge crimes of the past, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti told Conflict Zone's Tim Sebastian. Kurti said Serbia's relationship with Moscow includes military and economic ties.

Confronting the regime "is a duty of any reasonable person," says one Russian opposition activist and associate of Putin's best-known — and now jailed — critic, Alexei Navalny. But can they justify the risks they are asking people to take?

Iran has been gripped by demonstrations and violent crackdowns sparked by the death of 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini. But is Iran’s government listening? DW's Conflict Zone spoke to Mohammad Marandi, professor at Tehran University.

"The risk of letting President Putin win is much higher than to continue to support Ukraine," said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. He spoke with Conflict Zone host Sarah Kelly in a special live interview from the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum.

Moscow's former chief rabbi tells DW that those who can, should leave Russia. Pinchas Goldschmidt, who spent the last 30 years building Jewish life in the shadow of the Kremlin, says the rise in antisemitism is alarming.

Will Vladimir Putin pose more of a threat to the West if he wins - or if he loses? DW's Conflict Zone asked Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in Moscow.

A senior advisor to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected the Kremlin's call for negotiations, saying talks will only take place on the battlefield right now. Ihor Zhovkva told DW that while Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats needed to be taken seriously, but his call for negotiations wasn't credible.

Veteran Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who resigned in protest of the war and spoke to DW from an undisclosed location, says Vladimir Putin has created a situation from which he has no good exit.