Jason Fields: Putin's brutal record in Chechnya and Syria is ominous for Ukraine / My comments on Vladimir Putin's apologists

NB: Beneath this link are two comments I made in response to articles published in Scheerpost about the Russo-Ukraine war. One comment has appeared, the second not yet. DS Wars aren’t civilized. The very definition of war includes death and cruelty, and everyone who dies has loved ones who mourn them. But some wars are… Read More Jason Fields: Putin's brutal record in Chechnya and Syria is ominous for Ukraine / My comments on Vladimir Putin's apologists

6th March 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Why we need a new spirit of internationalism. By EDWY PLENEL; March 4, 2022

The invasion of Ukraine is now forcing the world to face up to the unprecedented threat posed by Russian imperialism. In this op-ed article, Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel argues that what is needed is a surge of international solidarity to defend and help the Ukrainian people who are resisting that aggression. A new imperialism is threatening world… Read More Why we need a new spirit of internationalism. By EDWY PLENEL; March 4, 2022

5th March 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War

NB: An excellent and well-researched essay. The clinically neutral experts on mass media and academia might do themselves a favour by reading it. Beneath this essay is a comment I wrote yesterday to an article in Scheerpost by Michael Brenner, an American professor of international relations. Here is a far more humane essay on the… Read More Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War

4th March 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network / George Monbiot: We must confront Russian propaganda / Moscow police detain children for laying flowers at Ukrainian embassy

NB: The UN General Assembly has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for withdrawal. Putin is a gangster in absolute power, and those Indian commentators who find excuses for this brutal invasion in the name of ‘national interest’ are ethical nihilists. By the way, it was the Soviet Union, not ‘Russia’, which stood by India’s… Read More Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network / George Monbiot: We must confront Russian propaganda / Moscow police detain children for laying flowers at Ukrainian embassy

3rd March 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Rafael Behr: The age of levity is over. The Russia-Ukraine war will shake politics into a new sobriety / Owen Jones: Putin’s aggression makes clear the case for an anti-war movement

Western conviction that this is not supposed to happen in Europe any more has not stopped it happening. The shock is producing dramatic policy changes across the continent. The past has invaded the present. Russia’s military aggression has burst over Ukraine like a storm cloud gathered from a different, darker time. It is raining terror… Read More Rafael Behr: The age of levity is over. The Russia-Ukraine war will shake politics into a new sobriety / Owen Jones: Putin’s aggression makes clear the case for an anti-war movement

2nd March 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Nesrine Malik: Let the horror in Ukraine open our eyes to the suffering of war around the world

Too many frame the invasion as an attack on ‘civilisation’, uniquely awful because it happened in Europe. That approach demeans us all Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine has sharpened two terrifying realisations. The first is that Putin does not function within the realm of the usual finely balanced checks and balances, sticks and carrots,… Read More Nesrine Malik: Let the horror in Ukraine open our eyes to the suffering of war around the world

2nd March 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Sergey Faldin: Putin is digging his own grave in Ukraine / Berlin stands up against Putin at huge anti-war rally / Indian Student Killed In Shelling In Kharkiv

The reason you don’t see a revolution happening in Moscow is not that people don’t care about what’s happening in Ukraine. On the contrary, my social media feed is filled with posts from Russians opposing the war. “What happened?” they say. “How did we get to this? This is madness!” People are saying they feel guilty… Read More Sergey Faldin: Putin is digging his own grave in Ukraine / Berlin stands up against Putin at huge anti-war rally / Indian Student Killed In Shelling In Kharkiv

1st March 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Shyam Saran: Russia’s friends are finding it harder to look the other way / Chinese historians speak out against Russian invasion

Ukraine is enveloped in the inevitable fog of war and it is difficult to assess whether Russian forces are on the threshold of overwhelming the much less capable Ukrainian forces. Vladimir Putin’s calculations – that the shock and awe of the Russian invasion would lead to the collapse of the Ukrainian government and surrender of… Read More Shyam Saran: Russia’s friends are finding it harder to look the other way / Chinese historians speak out against Russian invasion

28th February 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Mukul Kesavan: Ukraine – a conflict between two transnational entities / Vladimir Sorokin: Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power

Vladimir Putin anticipated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by writing screeds about the essential one-ness of Russians and Ukrainians, united as they were, in his view, by a common origin in the medieval principalities of Kievan Rus. Putin insisted that Ukraine had no real tradition of independent statehood and blamed Lenin and the Bolsheviks for inventing… Read More Mukul Kesavan: Ukraine – a conflict between two transnational entities / Vladimir Sorokin: Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power

27th February 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Jonathan Beale – Ukraine: Is Russia's invasion going as expected?

History shows that it’s much easier to start a war than to end one. That’s certainly true of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. And it might turn out to be the same for President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. There’s an old axiom that military plans never survive the first… Read More Jonathan Beale – Ukraine: Is Russia's invasion going as expected?