Eastern Europe

By Feras Abu-Helal | – ( Middle East Monitor) – It is probably true to say that most Arabs sympathise with the people of Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion of their country. This is due in large part to Russian support for Bashar Al-Assad’s brutal regime in Syria, and the innate sympathy with […]

Russia

Holy wars: How a cathedral of guns and glory symbolizes Putin’s Russia

The Conversation

By Lena Surzhko Harned | Assistant Teaching Professor of Political Science, Penn State | – ( The Conversation ) – A curious new church was dedicated on the outskirts of Moscow in June 2020: The Main Church of the Russian Armed Forces. The massive, khaki-colored cathedral in a military theme park celebrates Russian might. It […]

Featured

The Night Biden became President: Pledges Crippling Sanctions on Russia, bans Flights, for Ukraine Aggression

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Foreign policy abruptly hijacked President Biden’s State of the Union Address Tuesday night, making the occasion less partisan that it might otherwise have been. Pundits were always declaring that Donald Trump’s response to some crisis was “the day he became president.” They made themselves look a little silly, though, since […]

Joe Biden

Turkey will Block Certain Russian Warships from Bosphorus, but still Seeks Neutrality on Ukraine War

Global Voices

By Lamiya Adilgizi | – ( Globalvoices.org ) – Over the last week, nations and corporations all over the world have announced extensive economic and political sanctions against Russia, targeting the finance, energy, transport, technology, and visa sectors. A number of Russian banks have been removed from the SWIFT messaging system. Russia’s Central Bank assets […]

Germany

Could the G7 Wealthy Countries Really Boycott Russian Petroleum?

The Conversation

By Amy Myers Jaffe | – One option the U.S. and other nations have for ratcheting up pressure on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine is reducing their Russian energy purchases. U.K. Foreign Minister Liz Truss has proposed that the G7 nations – the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – […]

Joe Biden

What advice would JFK have for President Biden about Putin and Ukraine?

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Dear Mr. President: I send greetings from the other side — and no, I don’t mean the other side of the aisle. I refer to the place where old politicians go to make amends for their sins. Apart from our shared Catholicism and affinity for sunglasses, I suspect you and I […]

Holocaust

Putin’s “Nazi” pretext for his Brutal Invasion of Ukraine Insults the Memory of Holocaust Victims

H. Scott Prosterman

“No monument stands over Babi Yar . . .,” so begins a tragic poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko; “only a step cliff like the rudest headstone . . . “* That is the site near Kiev where 33,000 Jews were murdered by Nazi death squads (Einsatzgruppen) on September 29-30, 1941. No genocide has occurred within Ukraine […]

NATO

Ordinary Russians are already feeling the economic pain of sanctions over Ukraine invasion

The Conversation

By Peter Rutland | – The daily life of ordinary Russians – not just the country’s political elite or super rich oligarchs – is already being impacted by economic measures imposed by the international community in response to the invasion of Ukraine. As a scholar of Russia’s political economy, I was surprised by the speed […]

Featured

Americans Shocked to See Ukrainians treated Like Iraqis even though they are White (Not the Onion)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some European and American commentators on Russia’s war against Ukraine have covered themselves in shame by implying that because Ukrainians are “European” or “civilized” it is harder to see them hit by artillery and made refugees than it had been with regard to Iraqis or Syrians. While in 2015 Syrians […]