Russia

Tuesday

Charles Lipson

Russia’s war on Ukraine: the lessons so far

The sheer complexity – and horror – of Russia’s war on Ukraine makes it difficult to distil the essential points. To take only one example, the battlefront north of Kiev, where the Russian convoy is stalled, is significantly different from that along the Black Sea, where Russian forces from Crimea have made substantial progress. A third front, in the east, is consolidating in Russia’s favour, though the fight was much harder and longer than Moscow expected. Amid this complexity, it is important to summarise what we know so far: 1. Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine appears to be the most catastrophic strategic mistake since the end of the Cold War and by far the most dangerous.

Mary Dejevsky

How close is Russia to collapse?

Russia is now as closed off to the world as the Soviet Union was before Mikhail Gorbachev made his first tentative steps towards glasnost more than 40 years ago. Pretty much all the progress that post-Soviet Russia had made towards becoming a 'normal' country has been reversed within the space of two weeks. Vladimir Putin’s presumed legacy – of stability, predictability and hugely improved living standards for the vast majority of Russians – is vanishing before their eyes. In recent days, Netflix and TikTok have joined what had already become a mass western boycott of Russia. American Express followed Barclaycard and Mastercard in leaving the Russian market.

Monday

Matt Purple

Vladimir Putin, deep statist

From our US edition

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

From our US edition

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.

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Bill Zeiser

Watch out for Ukrainian social media propaganda

From our US edition

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.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson is operating in a new political reality

Boris Johnson is attempting to carve out a role for himself as the figure who can lead the West in its response to the invasion of Ukraine. Over the weekend, the Prime Minister penned an article for the New York Times – in which he set out his 'six-point plan' to defeat Putin. The points are closer to general principles than firm action. They include forming an 'international humanitarian coalition' for Ukraine and resisting Russia's 'creeping normalisation' of its actions.  Russia's decision to launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine has certainly stopped all talk of an imminent confidence vote in the Prime Minister over partygate Today Johnson will attempt to show he can be the mobiliser when he hosts Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Dutch PM Mark Rutte.

Sam Leith

Remember the Russians who will really suffer from sanctions

When I was in Russia in the very early 1990s, there was a generic figure who seemed to stand at the entrance to every metro station: an ancient babushka in a headscarf and tatty coat, face creased with age and weather, holding out a flimsy plastic bag rolled into a little triangle, begging for kopeks. The collapse of communism had its winners and its losers – and these old women were the losers. The 'social umbrella' of the necrotic Soviet system may have provided its pensioners with a miserable existence, as a local explained it to me, but it had provided; and these women, having discovered that freedom is all very well but you can’t buy food with it, could be forgiven for pining for Uncle Joe and his grey-hatted successors.

Joanna Rossiter

The trouble with boycotting Russian food

As the war in Ukraine worsens, the horrific scenes filling our screens have prompted a visceral reaction from the British public: 78 per cent now support Russian sanctions – up from 61 per cent in late February. Economic sanctions have undoubtedly hit the Kremlin’s spending power ­– and that’s to be encouraged. But what should we make of the broader cultural boycott of Russia that is rapidly gaining pace? So far, Britain's boycotts have had a peculiarly culinary bent. While Putin continues his onslaught, British shoppers have been encouraged to shun vodka and caviar. Lockdown revived an intense interest in cooking amongst the house-bound middle classes.

Sunday

Harry J. Kazianis

Putin will escalate

From our US edition

“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

From our US edition

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.

Saturday

Nicholas Farrell

Do Russians support Putin’s war?

Everyone is calling the conflict in Ukraine Putin’s war and insisting that it has nothing to do with the Russians themselves. The nightmare would end – they tell us – if only Vladimir Putin were to disappear in a coup. They used to say the same thing not only about Adolf Hitler but also Benito Mussolini. Yet both the Fuhrer and the Duce would have been as powerless as the speakers at Hyde Park Corner if they had not enjoyed the willing consent of a critical mass of Germans and Italians.

Oliver Bullough

The downfall of Russia’s oligarchs

The normal justification for sanctioning oligarchs is that doing so will cost them money, causing them to put pressure on Vladimir Putin so he stops killing Ukrainians. But this rests on the untested assumption that they are able to put pressure on him, and that is where the plan is currently falling down. Oligarchs are not what they used to be. Our idea of the Russian oligarch was born in the 1990s, when a tiny group of men emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet economy, using their nous to seize anything with real value.

Friday

Josh Kaplan

Ukraine and the art of viral war

From our US edition

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.

Nick Cohen

Is Russia Today finished?

As the British authorities debate whether to ban the propaganda channel of a savage imperialist power, Russia Today is making a decent first of banning itself. Workers have been walking out for a week. The invasion was too much even for staffers who had spent years demeaning themselves by licking the boots of a dictatorship. Even if Sky and YouTube had not effectively closed the channel by pulling it from their platforms, RT would have faced extreme difficulty in continuing to broadcast from London, one ex-staffer told me. About half his former colleagues had quit, including large numbers of production staff the Russians needed to keep the channel on air. One had a Ukrainian family and was sick at the slaughter his paymasters had unleashed on his relatives.

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Grace Curley

Lindsey Graham unites the world

From our US edition

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.

european union
Bill Wirtz

Ukraine won’t join the European Union any time soon 

From our US edition

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.

Justin Bronk

The Russian army is failing – but not enough to lose the war

There have been three major surprises for military analysts since the Russian military invaded Ukraine. The first has been the extent of the difficulties faced by the Russian army in terms of logistics, coordination of forces, morale and mobility. The second has been the failure of the Russian air force to achieve air superiority over Ukrainian air defences, and to operate against Ukrainian ground forces at scale. The third has been the extraordinary unity and effectiveness of the Ukrainian resistance, which has significantly slowed the Russian advance in the north of Ukraine and inflicted major personnel and vehicle losses on Russian forces on all fronts.

Thursday

Slavoj Zizek

Putin’s Stalinist playbook

From our US edition

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.

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trump-russia hoax
Peter Van Buren

Russia’s war is not a Trump redux

From our US edition

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.

Steerpike

Tory pro-Russia lobbying group disbands

The Ukraine crisis has claimed another victim. The Westminster Russia Forum – previously called the Conservative Friends of Russia – has just announced it will be winding up its lobbying operation here in London. As recently as last week, the group were reported to be going ahead with a 'multilateral relations conference', scheduled for tomorrow. But now, following a wave of cancellations, boycotts and sanctions across London and the rest of the western world, the WRF has announced it will close. In a statement to his supporters on Tuesday, chairman Nicholas Cobb announced his resignation and that of the entire board.