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There are few countries in Europe that don’t have a problem with the far-right. But for Ukraine, where political stability is tenuous, the defiance and impunity of ultra-nationalist groups pose an acute concern.

Cohen holds that it is crucial for world peace that America seek accommodation with Russia rather than continue the policy of encirclement.

The U.S., its allies and Russia are caught in a dangerous policy paralysis that could lead—most likely by mistake or miscalculation—to a military confrontation and potentially the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in nearly 74 years.

…I accept the intelligence agencies’ conclusion, echoed by Mueller, that Russia was behind the hacking of Democratic email accounts. Nevertheless, there is a big difference between (a) accepting an intelligence conclusion based on probabilities, and (b) proving a key fact beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal case.

It is all too likely that the relatively minor threat of “foreign meddling” will be used not to hinder the spread of “fake news” but to suppress unwelcome information and viewpoints that diverge from the mainstream. 

… in order to engage in diplomacy, even foes must show some respect for one another. As we have seen in recent years, the extremes of American voluntarism have made it impossible for such respect to be accorded. This is obvious in the case of the U.S. treatment of Russia (an absence of respect that long precedes the allegations of Russia-gate), but America is by no means unique. Russia’s leadership can be equally Machiavellian, as can France’s, England’s, and so on. Tit-for-tat is an endless game. The question is how to end it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It has the makings of a new Cold War, or worse.

Q:The current front-runner to be elected Ukraine’s next president is Yulia Tymoshenko…What should we think of her?

A: She’s just an opportunist populist

The New Year has brought a torrent of ever more frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship—why mince words and call it “collusion”?—with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

Adam Twardowski takes umbrage at arguments that I and others have made that NATO’s behavior over the past two decades has exacerbated tensions with Russia. He begins his rebuttal with a drive-by smear that is increasingly in vogue among neoconservatives, dismissing such arguments as coming from “Russia’s apologists.”  Elsewhere in the piece, he resorts to the even uglier smear of NATO critics as “Putin’s apologists.”

On July 12, at 18:00, the Brussels Press Club Europe will screen the investigative reporting cum documentary by Andrei Nekrasov which puts in question the story underpinning the 2012 US law known as the Magnitsky Act.

Ukraine’s prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk has challenged president Petro Poroshenko to “back me or sack me”, saying decisive action is the only way out of the country’s month-long political crisis that risks triggering early elections and derailing pro-western reforms.

…a country which appears to be unable to govern itself is hardly the exemplar and all-powerful state suitable to govern the rest of the world.

Official Washington is so obsessed with the hyped Russia-gate allegations that it isn’t picking up on dire warnings from Russia that continued U.S. military interference in Syria won’t be tolerated, as Gilbert Doctorow notes.

WASHINGTON — In the fight against the Islamic State group, members of Congress talk tough against extremism, but many want to run for cover when it comes to voting on new war powers to fight the militants, preferring to let the president own the battle.

As a top propaganda outlet pushing the New Cold War, The New York Times paints life in Russia in the darkest hues, but this one-sided depiction misses the reality of the increasingly vibrant country that Gilbert Doctorow sees.

We do not have today an ideological divide driving the competition of these two powers, but we do have heightened and currently malicious or malignant competitiveness that can run amok. The objective is to agree on national interests of the sides, a polite way of saying the unspeakable in American politics, “spheres of influence.”

Princeton and NYU Professor Emeritus Stephen F. Cohen is increasingly alarmed that as Washington and Moscow drift toward military conflict, the US political-media establishment remains obsessed with “Russiagate”—allegations that Russian President Putin ordered the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 to abet Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and that Trump’s associates, possibly the new president himself, “colluded” in this “hijacking of American democracy.” No actual evidence has ever been made public regarding either the purported hacking or the collusion.

Another U.S. military strike inside Syria — this time, shooting down a Syrian bomber — has escalated tensions with Russia, even opening the possibility that Russian anti-aircraft missiles will target U.S. warplanes, reports Gilbert Doctorow.

As Americans are told to be very scared of a new (and old) enemy – Russia – a more complex reality exists on the ground there, a proud and determined people, as Gilbert Doctorow witnessed at an Immortal Regiment march.