Analysis

PART I: After Hubris, Comes Nemesis

The scene was downtown Tbilisi. The year 2005. And the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush proclaimed that before the winds of freedom blew from Baghdad to Beirut,  it was Georgia’s Rose Revolution  that inspired freedom-loving folks across the region. The president’s bouts of messianic fervor were imbued with religious and philosophical undertones.  With a spirit of Christian militancy, Mr. Bush espoused a teleological determinism that freedom would one day guide Georgia to its emancipation from Russian captivity.  However, what stuck in the collective psyche of Georgian society since the president’s visit, was not the ideological and philosophic underpinnings of his speech, but a more simplistic one-liner: “ Georgia is a beacon of liberty for this region and the world”.   [Read more…] about ACURA Exclusive: Lasha Kasradze: From Promise to Punishment: How Washington Turned on The Republic of Georgia

If the U.S. Senate wants to avoid another tragic crisis like Ukraine along Russia’s periphery, it needs to stop encouraging Moscow’s neighbors into unnecessarily confrontational relationships with Russia.

Richard Sakwa has for many years been one of the most distinguished and insightful observers of relations between the West and Russia, and one of the leading critics of Western policy. In this talk with Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, Sakwa discusses his book, The Culture of the Second Cold War (Anthem 2025). The book examines the cultural-political trends and inheritances that underlie the new version of a struggle that we thought we had put behind us in 1989. Sakwa describes both the continuities from the first Cold War and the ways in which new technologies have reshaped strategies and attitudes.

Most of the peace plan for Ukraine now sketched out by the Trump administration is not new, is based on common sense, and has indeed already been tacitly accepted by Kyiv.

WWII was a war of survival for Russia. And so Xi’s invitation is of immense significance, especially now because this is the 80th anniversary. With each anniversary of the great patriotic war, there are fewer and fewer veterans of the war left.

The latest warning from the EU High Representative on foreign policy Kaja Kallas — implying consequences for the member and candidate states if their leaders attend Moscow’s Victory Day parade on May 9 (dedicated to the defeat of the Nazi Germany in the WWII) — is a stark reminder of how the Union is dangerously overstepping its boundaries.

While Kallas did not threaten any specific punishments if her warning is ignored, she said any participation in Moscow’s parade would “not be taken lightly” by the EU, suggesting diplomatic or political repercussions against dissenting countries.

Dr. Roberts is one of the critical western historians who also dares to speak his mind when it comes the War in Ukraine…

In 1997, veteran U.S. diplomat George Kennan stated that ‘expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-Cold War era’. Twenty-eight years later, who would say he was wrong?

Fitzpatrick traveled the frontline with Ukraine’s National Guard Artillery and Third Assault Brigade. The Third Assault Brigade is made up of Azov Special Operations soldiers and is commanded by Andriy Biletsky, the founder of the Azov movement, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi group. He previously declared himself a “White Ruler.” His vision for Ukraine includes dissolving the country’s democracy and capitalist economy in favor of national socialism.

More than three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Americans remain divided along partisan lines in their views of the conflict, as well as in their attitudes toward NATO and perceptions of Russia.

President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States could walk away from the negotiating table to end the Russia-Ukraine war, echoing warnings from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The Trump administration has warned that if there is not an early agreement on an end to the war in Ukraine, the US will “walk away” from the peace process. In Trump’s words: “Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass”. This leads to some obvious questions: which side will Trump and his team blame for obstruction? What if Trump sees both as to blame? And what does “walking away” actually mean?

Just The News has exclusively obtained and released nearly 700 pages of declassified FBI documents from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, following President Trump’s order and FBI Director Kash Patel’s delivery to Congress.

https://www.theohiopressnetwork.com/news/us/breaking-read-the-russia-collusion-memos-president-trump-declassified-and-fbi-director-patel-handed-to/article_050ffa82-7273-4874-b8b1-aab036cba2ad.html

Johnathan Mahler is undeniably a successful writer. But with his latest offering for the New York Times Magazine, ‘How the G.O.P. Fell in Love With Putin’s Russia,’ he shows himself to be woefully out of his depth. Worse, his thesis, that Trump has embarked on a deeply un-American love affair with alien, authoritarian, far-Right Russia, is deeply unoriginal.

A continued rearguard defence by Europe’s leaders to block any proposed concession to Moscow, will continue to make it difficult for Trump to land a meaningful peace deal for Ukraine.

There is still reason for optimism that the Trump administration can bring the war in Ukraine to a diplomatic end. But insubstantial promises of a fast, smooth sailing solution have splintered against the solidity of reality. Campaign promises of a day became goals of a hundred. As the hundredth day appears on the horizon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the U.S. is still far from securing a diplomatic solution and that there is no guarantee that there will be one.

Last month marked 40 years since Mikhail Gorbachev was selected as the eighth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union following the death of Konstantin Chernenko. To mark the anniversary of Gorbachev’s coming to power, ACURA brought together Amb. Jack Matlock, Katrina vanden Heuvel, and Geoffrey Roberts for a panel moderated by David Speedie.

In an interview with David Frost 25 years ago, Putin said “I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe.”

On the question of an early temporary ceasefire in Ukraine, the Trump administration might be described as being wrong for the right reasons, and the Putin administration as right for the wrong reasons.

Kaja Kallas has long opposed efforts to de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine, declaring last December that she and her allies would do ‘whatever it takes’ to crush the invading army. She was recently echoed by the Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen, who suggested that ‘peace in Ukraine is actually more dangerous than war’. Last month, when negotiators raised the possibility of lifting certain sanctions to end hostilities in the Black Sea, the European Commission spokesperson on foreign affairs, Anitta Hipper, affirmed that ‘Unconditional withdrawal of all Russian military forces from the entire territory of Ukraine would be one of the main preconditions’.