More than 50 Russian draft centres have been targeted in arson attacks since the invasion of Ukraine Olya Romashova There have been 18 attempts to set fire to draft centres and state administrative buildings across Russia since the Kremlin announced that it was mobilising Russian citizens to fight in Ukraine last week. They are the… Read More ‘I won’t go and kill my brothers!’: Russians set fire to draft centres
Peter Pomerantsev Do you want Total War?” Goebbels demanded of the Nazi faithful as the Second World War went south for Germany in 1943. He depicted a Reich surrounded by evil Jewish cosmopolitan conspirators bent on its destruction and he advocated for total mobilisation and to embrace a glory-in-death ideology. Vladimir Putin delivered his own (partial)… Read More The nuclear threat might change the mood in Russia itself, stoking widespread fear
One of the interesting points that you make is how we in the West think of Solzhenitsyn in terms of his The Gulag Archipelago published in 1973. We think of Solzhenitsyn as a human rights actor. But that’s not the role that he plays where Ukraine is concerned. Your argument is that Solzhenitsyn is, as it were,… Read More Decentralizing the Cold War: an interview
Comrade-proletarians, and toilers of all countries: We, Russian workers and soldiers, united in the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, send you warmest greetings and announce the great event. The Russian democracy has shattered in the dust the age-long despotism of the Tsar and enters your family of nations as an equal, and as… Read More CALL BY THE PETROGRAD SOVIET TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD; March 28, 1917
Brandon Gage Halfway through his invasion of Ukraine’s sixth bloody month, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power in Moscow is imploding as scores of Kremlin officials are calling upon the 69-year-old autocrat to quit. Putin had anticipated his February 24th “special military operation” to be a cakewalk through the Russian-controlled East into the Ukrainian… Read More ‘We ask you to relieve yourself of your post’: Kremlin officials are turning against Vladimir Putin
First posted on October 27, 2012 The decision not to start world war three was not taken in the Kremlin or the White House, but in the sweltering control room of a submarine. The launch of the B-59’s nuclear torpedo required the consent of all three senior officers aboard. Arkhipov was alone in refusing permission.. … Read More Vasili Arkhipov (1926-1998), the man who prevented nuclear war
NB: World War Two began in Europe between September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland; and September 3, when Britain and France declared war on Germany. For China, the war began on September 18, 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria and set up the puppet kingdom of Manchukuo. The Outbreak Of World War II A full-scale Japanese… Read More The Second World War
More than 5,500 civilians killed “The Russian army does not strike at civilian facilities,” Vladimir Putin said in June. But independent observers disagree. UN figures estimate that, as of August 22, the civilian toll of Russian attacks had reached 5,500 deaths and 7,800 injuries since the war began. Here, a destroyed shopping center in Kremenchuk on June… Read More The civilian toll of Russian attacks on Ukraine
By Andy Lee Roth / Project Censored Violence is the most basic and blunt form of press censorship. To kill or imprison a journalist is to silence the public’s source of news. To date, 33 journalists around the world have been killed this year and another 494 are currently imprisoned, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Put another… Read More The Deadly Business of Reporting Truth
Reviewed by Brian Tanguay What factors contribute to the rise and fall of empires, and what characteristics distinguish an empire from a world order? In To Govern the Globe, American historian Alfred W. McCoy seeks to answer these questions by surveying seven hundred years of human history, from 1347 when the Black Death reached Europe and… Read More Alfred McCoy: To Govern the Globe – World Orders and Catastrophic Change
After the truth-shower 