The Azov movement insists it is not neo-Nazi, yet its members have been captured giving Hitler salutes and being virulently anti-Semitic. A trip to the group’s social center in Kiev reveals its heart of darkness
Paul Robinson: Land of the Absurd
Ukraine bans its Eurovision entrant’. It’s the kind of line an absurdist novelist might come up with.
Edward Lozansky: Are we sleepwalking into nuclear disaster?
If anyone needed proof that former Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, and former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz were right when they recently wrote in Politico that the U.S. and Russia are sleepwalking toward nuclear disaster, it came last week during Vladimir Putin’s annual address to the Russian parliament.
Fred Weir: When Putin goes, will Putinism persist? Russians debate.
When the Kremlin’s ex-chief ideologist speaks, people listen. Last week, he said that the governmental structure that Putin built would outlive the man who built it. Now Russians are arguing over what “Putinism” is.
Kimberley Strassel: Schiffting to Phase 2 of Collusion
Conspiracy theorists look for something new, anticipating a Mueller letdown.
Paul Pillar: The Trump Administration’s Anti-Iran Theatrics Failed in Warsaw
The Warsaw conference leaves the world with the same old stuff regarding the campaign of maximum hostility toward Iran and the Trump administration’s lining up behind a few regional rivals of Iran even when this means lining up against the rest of the world.
Lev Golinkin: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are on the March in Ukraine
“Nationalism is exactly what Ukraine needs,” proclaimed a New Republic article by Anne Applebaum, whose celebration of nationalism came out right around the time that Ukraine greenlit the formation of white supremacist paramilitaries. A mere four months after Applebaum’s essay, Newsweek ran an article titled “Ukrainian nationalist volunteers committing ‘ISIS-style war crimes.”
Martin Schulz and Achim Post: SPD European politicians demand new Ostpolitik
As the spectre of a new nuclear arms race is back in Europe, leading European politicians of the SPD demand a relaunch of German and European security policy…
Paul Robinson: Book Review: Moscow Rules
Keir Giles of Chatham House in the United Kingdom wants to enlighten us about Russia…
Gordon Bardos: Spinning Russia in the Balkans
Bismarck had warned at the close of the Congress of Berlin in 1878 that the next war in Europe would probably result from “some damn foolish thing in the Balkans.” If the EU, the U.S. and Russia do not begin handling their interactions in the Balkans more seriously, we may yet again remember Bismarck’s prescient warning, with even more horrible regret.
Dr. Theodore Postol: Russia Has a Case. As Does America. So Save the Nuclear Treaty.
Contention over the I.N.F. missile control treaty is complicated by suspicions on both sides that the other has broken its rules.
Amb. Chas W. Freeman: Remarks to the St. Petersburg, Florida Conference on World Affairs
No one in the United States now seems prepared to defend either China or Russia against the charge that they, not we, are responsible for our current national dysfunction and malaise. After all, we’re the best, Russia’s a rogue, and China’s an unfair competitor. Our patriotism is admirable, theirs is malign.
Gordon Hahn: The End of Russia’s Occidental Era (For Now)
Three almost uninterrupted centuries of Russian self-comparison, self-assessment, self-identification with the West and ever deeper involvement in the intra-Western geopolitical and imperial competition have come to an end.
Stephen F. Cohen: How the Russiagate Investigation Is Sovietizing American Politics
“Collusion,” “contacts,” selective prosecutions, coup plotting, and media taboos recall repressive Soviet practices.
AP: Putin warns new Russian weapons will target US if it deploys missiles to Europe
Russian President Vladimir Putin sternly warned the United States against deploying new missiles in Europe, saying Wednesday that Russia will retaliate by fielding new weapons that will take just as little time to reach their targets.
Mikhail Gorbachev: A Nuclear Arms Race Will Produce No Winners
Despite everything, it is still in our power to avoid nuclear confrontation.
Tucker Carlson: Why Are These Professional War Peddlers Still Around?
Pundits like Max Boot and Bill Kristol got everything after 9/11 wrong but are still considered “experts.”
Paul Robinson: Three Russias
This week, the American press, and in particular the New York Times, has provided us with three contrasting images of Russia. Let’s take a look at each in turn.
Andrew C. McCarthy: Collusion: The Criminalization of Policy Disputes
The word covers every contact between anyone connected to Trump and anyone connected to Russia, with no need to show that a crime was committed.
Frida Berrigan: 25 Years Jail-time for Protecting the Planet?
The Kings Bay 7 were trying to put an end to the threat of nuclear war. Now they face a quarter-century behind bars.