Nataliya Gumenyuk writes: For years I have been reluctant to compare any dictator to Hitler, or any war to the second world war. The comparison, to me, seemed exaggerated, even vulgar. But what other analogy is there? With no reason, in an act of pure madness, an old-fashioned air assault has been inflicted on a neighbouring country. I said that to my Russian colleague, and tried very hard not to show how my voice was trembling. She asked for forgiveness…
Anne Applebaum: Dear God, calamity again! It was so peaceful, so serene; We had just begun to break the chains That bind our folk in slavery When halt! Once again the people’s blood Is streaming … The poem is called “Calamity Again.” The original version was written in Ukrainian, in 1859, and the author, Taras Shevchenko, was not speaking metaphorically when he wrote about slavery. Shevchenko was born into a family of serfs—slaves—on an estate in what is now central…
The Washington Post reports: China on Thursday denied backing Russia’s military assault in Ukraine as it trod a cautious line in response to a conflict that many Chinese analysts just days before were predicting wouldn’t happen. At a regular briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying downplayed the suggestion that Beijing was supporting Moscow behind the scenes. “As for American hints that Russia had China backing it up, I’m sure Russia would be pleased to hear it,” Hua said. “We…
A protest outside the Russian Embassy on Feb. 22, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Chris McGrath/Getty Images By Emily Channell-Justice, Harvard University and Jacob Lassin, Arizona State University As some Western observers have feared, Russian President Vladimir Putin has just proved that his aggression toward Ukraine was never really about NATO. In a speech on Feb. 21, 2022, Putin recognized the occupied territories in Ukraine of Donetsk and Luhansk and moved Russian forces into them. Putin’s speech showed that he has…
The Wall Street Journal reports: The European Union is planning to sanction Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the country’s Internet Research Agency, diplomats said, part of the first wave of measures that governments in Washington, Brussels and London say will be a coordinated package of fuller sanctions should Russia escalate military tensions in Ukraine. The EU sanctions listings, which are set to take force later Wednesday, and separate measures announced by the U.S. and the U.K. on Tuesday came…
By Arik Burakovsky, Tufts University Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine on Feb. 21, 2022. The invasion could lead to the biggest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Western leaders warn. But amid the mounting tensions, public opinion polls in Russia show that support for Putin is rising. The rally ‘round the flag effect of supporting political leadership during an international crisis will likely be short-lived. Historical data shows that diversionary wars — fighting abroad…
Politico reports: While Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine this week stress-tests the Biden administration, it’s also forcing Republicans to confront their own divisions. The GOP is all over the map politically, as Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to redraw his own boundaries. Former President Donald Trump privately has signaled a split with more isolationist voices from the MAGA wing of the party who have excused Russia’s aggression, who themselves are at odds with more establishment Republicans over how to confront Russian…
Judd Legum reports: Most people have probably never heard of the website Conservative Brief. It employs just three writers and it does not produce any original reporting. Nearly all of its articles are aggregations of Tweets, YouTube videos, or other media websites, presented with a far-right spin. Recent headlines include “More Damning Evidence Surfaces Against Hillary Clinton in Durham Probe,” and “Trump Gives Love To Mike Lindell, Showers Him With Praise For The Good He Has Done.” Conservative Brief has…
Politico reports: The North Carolina attorney general’s office says a constitutional prohibition on insurrectionists seeking federal office could be applied to GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn if a state board determines he aided or encouraged the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. In a late Monday court filing, state attorneys said a provision of the 14th Amendment — disqualifying insurrectionists from holding federal office — is not a defunct Civil War-era relic meant to apply only to former Confederates but…
The Guardian reports: Vladimir Putin has said that Russia will support the territorial claims of its proxy states in east Ukraine, dramatically increasing the likelihood of a larger war in the near future in what Joe Biden denounced as an attempt to carve out “a big chunk” of the country. “Who in the Lord’s name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries?” Biden said, announcing new sanctions on two Russian banks and sweeping measures to…
The Guardian reports: Biden thought he would be remembered as the pandemic president, but finds himself commanding the arsenal of democracy in what could become the biggest military assault in Europe since the second world war. The crisis escalated on Monday after Vladimir Putin recognised two breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine as independent entities, an apparent pretext for invasion. “Who in the Lord’s name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belonged…
Jon Lee Anderson writes: For fifteen years, Zabihullah Mujahid was the Tokyo Rose of the Taliban: a clandestine operative who called reporters to claim responsibility for his fighters’ attacks and to exult in their victories. Sometimes the victims were American soldiers or their coalition allies. Sometimes they were Afghan government troops. Often, civilians were killed. For reporters, Mujahid was a kind of phantom, a disembodied voice on the phone. No one ever saw his face, and, when one journalist claimed…
Inside Climate News reports: Black, Brown and Indigenous people have been systematically excluded from earth sciences, magnifying their exposure to the most severe impacts of climate change, said Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, lead author of a recent commentary in the journal Nature Geosciences. That adds to the burden of global warming that people of color already bear more heavily than other populations because the world for centuries has been “geographically delineated based on racism, and resultant slavery and colonialism,” Berhe said….
Ed Pilkington reports: Last September, Donald Trump released a statement through his Save America website. “It is my great honor to endorse a true warrior,” he proclaimed, “a patriot who has fought for our country, who was willing to say what few others had the courage to say, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement.” Former US presidents usually reserve their most gushing praise – replete with Capital Letters – for global allies or people they are promoting for high…
Shaun Walker reports: Sitting alone at a desk in a grand, columned Kremlin room, Vladimir Putin looked across an expanse of parquet floor at his security council and asked if anyone wished to express an alternative opinion. He was met with silence. A few hours later, the Russian president appeared on state television to give an angry, rambling lecture about Ukraine, a country that in Putin’s telling had become “a colony with a puppet regime”, and had no historical right…
Timothy Snyder writes: Vladimir Putin likes to associate today’s Russian Federation with the old Russian empire, and in one sense he is right. The Russian empire was the most repressive state of its era, with the most refined state police: the Okhrana. Russian revolutionaries, the men and women who would establish the Soviet state, were educated by its methods. It did not simply hunt them down; it ensnared them, often without their knowledge, in a complicated dance of incriminating their…