russia Archives

Saturday

March 12, 2022

Kamala Harris laughs at a war

It’s nice to be prescient. On Thursday, in a column titled “Kamala Invades Poland,” I introduced the world to “cackle diplomacy.” “Silly partisan hyperbole!” I nearly heard as the social media-ites had their say. But then the vice president of the United States did me proud. Just a few hours after my column posted, there she was, holding a press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda. Some say the people who run our government sent Kamala Harris to Eastern Europe in order to give her a chance to shine in the sphere of international relations. Watch her performance and tell me what you think. “I am here, standing here. On the northern flank...on the eastern flank...talking about what we what we have in terms of the eastern flank and our NATO allies.

Friday

March 11, 2022

Tim Ogden

Peace and its consequences in Ukraine

It is now a matter of consensus that Vladimir Putin never intended to fight the type of war that now faces him in Ukraine. What was plainly meant to be a blitzkrieg-style assault has devolved into a war of attrition, with death, destruction and violence on a scale unseen in Europe since the disasters of the last century. It is quite plain that the Kremlin, despite its bluster, is aware of this. The Kyiv government's claims of Putin dismissing his generals and raving in fury at his security services are consistent with events on the battlefield; indeed, after two weeks of fighting, Russia has only managed to decisively claim one Ukrainian city.

Matt Purple

Foreign policy is not SimCity

History is relayed through anecdotes. And there's one anecdote about foreign policy in particular that keeps coming back to me. It was 2013 and President Barack Obama's advisors were weighing what to do about Syria. Dictator Bashar al-Assad was then waging a bloody civil war against an increasingly jihadist-dominated rebellion, destabilizing the Middle East and feeding a refugee crisis. Enter that ridiculous balloon John Kerry, then the secretary of state, who at a White House principals meeting stood up and began bloviating about the need to bomb the Assad regime. Kerry was interrupted in the midst of his JFK LARPing by General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Taylor Millard

Don’t buy Biden’s ‘Putin price hike’

The Putin price hike. That’s the line the Biden administration is using to absolve itself of blame for higher gas prices. “Russia is one of the three largest oil producers in the world,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a social media video meant to deflect criticism from President Joe Biden. “And the fact that they started this conflict, invaded a foreign country, and they are such a big producer of oil in the world is the reason why the global oil markets are disturbed and why gas prices are going up.” The administration banned Russian oil imports this week, with the House of Representatives approving a similar ban on Thursday.

Michael Warren Davis

Why won’t Pope Francis condemn Russia?

On February 25, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Pope Francis met with Aleksandr Avdeyev, Russia’s ambassador to the Holy See. Yet rather than summoning Mr. Avdeyev to the Vatican, Francis called at the Russian embassy, just two blocks from the Castel Sant’Angelo. The visit was a violation of diplomatic protocol. Heads of state don’t just pop ‘round to the local embassy. Over the next couple of days, it became clear that Francis wouldn’t be paying the same honor to Ukraine’s ambassador. Even more strikingly, Francis refused to condemn Russia for the attack. Vatican-watchers fumed. On February 28, the Vatican’s secretary of state released a video condemning the conflict “unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.

Peter Van Buren

Ukraine and the war for your mind

Deterrence works. Russia's nukes are the only thing keeping the US from full-out war in Ukraine just six months after retreating from Afghanistan. The unprecedented propaganda effort by Ukraine and its helpers in the American mass media to drag the US and NATO directly into the fight has failed — so far. But the struggle — the one for your mind space — is not over. To understand what follows, you have to wipe away a lot of bull being slung your way. Insanity is not the only explanation for Putin’s actions of the past few weeks.

Wednesday

March 9, 2022

Jonathan Bydlak

Sanctions on Russia will shake the world economy for years

The war in Ukraine will dominate the news for the foreseeable future. But while the bombings will eventually cease, the economic consequences for the world have just begun. That’s because in an era of increasing interconnectedness, economic impacts don’t stop at borders. Most attention has been focused on the immediate impacts of sanctions on Russia, and they are significant. In the past, sanctions have proven largely ineffective at punishing foreign enemies. President Barack Obama, for example, failed to use them effectively in 2014 during the last Ukrainian-Russian dispute. But this time, the actions taken against Russia were largely unprecedented, with even traditionally neutral countries like Switzerland and Sweden calling for restrictions that are “as big as they can be.

Tuesday

March 8, 2022

Cockburn

Republican hawks squawk at each other

Cockburn has never been much of a hawk, unless you count his begrudging deficit hawkery over the massive tab he ran up at his local bar. But many elected Republicans are very hawkish on foreign policy, supporting "peace through strength," as Ronald Reagan put it, as well as occasionally war through strength. So how are the GOP's highest-flying hawks handling Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Cockburn was surprised to find them divided. Nearly every Republican lawmaker (and Democrat for that matter) agrees that we need to throttle Russia with economic sanctions. It's on the question of whether the United States should implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine that the cracks begin to show.

Monday

March 7, 2022

Matt Purple

Vladimir Putin, deep statist

Vladimir Putin's brutality in Ukraine is only going to get worse. The Ukrainians have fought valiantly, far better than anyone expected, but then that only means the Russians will have to up the slaughter in the coming days. As for Putin, he's reportedly fuming over his army's setbacks, threatening reprisals, while hunkering down in — I'm not making this up — his "mountain lair" deep in the Urals. If that makes Putin sound like a Bond villain, then that's just one of the many images of him that's emerged in recent days (the most popular is Putin as Hitler). The seemingly insane nature of his Ukraine invasion has left observers grasping for a reference point. Is Putin addled by cabin fever? Under the sway of extremists? Mentally ill? Who is this Vladimir Putin anyway?

Bill Wirtz

What Erdogan is thinking about Ukraine

Turkey’s twentieth-century experience was very different from that of most European countries. During World War One, the late Ottoman Empire joined forces with Germany, a decision the sultans not only came to regret but that ultimately led to the fall of their monarchy. The Turkish War of Independence followed, touched off by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who transformed the Ottoman Empire into the secular Turkish Republic that still exists today. During World War Two, Turkey remained neutral, because of its previous experiences with joining a German military campaign, but also because it was in dire economic shape. In 1952, Turkey joined NATO, and has since been an ally of the West.

Bill Zeiser

Watch out for Ukrainian social media propaganda

Stop me if you’ve heard the one about the Ukrainian beauty queen who volunteered to fight the invading Russian forces. If you’ve been on social media these past few weeks, you’ve probably seen the striking photo of the woman clad in tactical gear and holding a rifle. “We are living in a materiel world, and I’m a materiel girl,” the stunner says to the viewer through her steely glare. Or the one about the Japanese ambassador to Ukraine kitted out in his ancestor’s samurai gear and ready to defend his adopted homeland? You’ve surely heard about the “Ghost of Kyiv,” a Ukrainian fighter pilot who has been terrorizing his Russian counterparts, accomplishing the feat — uncommon in contemporary air combat — of becoming an ace.

Sunday

March 6, 2022

Harry J. Kazianis

Putin will escalate

“I can’t tell you how this ends. All I can tell you is that I just hope millions of people don’t die, or that both Ukraine and Russia aren’t both destroyed in some way thanks to this war.” Those words, spoken to me on an encrypted smartphone app yesterday, are from a Ukrainian commander actively fighting Russian soldiers that I have known for years thanks to wargames I helped organize that brought together national experts, military officials, and policymakers from around the world.

Chadwick Moore

Rise of the dimwit vodka dumpers

Passive news absorbers across the nation haven’t been able to avoid this thing they heard about some guy named Poutine, who’s, like, Russia’s Orange Man, invading Ukraine, which is, like, a peaceful society of hunter-gatherers and supermodels who live harmoniously with nature, talk to animals, and invented Democracy. This is a super important, really bad thing. The Crane people have been forced to take up arms and defend their way of life. Now, Americans across social media are also stepping up to let you Cranes know they’re paying attention, they care, and they’re ready to strike back at the invaders. Yellow and blue are this season’s black square.

Friday

March 4, 2022

Josh Kaplan

Ukraine and the art of viral war

The sky is dull and gray, the sun obscured by clouds. The camera pans down past some desolate Soviet housing blocks. Some wintry, apocalyptic trees line a road. It could be Kyiv, it could be Bucharest, it could be any city where the residents liberally pepper their words with the -sky suffix. Suddenly, a flash of metal across the sky, a fighter plane roars into shot, then out again. The caption proudly declares, “This is the Ghost of Kyiv, the bravest fighter pilot in the Ukrainian Air Force. He has downed six Russian planes just today.” You don’t know that much about Ukrainian fighter pilots, but placed among a million other viral clips of heroic Ukrainians fighting against Goliath, you think it seems believable enough. You retweet it. You send it down group texts.

Grace Curley

Lindsey Graham unites the world

It was a beautiful moment of bipartisan unity when, left and right, American and European, young and old, united to call Lindsey Graham a moron. The South Carolina senator made headlines Thursday night after appearing on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox. He openly called for Vladimir Putin to be assassinated: How does this end? Somebody in Russia has to step up to the plate. Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there more successful Col. Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends, my friend, is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out! You would be doing your country a great service and the world a great service. Graham doubled down on his insanely dangerous comments on Twitter right after. Best to put this kind of stupidity in writing, in case there was any confusion.

Bill Wirtz

Ukraine won’t join the European Union any time soon

In the wake of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has renewed his country’s wish to join the European Union. This week, the European Parliament approved Ukraine’s application to join the EU with an overwhelming majority. But Ukraine will not join the European Union this year, and possibly not even in the next five years to come. The reasons for that lie within the structure of the EU. The closening ties between Brussels and Kyiv had been the reason for Ukraine’s revolution back in 2014. Then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych had rejected the EU-Ukraine association agreement, which tied both partners closer together, politically and economically.

Thursday

March 3, 2022

Slavoj Zizek

Putin’s Stalinist playbook

Vladimir Putin's actions have shocked many Western observers over the past few days. But his moves bear all the hallmarks of one of his predecessors: Joseph Stalin. Last Monday, the Russian Duma passed a direct appeal to Putin to recognize the Russian-controlled separatist states of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Russian president first said he would not immediately recognize the so-called republics. The reason for this was he wanted it to appear that when he finally did recognize them as independent republics, he was simply reacting to popular pressure from below. This is straight out of the Stalin playbook.

Peter Van Buren

Russia’s war is not a Trump redux

I hate going back, again, to Orwell, but since the world is intent on using Nineteen Eighty-Four as an instructional guide, I have no choice. So proles, take note: this week's Two Minutes Hate will be split between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. They apparently share the goal of destroying American democracy via the invasion of Ukraine. Something very sinister has happened in the American mind-space over the last few days. Ukraine, a country of little importance to the United States, suddenly became the sole focus of most media-consuming Americans. This was constructed to appear organic, but it is impossible not to imagine guiding hands behind the shift of every single media outlet to a single story told in a single way.

Leon Hadar

America’s long history of sitting out Russian invasions

By now, my colleagues in the media may have convinced you that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a “transformative” event, a challenge by a reactionary dictator to the “liberal international order,” if not an end to one historical epoch and the beginning of a new one. The world has turned upside down, nothing will again be the same, blah, blah, blah. When millennials make such apocalyptic observations, I can understand. Like Founding Father Thomas Paine, they assume that each day marks the “birthday of a new world.” But what about baby boomers like New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who were in high school in 1956 during the so-called Hungarian Revolution, which was very much like what is happening in Ukraine today?

Tim Ogden

Pro-Ukraine citizens clash with authorities in Georgia

Tbilisi, Georgia After one week of fighting, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has already caused far-reaching geopolitical consequences, most of which point to gross miscalculation from the Kremlin. Following an arguably hesitant start, the Western world has united to provide Ukraine with lethal and non-lethal aid, as well as economic and humanitarian support. In addition, despite Putin ostensibly launching his war to prevent Ukraine from becoming a NATO member and curtail the alliance's easterly expansion, Kyiv's relations with the West have ironically become closer. Both Sweden and Finland appear to be closer than ever to considering joining NATO.