American Committee for US-Russia Accord

Last month, I spent eight days in hospital in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya, about 20 miles north of the front line, suffering from broken ribs and a punctured lung. This might sound dramatic and admirable if it was the result of the war; but I am afraid that I simply slipped and fell.

This is not a research technique I would recommend, but it did provide an unusual vantage point from which to view the conflict. My enforced stay offered the chance to observe the Russian air campaign against one Ukrainian city, and to have long conversations with nurses and fellow patients.

In the fateful year of 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution shook Russia and forever changed the world. Its impact left an indelible mark not only on the political history of the 20th century, but also on art, culture, film, and literature.

It is time for the Biden administration to level with the American people about the Ukraine war.

For more than a year, the White House has painted for the public a rosy picture of battlefield and strategic success. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia,” President Biden proclaimed during his visit to Kyiv in February. “We believe that we can win — they [the Ukrainians] can win if they have the right equipment, the right support,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

While the long-term results of the People’s Republic of China’s diplomatic outreach into both the Middle East and Ukraine remain unknown, it is apparent that the foreign policy establishment in Washington DC was taken aback by the speed at which Beijing’s reputation is rising. They shouldn’t be.

Finland has officially entered NATO, almost exactly 75 years after declaring its policy of neutrality. Some 78% of the population supported the move, but this was a recent development. In 2017, that figure stood at only 21%. The newfound Atlanticist fervour has been spearheaded by outgoing Social Democratic Prime Minister Sanna Marin, whose status as the world’s youngest Prime Minister and penchant for clubbing in Helsinki had already attracted international attention, netting her a luminous profile in British Vogue.

A year into the Ukrainian war, the continuation of the already-extensive NATO support now focuses on whether to provide military aircraft. Poland has agreed to transfer aircraft; others have signaled their willingness to do so as well. NATO leaders have touted their substantial military support to Ukraine as evidence the alliance remains integral to European security. In truth, NATO largesse unmasks a hollow force.

Western sanctions have damaged Russia’s economy, but they have been decidedly less effective than Washington’s boasts would imply.

Russia’s GDP, when measured in PPP ($3.74 trillion in 2013, $4.81 trillion in 2021), is closer to Germany’s ($3.63 trillion in 2013, $4.85 trillion in 2021) than Italy’s ($2.19 trillion in 2013, $2.74 trillion in 2021). This is a crucial distinction, and it is both puzzling and troubling that so many continue to parrot the Russia-Italy comparison.

Even without Crimea and the Donbas, Ukraine continues to contain a large minority of Russians and of Russian-speaking Ukrainians heavily intermarried with Russians; and as I found during a stay in the mainly Russian-speaking southern city of Zaporizhia, while these are now bitterly hostile to the Kremlin and the Russian armed forces, many in private are not at all happy with portrayals of Russians as a whole as racially inferior savages, nor with Ukrainian state attempts to obliterate Russian language and culture in Ukraine.

This approach by the Ukrainian state also obviously makes it quite impossible to make any sort of appeal to the population of Crimea and the eastern Donbas to support a return to Ukrainian rule.

Amid rampant corruption in Kiev and as US troops gather at the Ukrainian border, does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict?

The United States and NATO are doubling down on their strategy of military assistance to Kyiv, believing that Ukraine can win the war. The recent decision to send Abrams tanks and longer-range missiles highlights the dramatic escalation.

No matter how much the defenders of the militaristic status quo have tried to relegate Daniel Ellsberg to the past, he has insisted on being present – with a vast reservoir of knowledge, an awesome intellect, deep compassion and commitment to nonviolent resistance – challenging systems of mass murder that go by other names.

Daniel Ellsberg — the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who has been an inspiring activist for peace since the early 1970s — recently wrote a public letter disclosing that he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, with a prognosis that he has only three to six months to live.

In mid-March, Joachim Schuster, Member of the European Parliament, and I sat down to discuss topics ranging from German policy toward Ukraine; the war’s effect on the German economy; the Chinese peace proposal, among other topics.

In Brussels, Schuster serves as a vice chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) group and is a member of its Committee on International Trade. He has served in the European Parliament since 2014. – James W. Carden [Read more…] about ACURA Q&A: Joachim Schuster, MEP: A View from the European Parliament

Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University joins Scott Horton to discuss the war in Ukraine.