Worldcrunch
We have chosen a single image to tell the story of what happened in Bucha, Ukraine, though there are many others worth looking at. We bear witness to face the present reality, and help document for posterity and war crimes trials that the world now demands.
For Vladimir Putin, invading Ukraine was the first massive step in reviving the power of Soviet times. His war has done the opposite. Kazakhstan is the first former Soviet republic to distance itself from Russia and turn to the West. But the Central Asian country may not be able to free itself of Russian influence as quickly as it would like.
Dating back to Afghanistan and Chechnya, the Kremlin prefers not to offer an accurate public toll of its military lost on the battlefield. And now in Ukraine, victory at all costs continues to be the approach from Moscow.
In the initial days of the war, the 18-kilometer convoy of Russian tanks became a symbol of Putin’s attempt at a blitzkrieg. But now, the Russians have been stopped, and the Ukrainian forces are digging trenches to strengthen their position. Scenes from the daily struggle.
The war continues to rage as negotiations sputter. However, the search for a compromise that’s honorable for both parties is the only way to avoid escalating violence. There is a way to build the proverbial “golden bridge” of retreat for all.
Putin is increasing his attacks on Ukrainian civilians and may be preparing to use chemical weapons. But these horrific tactics are not new — they were perfected by the Russian army during a brutal war in Syria.
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, NATO has reinforced its presence eastward — but the Baltic countries and Poland were the prime beneficiaries. But Romania, which shares the longest border with Ukraine, may be the country most directly in Vladimir Putin’s path.
China is already profiting from the West’s economic divorce from Russia. But its biggest interest may be to learn from Russia’s experience of invading a land it claims for itself.
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.
Ukrainians are pleading with the West to establish a no-fly zone to stop the destruction of their country. But that would be a high-risk option. Now the U.S. is considering delivering fighting jets, but that could also escalate the conflict. What else can be done?
Ukranian literary translator Juri Durkot shares his notes about new everyday tasks as the country is at war.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has instantly become an international icon of courage in the fight for freedom. This sudden fame is as much a proof of how much is at stake in Ukraine as any one man’s power — and Zelensky is the first to know his limits.
The shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has raised concerns, even if there are no initial signs of radiation from this incident. But what about the other plants that are located in the immediate vicinity of the Russian attack path?
Vladimir Putin’s claims that NATO threatens Russia’s security, and that the only way Russia will back down is if NATO promises never to admit Ukraine, is a bait and switch. His long-term dream is to erase the idea of a Ukrainian nation on the road to his wider tsarist conquests.
War is upon us. But many in the West have sleepwalked through two decades of rising tensions with Russia. The situation in Ukraine can only be understood in the context of Vladimir Putin’s view on Boris Yeltsin, NATO’s eastward expansion, wars in the Balkans and Iraq, and beyond.
Faced with a massive invasion by its far more powerful neighbor, Ukrainians must be conscious of the stakes at play and the means that Vladimir Putin is prepared to employ.
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.
The situation in eastern Ukraine is highly explosive. What will happen after the recognition of the self-proclaimed “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states? Will Putin hunker down or double down? Instant analysis from German foreign policy thinkers on what happens next.
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 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.
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.
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.
? Ellohay!* Welcome to Wednesday, where the Omicron variant triggers toughened travel restrictions, Putin warns NATO of Ukraine “red line,” and school’s in for Santa. For Amsterdam-based daily De Volkskrant, Daphne van Paassen also reports on how some Dutch hairdressers are being trained to recognize signs of domestic violence among their customers. [*Pig Latin] […]
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.
Reports of torture, murder and gang rape are emerging from the civil war in northern Ethiopia. The conflict has spread across the country and an imminent collapse seems likely, spreading across the region. Now Turkey is also getting involved.
China has big business interests in Afghanistan and security concerns on its western border; and following the U.S. pullout and Taliban takeover, Beijing will not tolerate the country becoming a source of regional unrest.
Political philosophy sheds some light on the United States’ moral responsibility in Afghanistan
In the western part of the Afghan capital, inhabitants live in fear, but they are still not prepared to accept Taliban takeover.
The very first memories of the 30-year-old mayor is when the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina was under siege. But now it’s also time to move on.
For the first time in 20 years, Myanmar regime fighter jets dropped bombs on territory partly controlled by the KNU, an armed group that has been fighting the central government for seven decades and bears the name of a large ethnic minority, the Karen.
Underage or not, guerillas who continue taking up arms against the state are ‘war machines,’ the Colombian defense minister recently stated. But what if they were forcibly recruited?
The economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon, coupled with COVID-19 travel restrictions, are causing the already war-ravished nation to drown in even greater misery.
Over the past decade, as Italy has become one of Europe’s prime destinations for immigrants, stereotypes spread about those arriving from foreign lands. It’s a story that has come full circle.
The pandemic has delivered yet another blow to the increasingly irrelevant, UN-led multilateral system that was created after World War II.
For some, anti-Chinese rhetoric following the killing of 20 Indian soldiers is conjuring up memories of a dark and mostly forgotten chapter in India’s history.
The late American essayist Susan Sontag theorized that people are drawn to watching disaster films to help normalize and rationalize what we find psychologically unbearable. Watching a fictionalized apocalypse on the screen, she argued, inures us to the possibility that a real one may arrive. Sontag’s idea in 1965 about the need for a remedy […]