Ukraine / Russia
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Washington drops Ukraine, Israel backs down on Hamas demands
The two big stories in the news today are the Trump administration saying Ukraine is going to have to give up territory and NATO ambitions in order to secure a peace deal, while Israel appears to retreat from its ceasefire standoff with Hamas. Continue reading »
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A five-minute scroll
The US renounces NATO membership for Ukraine. The implications of Trump’s plans for Gaza. Palestinians moved from one refugee camp to another in the West Bank. The late Robert Fisk’s experience with Western media. Continue reading »
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Did North Korean troops disappear in the fog of the Ukraine war?
On 30 January 2025, CNN carried a long, detailed article, accompanied by photographs entitled Suicidal tendencies and ’80s battlefield tactics: How North Korean soldiers are operating in Russia’s war on Ukraine. The article, by a team led by senior journalists Nick Paton Walsh and Rebecca Wright, offered an insight into “the brutal and near-suicidal tactics Continue reading »
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Trump’s Greenland for Odessa deal
In late February 2022, I was walking on a street in Irkutsk (in the middle of Russian Siberia) when I met a former female student of mine who had just come from her work office. She was upset by the invasion of Ukraine but even more so by the attitude of some women in the Continue reading »
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Reality hits home: “Ukraine is running out of Ukrainians,” says US Secretary of State
Back at the very start of the war retired US Ambassador Chas Freeman, an eloquent critic of many aspects of his government’s international conduct, warned that the US was prepared “to fight to the last Ukrainian”. Some want to prove him right. Others want to save the remaining young men of Ukraine. Continue reading »
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Why Ukraine is losing ground
An instructive new article entitled, “Why is Ukraine losing ground? Mobilisation crisis and command failures exposed,” has recently been published online by Euromaidan Press. Its cogency is amplified by the fact that it is, fundamentally, a pro-Ukraine essay. Continue reading »
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Ukraine war: President Trump confronts a decision
In less than two weeks, when Donald Trump takes office, he will confront sharply conflicting advice on Ukraine from pro-war and anti-war camps in his incoming administration. We cannot predict the outcome, but here is relevant analysis of the choices facing him. Continue reading »
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Best of 2024: The Ukraine war is lost. Three options remain
George Beebe, long-time head of Russia analysis at the CIA, a 27-year veteran of the agency and now the current head of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute in Washington, is just the kind of American the world needs right now. Understated, immensely knowledgeable and decent, he understands the Russo-Ukraine war in its widest sense Continue reading »
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A Christmas truce in Ukraine
There should be a Christmas truce/ceasefire (Orthodox Christmas or western doesn’t matter) in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Continue reading »
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South Korea pays the price for Ukraine’s fake news on North Korean troops
Some stand to benefit from the deluge of fake news from the war, while others could pay dearly. Continue reading »
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Feng Yujun on the prospects of Russia-Ukraine war after Trump’s reelection
The leading expert on Russia says Trump’s bold claim to end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours is highly unlikely to materialise, and only a just peace can lead to lasting peace. Continue reading »
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Biden’s last hurrah against Russia and Putin
Frustration escalates for the lame duck president. Continue reading »
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In the death throes of Ukraine’s lost war, we witness the birth of WWIII
In the space of a couple of days this week two completely unprecedented attacks occurred that have the potential to rewrite world history. The US and UK directly attacked Russia and, for the first time ever in war, an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile was fired – by Russia. Naturally, most people in the West paid Continue reading »
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A five-minute scroll
Claims Israel is aiding ISIS-linked terrorists, the UN security council fails to gain the votes to call for a ceasefire, Palestine asks in there is one rule for Israel. Jeffrey Sachs sets history straight on Europe and the Ukraine war and Senator Lidia Thorpe sets the record straight on the two-party system. Senator Hanson-Young calls Continue reading »
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On the verge of WWIII?
‘Joe Biden allows Ukraine to use long-range US-supplied ATACMS missiles on targets in Russia, prompting threat of world war’ – so runs the ABC headline of 18 November. Serious stuff, not to be lightly discounted, and yet perhaps what we are seeing is primarily performative politics, viewed through the smoke of uncertainty and reflected in Continue reading »
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A five-minute scroll
Up to 50,000 Māori mobilised and walked to the New Zealand Parliament in Wellington to to protest the treaty principles bill, which Amnesty International states should never have been introduced. Bob Carr states what he told us last week about AUKUS is now confirmed. A member of Knesset is forcibly removed for speaking out against Continue reading »
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Russian Ambassador Alexey Pavlovsky discusses Ukraine, Western influence and Australia’s role in the ongoing conflict
In this exclusive interview with Alexey Pavlovsky, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Australia since 2019, he shares his insights on the complex dynamics between Russia, Ukraine, and the West, as well as his reflections on Australia’s stance in the ongoing conflict. Continue reading »
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NATO and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
In a recent Pearls and Irritations article Jon Richardson has sought to make the argument that the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO played no part in Russia’s 2022 invasion but that this was a product of Russian imperialism. Why supporters of this line of argument seek to attribute the invasion to only one factor – Continue reading »
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A contrived myth? North Korean troops battling the Ukrainians in Kursk
At the beginning of World War I, when the British Expeditionary Force in France was being battered by the advancing German army there was great anxiety in Britain. Then the Russians magically came to the rescue. Continue reading »
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Russia’s reasons for attacking Ukraine
Vladimir Putin rarely uses English in his speeches. So if in his speech to the recent BRICS meeting in Kazan he insisted the reason for Russia’s 2022 attack on Ukraine was that he was duped (he pronounced it ‘dooped’) by Germany and France in the 2014-5 Minsk Accords then he probably meant it. Continue reading »
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A five-minute scroll
UNRWA is indispensable and should be defended Palestine tells the UN. Israeli police arrest two French police officers in Jerusalem while Macron asks the EU when will the EU defend Europe. Robert Kennedy Jr unpacks defence and talk that Ukraine is ready for peace talks. Trump announces the Great American Fair while JD Vance speaks Continue reading »
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: provoked by NATO, or Russian imperialism?
One zombie thesis about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that keeps resurfacing is the idea that it was provoked by NATO expansion. It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Continue reading »
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The Ukraine war is lost. Three options remain
George Beebe, long-time head of Russia analysis at the CIA, a 27-year veteran of the agency and now the current head of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute in Washington, is just the kind of American the world needs right now. Understated, immensely knowledgeable and decent, he understands the Russo-Ukraine war in its widest sense Continue reading »
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Threat of North Korean soldiers is based on U.S. info campaign
Earlier this week I pointed to a Ukrainian (South Korean, U.S.) propaganda campaign which claims that thousands of North Korean soldiers will soon fight with on the Russian side against Ukraine: Continue reading »
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Ukraine: Versailles or Brest-Litovsk?
As it reels from one battlefield defeat after another, Ukraine faces a fateful choice: sue for peace or fight to the bitter end. Continue reading »
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NATO’s sin: Did eastward expansion provoke Russia’s aggression in Ukraine?
“… the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down”, as Lord Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General, is said to have put it.
The end of WWII was an uneasy time for East-West relations. Grateful as they were for Stalin’s help, the U.S. and its allies remained wary, as Churchill’s 1946 “iron Continue reading »
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Placing Russian mobile missile launchers on alert a dangerous game
Newsweek has recently (Oct 7) reported that Russian mobile nuclear missile launchers have been placed on combat alert. This could mean nothing – Russian mobile missile launchers do regularly go on patrol, both for scheduled alerts and for training purposes. However, the way in which the move has been telegraphed does suggest that Russia means Continue reading »
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How civilisation could end – an all-too-possible nuclear scenario
On 12 September, Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation, not excluding nuclear, against NATO countries if Washington allows Ukraine to attack targets inside Russia with US missiles. President Joe Biden backed off – for the moment. But the doomsday clock of the Atomic Scientists now stands at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been Continue reading »
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Delusion and defeat in Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine heads into its third winter Western leaders appear to be sinking further every day into a delusional belief in the success of their hydra-headed attempts to first de-fenestrate Russia before moving on to do the same to China Continue reading »
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Trump’s quick deal with Putin could reshape the global order
Did anyone pay attention? If he wins, Donald Trump says he will bring about the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine between his election and inauguration, a period of about eleven weeks. In so doing, Trump might just destabilise the West and reshape the global order. Continue reading »