The attack on the Russian embassy in Kiev in the early hours of Saturday morning took place as preparations were under way to open a polling station in the Ukrainian capital for Russia’s imminent parliamentary elections.
Walter Kirn: Illiberal Values
If Trump’s presidency is a national emergency and opposing it the equivalent of war—though I prefer sticking with the political process—then there isn’t much room for liberals to be liberal in the ways I found so attractive as a boy.
We Have to Deal With Putin (Patrick Buchanan)
Putin supported the U.S. in Afghanistan, backed our nuclear deal with Iran, and signed on to John Kerry’s plan have us ensure a cease fire in Syria and go hunting together for ISIS and al-Qaida terrorists. Still, Putin committed “aggression” in Ukraine, we are told. But was that really aggression, or reflexive strategic reaction?
Jonathan Granoff: Why Putin and Trump Should Meet
Putin and Trump have the capacity and responsibility to cooperate to make sure we are not humanity’s last generation.
PODCAST: Stephen F. Cohen Talks Russia, Israel, and Middle East Diplomacy on Steele and Unger
ACEWA Board Member and Professor Emeritus Stephen F. Cohen spoke with Rick Unger and observed that “Russia is on the march diplomatically,” explained Putin’s popularity in Israel, and noted that Russia’s return as a player in Middle East politics is a “new and important story” that is largely being overlooked by the US mainstream media.
Peter van Buren: The establishment blob is looking a lot like the new McCarthyism.
An answer was needed, so one was created: the Russians.
PODCAST: The Origins of the Donbas War From Below (Sean’s Russia Blog)
Serhiy Kudelia is an Assistant Professor of political science at Baylor University where he specializes in state formation, civil war, and political violence in the post-communist world. His most recent article is the “Donbas Rift” first published in Russian in the journal Kontrapunkt and in English in Russian Politics and Law.
Doug Bandow: Would You Send Your Son or Daughter to Die for Montenegro?
The U.S. government should risk its citizens’ lives and squander their wealth only to protect their nation, not to conduct grand foreign crusades, even for Montenegro.
Origins of the War in Donbass (Paul Robinson)
If the Kiev government is right, and the war was primarily the result of Russian aggression, then the solution lies in pressuring Russia. If, however, the war was mainly a product of local grievances, then the solution must involve addressing those grievances. That in turn requires Kiev to take the rebels’ demands seriously and negotiate with them.
Stephen F. Cohen Debates Max Boot on CNN
Perhaps the defining trait of neoconservatives like Max Boot is that they – for whatever reason – feel free to opine on subjects about which they know little, if anything. Having no knowledge of history, cheap polemicists like Boot resort to ad hominem attacks when confronted by serious scholars like Cohen while cable news anchors sit by and scoff. – Editor
Interview With Danish Journalist Concerning Attacks on Journalists and Decline in Media Freedom in Ukraine
Dr. Ivan Katchanovski asks: Is the attack on Inter a sign that Ukrainian right-wing nationalists are increasingly trying to influence the agenda of the news media, or how would you interpret it? Jyllands-Posten: This attack on the Inter TV channel is the latest in a series of such attacks on Inter, other TV channels, and newspapers by far right organizations, such as the Right sector, Svoboda, and the Azov regiment of the National Guard, after the Euromaidan.
Norman Solomon: GOP and Corporate Dems Gain When Democrats Run Against Putin
Hammering on Russia is a losing strategy for progressives as most Americans care about economic issues and it is the Republicans and corporate Democrats who stand to gain, argues Norman Solomon
IMF Approves $1 Billion Loan To Ukraine (IMF STATEMENT)
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the second review of Ukraine’s economic program…The completion of this review enables the disbursement of about US$ 1 billion, which would bring total disbursements under the arrangement to about US$7.62 billion…the Executive Board approved waivers for the nonobservance of performance criteria related to net international reserves, non-accumulation of external payments arrears and non-introduction of new exchange restrictions.
Jon Basil Utley: What Everyone Seemed to Ignore in Helsinki
The Washington establishment came to their own conclusions about Russia and NATO—but this is what they missed.
PODCAST: Hawks Again Thwart Yet Another Chance to Diminish the New Cold War in Syria and Ukraine? (Stephen F. Cohen)
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments are at TheNation.com.) Tonight’s focus is on two possible diplomatic breakthroughs, regarding Syria and Ukraine, that might end or substantially reduce the US-Russian proxy wars in those countries and thus the new Cold War itself.
Lyle J. Goldstein: How Dangerous Is Putin’s Russia?
For the most part, those writing about Russia in the American media have no special training in Russia (language, history, etc.), nor any advanced schooling in the complexities of diplomacy either. They, therefore, consistently fail to understand that some stolen emails constitute a minute and even trivial issue when compared with a nuclear arms rivalry that will cost both countries trillions of dollars and could also pave the road to global apocalypse.
No one is asking Clinton or Trump about the No. 1 threat to security (Katrina vanden Heuvel)
In an election dominated by spectacle and confrontation, many policy issues have fallen by the wayside. But as the nuclear peril intensifies, we desperately need to have a real debate about issues such as the first use of nuclear weapons, taking our nuclear arsenal off hair-trigger alert, and at last ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty…
Paul Saunders: U.S.-Russia Summitry Is at Center Stage Again
Vladimir Putin may well have persuaded himself that meaningful cooperation with America is impossible. Yet for Russia, like for the United States, there are profound differences between a lack of meaningful cooperation and a reflexively hostile relationship in which each government is actively working to undermine the other’s interests and objectives
3 Nuclear-Weapons Programs President Obama Should Kill (Will Saetren)
Rather than tailoring the next generation of nuclear deterrence to geopolitical realities, the United States is replacing its massive nuclear arsenal on a one-for-one basis as if the Cold War never ended.
Paul Robinson: Resilient Russia
There is a particular breed of Russia watcher who likes to predict the country’s imminent collapse.