As 2024 ends, this compilation reflects on Ukraine’s resilience, the fight for democracy, and shifting global power dynamics. Some of our main contributors explore the courage of the Ukrainian people, the rise of authoritarianism, and the challenges ahead in 2025, including geopolitical tensions and the battle of ideas shaping our world.
Diane Francis
Diane Francis is a Canadian journalist, author and editor-at-large for the National Post newspaper since 1998. She is also a regular contributor to the Atlantic Council, New York Post, the Huffington Post, and Kyiv Post, as well as newspapers around the world.
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The Ukrainian nation has never been stronger in spirit and determination despite Russia’s invasion, rhetoric, and war crimes. But the Russian nation has never been weaker. Cameras don’t lie: The world now knows that Vladimir Putin set out to murder civilians and destroy cities, cultural assets, infrastructure, churches, and agricultural land. His terror and genocide have shifted global opinion. I believe that in 2025, the shooting will stop, and a new European order will be created, one that incorporates Ukraine and celebrates the courage, heroism, and sacrifice of the Ukrainian people. There will also be a new world order, and Russia, Vladimir Putin, and his kleptocracy will no longer be a threat. History will show that Ukraine, with its people and resolve and self-defense, represented a major turning point in world history.
Russian Losses in Kursk Hit 38K – Syrsky
Charles Cockell
Charles Cockell is a British astrobiologist who is professor of astrobiology in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh and co-director of the UK Centre for Astrobiology.
Beyond the initial awakening of a national spirit of defense, the situation of war transforms into the relentless struggle and continuation of a pattern. That is what has characterized 2024. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has fought alone for a period now equivalent to half of the Second World War. Ukraine and Ukrainians persist, and we owe their bravery unyielding support.
Looking ahead to 2025, aside from the obvious need to provide the material means for Ukraine to defend herself, other countries should redouble their efforts to support and build Ukraine’s scientific and cultural institutions and infrastructure, which have taken a huge toll. A clearer and more overt focus on this task is part of the way in which the world can show that it is committed to an alliance with Ukraine’s future.
Underpinning all of this, we need to work harder at putting the argument forward to the entire world that the sort of societies which we strive towards, ones that cherish freedoms and democratic government, are better than all the alternatives, most of them rooted in despotism and soaked in blood.
A quarter of a century into the new millennium and approaching three years of the full-scale invasion, we must finally banish diffidence and wake the lethargic democratic world to its full strength. There is a war on, but we are also engaged in a great new global battle of ideas in which Ukrainians happen to have found themselves center stage. This war of ideas must be won with action if 2025 is not to be another year that saw the world slip further into an age of chaos and authoritarianism.
Michael Bociurkiw
Michael Bociurkiw is a Canadian global affairs analyst, writer and speaker.
2025 will certainly deliver the uncertainty and instability which we have come to know in the year that’s just ended. But with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, global dynamics face a further shake-up. His “America First” approach will upend trade, economics, and geopolitics. Already, the US’s biggest trading partner and supposedly best friend, Canada, is bracing itself for 25% tariffs threatened by Mr. Trump.
Not all is bleak. Trump - the first president to take office while several criminal cases against him are pending - may surprise us by leveraging his familiarity with the ways of crooked men to put into place a war criminal - Vladimir Putin. He will try to display the bravado characteristic of the self-proclaimed master of the art of the deal to end the war in Ukraine but still could come up empty when Mr. Putin doesn’t get everything he’s asking for.
Elsewhere, strongmen will continue to solidify their axis of autocrats - which will, in turn, continue to shake up the rules-based international order. They will try to lessen dependence on the US dollar and find new ways to work around western sanctions.
The world also faces a resurgence of regional conflicts, with crises continuing in the Middle East and the South China Sea.
There will be a lack of consensus on how to battle climate change and on ways to create safeguards for the rapid introduction of AI. Tech bros, leveraging their unparalleled wealth and jaw-dropping arrogance, will further consolidate their control over elected politicians and the economy.
Finally, there may be a change of the guard by the time of the next G7 summit in Canada next summer, with familiar faces such as Justin Trudeau and maybe even Emmanuel Macron busy updating their LinkedIn pages.
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