Russia's attack on Ukraine confirms the warnings of a mafia-like power structure in Moscow, which is bringing about a conflict with the West in order to maintain its power. What is unexpected is the extent to which Moscow's power elite has escalated into a radical nationalist and militaristic narrative in which Ukraine is only the first victim.

• Hannes Adomeit and Joachim Krause analyse in "The new (Cold?) War. The Russian ultimatum of December and the consequences for the Western alliance" Russia's increasingly radicalised goals, the misconceptions of Western Russia policy and the possible consequences of a new Cold War for the international order.
• John Lough deals in his contribution "Germany's Russia problem" critical of Germany's Russia policy in recent decades.
• The contribution "What a military alliance between Russia and China would mean for NATO" from Rainer Meyer zum Felde analyses the growing rapprochement between Russia and China and its security policy consequences for Europe.
• In "Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of nuclear deterrence" deals with Brian Carlson with Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of strategic nuclear weapons and the consequences for international security.

The three Brief analyses in the current issue:

• The brief analysis of Minna Ålander and Michael Paul, "Finland and Sweden move closer to NATO. Effects of Russian war policy in the High North"analyses the effects of current Russian policy in the Baltic Sea region.
• The brief analysis of Heribert Dieter, "AUKUS and the structural changes in the security situation in the Indo-Pacific region"The report deals with the fundamental change in the security situation in the Indo-Pacific region and its repercussions for European security.
• The brief analysis of Gerlinde Groitl, "Strategic competition and system rivalry: US China policy under President Joe Biden in his first year in office", looks at the USA's China policy one year after Joe Biden took office.

These contributions are supplemented by a Documentation sectionthe presentation of the results of various international strategic studies and several Book reviews.

The Press Release to the current issue of SIRIUS you will find HERE.

Since the beginning of 2022, all articles from SIRIUS have been available online through the Open Access licence About the publisher De Greyter Brill HERE freely available.