WorldcrunchAnna Akage is a freelance journalist based in Paris. Articles published in The Atlantic Council, LensCulture, L’Oeil de la Photographie, American Social Documentary Network, Polish doc! photo magazine, and others. In love with documentary photography and Chinese noodles.
In an attempt to shore up its failing economy, Russia is trying to blackmail the West and asking to be paid in rubles for its natural gas. However, such a move is unlikely to help Moscow in the long-term. And the important question still remains of how the EU will manage without Russian gas.
Just look at post-War Germany and the reparations that had to be paid out for generations. Russian-born writer Michael Sheitelman notes from Kyiv, where he is documenting events and reflecting on the war and its aftermath.
The veteran photojournalist was covering the Russian invasion north of Kyiv, after spending years chronicling Ukraine’s longstanding battles in its eastern regions against pro-Russian separatists.
Gloom and uncertainty increasingly surround Putin as his would-be blitzkrieg of Ukraine stalls. The world wonders whether he’ll double down, or if could be betrayed by his entourage. Sergei Shoigu, the man running Russia’s military, is iron-clad loyal. He also hasn’t been seen in public in two weeks.
From Kharkiv to Mariupol, the targets of some of the worst Russian attacks on civilians are largely Russian-speaking cities. It is the worst possible twist to Putin’s bogus claim that his war was to “de-nazify” and prevent “genocide” of Russian speakers.
Europe’s addiction to Russian energy paid for the assault against Ukraine. And in spite of crippling sanctions, it is inadvertently continuing to fund the war by not cutting two major Russian banks from SWIFT.
When Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova interrupted Monday’s nightly news with an anti-war protest, most figured her stunning act of political courage would be brutally punished. But she’s received just a small fine and continues to move and speak freely in Moscow. Paradoxically, it may actually be the final tack in Vladimir Putin’s brutal, unpredictable propaganda machine.
It is not heroism that is creating the long lines to enlist in the country’s fight against Russia, nor is it the opposite that explains the refugees trying to get out alive. There is a single objective for both.
This is how Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has looked to one 16-year-old high school senior from Kyiv, the daughter of Worldcrunch contributor Anna Akage.
Exclusive: New details emerge of a would-be forced evacuation last week of pro-Russian civilians from the Donetsk and Luhansk territories that Vladimir Putin has used to justify Thursday’s invasion of Ukraine. Locals call the operation a “farce.”
You can threaten to destroy the Russian economy or target the president’s friends, but you can’t stop Putin’s imaginary vision of the past, and present. It’s bad news for Western diplomats, for peace in the region — and may be the ultimate ruin of modern Russia.
Over the past two months, as tensions rose in Ukraine, Russian has launched new missiles from the contested islands north of Japan. Kyiv and Tokyo have made it clear that they are firmly aligned with each other and with Washington. Moscow’s eastern flank opens major strategic questions, including China’s role.
Ukraine’s former president Petro Poroshenko has taken refuge in Poland after being accused of treason and cooperation with Russia. It’s a film we’ve seen before in Kyiv.
The mood is dark, and so are the jokes, which may explain Ukrainians’ apparent sense of calmness in the face of the neighboring Russian bear lining up at the border.
The Chechen strongman is reaching outside his native territory to affirm his power, and test his ambitions. At 69, Vladimir Putin shows no signs of settling down, but he won’t live forever.
The Russian president’s much talked-about insult toward Ukrainians and President Zelensky was really part of his long game to force the conditions of the Minsk agreement that would destabilize Kyiv and distract the U.S. and Europe enough to move in on Putin’s terms.
Demonizing the adversary, often in much the same way, was central to the script of the Cold War in the second half of the last century. Now with Moscow and Washington facing off again, old habits are back.
Russian media outlets have received government orders to remove archived material about Alexei Navalny and his investigations into corruption by Vladimir Putin and his associates. While the jailed activist’s past work can be found elsewhere, YouTube and other foreign internet platforms may be the Kremlin’s next target.
With Russian troops now deployed through Belarus, the risk is growing of an invasion through Ukraine’s northern border. Vladimir Putin’s regional strategy and Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorial demands are not always what they seem.
Experts in geopolitics and the workings of world leaders have accelerated a two-decade long quest to understand the motivations of the enigmatic man in the Kremlin.
A mind map of the Russian leader’s possible plans to increase his influence, and expand his territory.
In the year since the arrest of Vladimir Putin’s last opponent a new Cold War has begun. In the absence of internal enemies, Russia’s increasingly powerful yet isolated ruler must turn to external targets.
With Russian troops amassed at the border with Ukraine, the writer, who came of age in Kiev in the post-Soviet era, says her fellow Ukrainians of every generation are united in never again falling under the reign of Moscow.
Rising fuel costs were the initial spark for rare public protests in Kazakhstan. But the violent unrest reveals widespread dissatisfaction with the authoritarian regime that has ruled the country since its independence.
Ukraine’s culture minister has attempted to make a bonafide diplomatic incident out of the depiction of a character from Kyiv in the vapid Netflix series “Emily in Paris.” A native Kyiv writer based in France is outraged too, but at her own country’s false pride and a government minister wasting everyone’s time.
Joined in their respective confrontations with the West, both the Chinese and Russian leaders are boasting about their burgeoning partnership. Yet there are fundamental reasons the love affair is unlikely to last.
Russia is increasingly labeling journalists and human rights organizations as “foreign agents.” It’s the Kremlin’s latest – and most effective – way of cracking down on any kind of opposition.
The jail sentence against the opposition leader is a clear sign that strongman Lukashenko is not looking back.
Seven years after Moscow annexed Crimea, arrests and trials of Crimean Tatars are used as weapons to repress this ethnic minority that has already suffered for centuries.
A recent unmanned attack could heighten tensions in the conflict zone and have broader geopolitical consequences.
Russia has decided to cut off relations with the Western military alliance. But Moscow says it was NATO who really wanted the break based on its own internal rationale.
Despite being parties of one conflict and neighbors and comrades of the same historical events, it is now obvious that Russia and Ukraine — or at least their very different leaders, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky — are living in opposing realities.
The global probe of offshore accounts around the world strike at the heart of Kiev’s current government and power structure of a ruling class that rose to power on the promise of fighting corruption, including the television-star-turned-President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Fishing nets, industry and other human-caused dumping are poisoning Russia’s Lake Baikal, the world’s largest, deepest (and oldest) lake. Bigger than all the North American Great Lakes combined, it’s at risk after 25 million years of life.
Russian sushi delivery Yobidoyobi removed an advertisement with a Black man and apologized for offending the Russian nation, while a grocery chain was attacked for featuring an LGBTQ couple.
Ukraine’s leaders face toxic land-use challenges 35 years after the world’s worst nuclear accident.
Last year’s election of reformist president Maia Sandu was the first step. But now the anti-graft, pro-Europe forces are about to dominate the Parliament. But what will it look like on the ground?
To succeed in withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan White House will need the active help of the Central Asian countries. However, with these post-Soviet republics in play, Russia wants a say.
The Russian president’s article on the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union can be read on multiple levels. But one thing is sure, his mind is fixed on the future.
In Moscow daily Kommersant, a long and fiery response from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the U.S. and European tactics during and after this month’s Putin-Biden summit.