The Ukrainian news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda reported May 5 that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson used his surprise visit to Kyiv last month to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to cut off peace negotiations with Russia, even after the two sides appeared to have made tenuous progress toward a settlement to end the war.
Posted on streetlamps all over Germany are stickers showing fleeing silhouettes with the caption, “Refugees welcome – bring your families”. Some have been blacked out with felt markers or ripped partially away. The Germans have mixed feelings about refugees, as demonstrated in the earlier waves from the Mideast and the current one from the Ukraine.
China’s economic growth targets and macroeconomic policies formulated at its annual parliamentary meetings the “Two Sessions” face the challenge of policy adjustment in just one month later.
“He who does not wish to speak of capitalism should remain forever silent about Nazism” – I quoted West Germany’s Max Horkheimer some two years ago while discussing the disastrous, cynical and absolutely unnecessary attempts towards the equation of communism with Nazism, of fascism and anti-fascism. Many dismissed that finding, labelling it routinely as yet another intellectual alarmism. But, look at us now: Only one step from the nuclear obliteration. Totalitarian order of destruction
A few reflections about the current status of the US/Russia war. Yes, I wrote it: US/Russia war. Let’s call things what they really are. In fact, this is no conspiracy theory at all. The true goal of US policy in the region was revealed this past week by none other than US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, when he clarified that the aim wasn’t really to help plucky upstart Ukraine recover its “democracy,” but rather to weaken – and hopefully disintegrate – Russia itself.
Two months into the “special military operation” against Ukraine, accompanied by the most comprehensive barrage of sanctions ever leveled against any country, Russian life, at least around Moscow, looks shockingly normal.
Conflict and counterterrorism are two sides of the same coin, and silos between the two must be broken down to reduce terrorism.
The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine overshadowed the latest step taken in Washington to turn the page on 20 years of a costly, largely military-driven approach to addressing conflicts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s effective diplomacy and ability to nudge Western allies to act have helped enable Ukraine to not just hold off Moscow’s aggression, but to repel it and humiliate a world power. Even so, he surely knows that as his country enters the third month of war with Russia, the clock is ticking. The United States understands this, too.
The Russian mercenary outfit Wagner Group is a major player in the conflict in Ukraine, but they are also active in the Middle East and Africa.
Russia has a nuclear doctrine known as “escalate to deescalate” or, more accurately, “escalate to win,” which contemplates threatening or using nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict.
It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s most destructive weaponry.