Russia

( 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 […]

Authoritarianism

Chekhov’s Pistol: or, Putin’s All-Encompassing Security State

Richard Foltz

Montreal (Special to Informed Comment) – Anton Chekhov famously advised young playwrights that “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.” For the past twenty years Vladimir Putin—a deeply paranoid megalomaniac who has by now completely isolated himself from his own […]

Russia

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: A New Cold War?

The Conversation

By Jaro Bilocerkowycz | – In a very real sense, the Russian full-scale invasion places Ukraine at the center of a geopolitical struggle reminiscent of the Cold War days when Germany and its capital city Berlin were split in two by a wall dividing Western democracy and Russian communism. In fact, as Ukrainian scholar Yevhen […]

Featured

What can we Learn about Ukraine’s Future from Israel’s Campaigns in Lebanon?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I’ve been thinking about what the Russian invasion and attempted occupation of Ukraine is like in recent history, and one analogy that might be good to think with is Israel in Lebanon. Putin seems to hope that the Ukraine is like Palestine, which the Israelis have successfully kept subdued even […]

Antisemitism

Why Putin’s claim to rid Ukraine of Nazis is especially Absurd given its History

The Conversation

By Jeffrey Veidlinger | – Russian President Vladimir Putin justifies his war on Ukraine as a peacekeeping mission, a “denazification” of the country. In his address to the Russian people on Feb. 24, 2022, Putin said the purpose was to “protect people” who had been “subjected to bullying and genocide … for the last eight […]

Donald Trump

The Republican Party Persecuted US Leftists for tilting to Moscow but Makes Excuses for Putin-Loving Trump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s fawning admiration of Vladimir Putin is well known, but it has often been brushed off as a quirk. We should have known how dangerous Putin was when he praised Trump as “impressive.” Trump is impressive the way spoiled butter left out too long is, rancid and foul-smelling. Now Trump […]