The Fall–Winter 2023 issue of “Pathways to Peace and Security”, no. 2 (65), is now available online. The first thematic section is devoted to the problems of and prospects for global international institutions. Both more ambitious plans and more realistic directions of the UN reform are considered, the impact of the U.S. economic aid on the voting patterns of recipient countries at the UN General Assembly is examined, and the evolution and expansion of BRICS are explored. A special section is devoted to security, peace and conflict issues in Africa, including analyses of the crises in Niger and Burkina Faso, the role of the BRICS factor in South Africa’s diplomacy, France’s military presence on the continent, and China’s cooperation with African countries in the field of peace and security. The sections on maritime security and arms/control focus on the Russia–Ukraine confrontation in the Black Sea through the lens of the "grain deal", analysis of the conventional weapons control crisis in Europe, and the use of drones in the conflicts in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh. The final section is devoted to international and other aspects of the phenomenon of private military companies (PMCs), including the key principles of the draft UN Convention on the regulation of PMCs, the methodology and directions of studying PMCs, and the range and evolution of their functions. An overview of the leading Turkish PMCs is followed by a broader analysis of the role of private military and security companies in the Middle East and North Africa.

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"Pathways to Peace and Security" has risen to no. 2 in Russia's Science Index ranking among Russian scholarly journals on "War Studies", second only to the respected "Journal of Military History".

The Spring–Summer issue of the IMEMO journal on peace and conflict studies, “Pathways to Peace and Security” (no. 1 (64), 2023), is out. The opening section is devoted to analysis of select military aspects of the conflict in Ukraine, including Western arms transfers and conceptualization of a special military operation in contemporary law, and a review of China’s peace initiative. The main focus of the section on security issues in the Middle East is on domestic and regional aspects of the conflict in Syria, ranging from local ceasefires involving Islamist armed groups to a complex set of interrelationships within the Russia–Iran–Turkey triangle, the role of Turkey, and the Iran–Israel tensions in the Syrian context. The impact of the February 2023 earthquake on Turkish politics is also addressed. The final section explores various types of violence and violence control in (post)conflict settings, from intercommunal tensions in Kosovo to the phenomenon of vigilantism in Burundi.

The Fall-Winter issue of “Pathways to Peace and Security” (no. 2 (63), 2022) is out. The issue’s main focus is on the problems of global food security and the ways they relate to and are affected by sanctions and armed conflicts.

The first six articles explore the impact of sanctions on food security and the interlinkages between food security and conflicts, including in the context of the conflict in Ukraine; food security problems and the ways to address them in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in East Africa and in the countries of the Western Hemisphere; and the use of hunger as a weapon in the historical case of the siege of Leningrad.

The next four articles deal with the Taiwan crisis: China’s strategy of unification with Taiwan and the implications of the new escalation of tensions for the U.S.–China relations are analyzed, and prospects for a military solution are assessed.

The third set of articles addresses the nuclear nonproliferation issues, including the erosion of the international nonproliferation regime, with the focus on the partial failure of the 2022 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, and the prospects for a nuclear-free zone in Central and Eastern Europe. It also explores the nuclear security and safety issues by analyzing the verification activity of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Special issue on "Peace Processes, Violence, and De Facto States" of the IMEMO journal "Pathways to Peace and Security" (no. 1(62), 2022) has been published. In this issue, a mix of actors, dynamics and factors at the interface of peace processes and violence is narrowed down to contexts that involve de facto states. The majority of such (post)conflict settings have been subject to an ongoing or stalemated peace process that has failed to produce comprehensive peace accords or their effective implementation, with respective conflicts remaining “frozen”. Despite some form of a ceasefire in place, many de facto states remain heavily contested, and recurring violence or a relapse into armed conflict are not infrequent. The volume includes a discussion about the basic terminology and concepts, such as “peace processes” and “de facto states”. It then explores the key cross-cutting issue of de facto states' contested sovereignty, domestic and international, and on how it relates to viability of such entities in active or frozen conflicts in and beyond Eurasia. Finally, internal and international aspects of the conflict in Donbass (until early 2022) and the respective Minsk peace process are explored. These aspects include the rarely addressed dynamics behind talks and violence within the contested republics of Donbass, a critical analysis of the Minsk process, including the role of such European institutions as the OSCE and the EU, and a discussion of whether or not the peace process was doomed to fail.

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"Pathways to Peace and Security", the IMEMO journal on peace and conflict studies, is now indexed by Russia's main academic research publication index - the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI).

See the RSCI Working Group press-release

The Fall-Winter issue of “Pathways to Peace and Security” (no. 2(61), 2021) is out.

The main focus of the Fall-Winter issue of “Pathways to Peace and Security” is on international databases on peace agreements, peace indexes, and the use of mathematical methods in peace and conflict studies. Two key datasets on peace agreements based in and managed by the Uppsala University and Edinburgh University, respectively, as well as the composite Global Peace Index are discussed by leading methodologists from Sweden, the UK, and Australia. Russian research input in the field is presented by an original mathematical model of secessions in the post-Soviet space. In other thematic sections of this issue, European and Russian experts explore the current state of and potential solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian problem. This is followed by analyses of verification aspects and hurdles of, and prospects of negotiations on, the Iran nuclear deal, including by Iranian scholars. The arms control agenda is reflected in a comparative analysis of the U.S. and Russian approaches to the idea of introducing an international regime for cyber-weapons proliferation control. International aspects of countering the Covid-19 pandemic and of vaccine diplomacy are explored in the case of the Central Asian states and region.

Author identifiers ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) are now available for all authors of articles in "Pathways to Peace and Security" who are registered in ORCID for archive issues from 2010 through the present.

"Pathways to Peace and Security" has been included into the world's largest collection of open access journals Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).