Ukraine

We've come a long way in the two and a half years since the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop were unleashed on the world. In addition to the splashy, X-rated photos and videos of Hunter surrounded by drugs and prostitutes, the New York Post's reporting honed in on a set of emails that suggested Hunter's foreign business dealings involved his father, President Joe Biden. In one email, an official for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma thanks Hunter for the "opportunity" to meet then-Vice President Biden. In another, Hunter's business partner alludes to setting aside 10 percent of a deal with a Chinese firm for "the Big Guy." These bombshells served as the flashpoint for a series of investigations that are finally nearing their conclusion.

The tacit alliance between operatives of the national security state and corporate media burst into view last week when the New York Times and the Washington Post did the FBI’s job for it by tracking down the leaker of documents that detailed, among other things, the extent of American and allied involvement in the Ukraine war.  That Bellingcat, the shadowy, government-funded open-source intelligence group, played a role in helping to identify the twenty-one-year-old Air National Guardsmen Jack Teixeira proves (once again) that many media outlets are now de facto agents of the national security state.

A young woman called Lyudmila walks into a cafe in Odessa, the southern Ukrainian city. Her phone is switched on and the camera set to record mode. She approaches the owner and asks for service in Ukrainian. He declines. He says his Ukrainian language skills are poor. When she insists he makes excuses, then tells her the cafe is closed, and finally asks her to leave. But unbeknownst to the owner, Lyudmila is a member of a small Ukrainian-language vigilante group. The group, who call themselves ‘Getting on your Nerves’, has made it their business to turn this Russophone city, founded in 1796 by Catherine the Great, into a Ukrainian-speaking one, one small intervention at a time.

What’d I miss? The week I chose to take off (thanks to my colleagues for keeping the DC Diary show on the road) was the worst for Republicans in a while. The last Republican president and the party’s 2024 frontrunner was arrested and charged in Manhattan. In a high-stakes, big-spending Wisconsin Supreme Court race, voters delivered a thumping progressive victory and a clear thumbs down to the Republican stance on abortion in the Dobbs era.  Meanwhile, GOP donors are reportedly going wobbly on the man many hoped would swoop in and save the party. Ron DeSantis is struggling to make himself heard over the Trump-arrest cacophony.

Some moderately clever people, reflecting on the confusing morass of current events, knowingly quote George Santayana’s most famous observation: that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Since the past is largely an almanac of unfortunate (not to say horrific) events, the idea that we are “condemned to repeat it” concentrates the mind in approximately the way Dr. Johnson said the prospect of hanging in a fortnight tends to do. But of course the past never really repeats itself. When it comes to history, Heraclitus rules: you cannot step into the same river twice, mon brave. Moreover, as that sage of Ionia said, “the true nature of things loves to conceal itself.

After his arrival in Moscow on Monday, President Xi Jinping said that China is ready, along with Russia, ‘to stand guard over the world order based on international law’. This statement came closer than ever before to articulating his view that a normative struggle is going on between a western-dominated order, and one more suited to Beijing’s interests. As he departed yesterday, he went further: ‘Right now there are changes, the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years. And we are the ones driving these changes together.’ Having positioned himself as a potential peacemaker, Xi clearly believes the war in Ukraine presents him with a win-win situation ­­­– or even a win-win-win one.