Eastern Europe

How Zelenskyy emerged as the antithesis of Putin and proved you don’t need to be a strongman to be a great leader

By Michael Blake, University of Washington | – Whatever happens in the coming weeks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will go down as the face of Ukrainian resilience during the Russian invasion of his country. His response to the Russian invasion of his country has been widely praised, both at home and abroad. His speech to the […]

China

Would a “Cold” War Be the Best News Around? Ukraine, Taiwan, and Other Flashpoints in a New Age of Geopolitics

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been widely described as the beginning of a new cold war, much like the old one in both its cast of characters and ideological nature. “In the contest between democracy and autocracy, between sovereignty and subjugation, make no mistake — freedom will prevail,” President Biden asserted […]

Climate Crisis

EVs are Freedom Cars: When you Fill up your Car with Gasoline, you’re Helping Putin Destroy Ukraine

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Alex Mills writes that Russia produces 11 million barrels a day of petroleum and in 2021 exported 7.5 million barrels a day. That is about 11.5 percent of all the petroleum produced daily in the world. It is in part the income from those oil sales that helps Vladimir Putin […]

Donald Trump

Can the Republican Party shake its Putin Habit, as Pence takes on Trump?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s response to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s horrific invasion of Ukraine was to call Vlad the Invader a “genius.” A majority of Republicans seems to agree. Their idolization of the Russian martinet appears to be rooted in their perception of him as a white Christian nationalist. There were even cheers […]

Nonviolence

Ukraine: Nonviolent Resistance is a brave and often effective Response to Aggression

The Conversation

By Alexandre Christoyannopoulos | – Responses to the Russian invasion have been swift. Thousands of people both in Ukraine and abroad are enlisting to fight against the odds. Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 are being forcibly mobilised. An “international legion” is being formed from hundreds of non-Ukrainians volunteers. People across the […]

Climate Crisis

Russia’s war Crime in Targeting Nuclear Plant Reminds us Why we Should rush to Wind and Solar

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Russian tank shelling of the massive Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the city of Energodar, which set fire to the top three stories of a training building behind the complex, raised alarms about the possibility of a nuclear meltdown. At 6:20 AM on Friday Ukraine time, the blaze was extinguished […]

nuclear weapons

Worried about nuclear war? You can actually do something to prevent it

Frida Berrigan

By Frida Berrigan | – ( Waging Nonviolence ) – Ukraine is on fire. Russia is using cluster and thermobaric bombs, targetting civilians, killing children in its invasion of the second largest country in Europe. Russian citizens are protesting the war, risking brutal treatment to hold signs and public space. Ukrainian citizens are resisting with […]

Nuclear Energy

Military action in radioactive Chernobyl could be dangerous for people and the environment

The Conversation

By Timothy A. Mousseau, University of South Carolina | – The site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) exclusion zone that keeps people out. On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s reactor number four melted down as a result of human error, […]

Far Right

No Pasaran: Ukraine 2022 – Why We must Stand against Putin’s Fascism

John Feffer

Vladimir Putin is the Franco of today, and Ukraine must become the graveyard of Putinism. By John Feffer | – The last surviving member of the International Brigades that fought the fascists in Spain in the 1930s died last year at the age of 101. Josep Almudéver Mateu, born in France, remembered going into battle […]