Russia’s war against Ukraine has long evolved into something far greater than a struggle over territory. In 2025, Russia seized approximately 1% of Ukraine’s territory at a cost of more than $100 billion while sustaining monthly casualties exceeding 30,000 troops. Yet it has shown no genuine willingness to pursue peace. According to Olena Davlikanova and Olya Korbut, this reflects not military logic but the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions.
In the Ukraine chapter of the new international analytical report, Terrorist Exploitation of Armed Conflicts for Digital Content, the war is presented as both a testing ground for next-generation warfare and a model of conflict that Russia may seek to replicate far beyond Ukraine. The authors also argue that Moscow is already waging what they describe as a “war below the threshold of open conflict” against Europe.
At the same time, the report’s overall focus is much broader. It examines how modern armed conflicts are exploited by terrorist and violent extremist groups to produce digital propaganda, recruit supporters, raise funds, and spread their ideologies.
The report’s central conclusion is that every modern armed conflict becomes a source of digital content that terrorist and violent extremist groups can exploit for propaganda, radicalization, recruitment, and fundraising.
Elena Davlikanova, Olya Korbut