@leonidragozin
Nationality: journalist. Made in the BBC, now freelancer. Reporting what you need to know, not what you want to hear. Co-author of En Eiropeisk Tragedie, a book about the roots of Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Also, many Lonely Planet titles.
A striking feature of the Russo-Ukrainian war is the discrepancy between Kremlin’s real expectations of it and how these are interpreted by the Western media and expert community. My latest for @aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...
The democratic transition of Venezuelan oil into Trump’s pocket will be closely monitored by European officials.
It also often sees itself as a nation within a nation that’s entrusted with a messianic geopolitical mission of westernising the perceived un-European savages. Ukraine war and Gaza are highlighting all of these traits.
A long love and hate letter to my social class that I wrote for the Ideas Letter. Tough love mostly. Russian intelligentsia combines the aspects of perpetual subversiveness and extreme servility.>>
www.theideasletter.org/essay/flight...
This comes after the suspension of US arms supplies to Ukraine. That was one of Putin’s pre-conditions for ceasefire, but we don’t know if that decision is linked to the talks in any way.
Trump has spoken to Putin and he is going to talk to Zelensky. Official statements are almost irrelevant at the moment. We won’t know the nature of the ongoing bargain until it results in a deal or fails. The former is more likely, I think, but maybe not right now.
Merz's 'dirty work' remark is appalling (as is the apparent quiet approval by other Europeans). It's like people openly admit that this whole 'rules-based thing' is just a pretense.
By endorsing a political leader who is clinging to power by starting wars.
Those in that camp who are pro-Putin (there’s a few, like AfD or Orban) are at least honest.
How one can be a Putinoid while hating Putin and Russia? Well, the pro-Israeli camp today shows exactly how - by supporting a war of aggression unleashed under a false pretext. By denying what Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch describe as genocide. >>
Who cares about the outcome, it’s all about the process. (5 End)
Therefore you must live in a symbiosis with your enemies whose political survival agenda is identical to yours. Escalate and balance simultaneously while feeding the insatiable securocratic apparatus, war industry and the most cannibalistic section of the political spectrum. (4)
Backtracking is impossible - it involves public humiliation and criminal proceedings. Even outright victory is dangerous - people will start asking questions in the times of peace. (3)
Exponential escalation is the modus operandi of the authoritarian far right. If conflict-mongering is the essence of your political strategy, then you’ll keep escalating conflict until you get swallowed by it. (2)
Netanyahu says the war will be long. Israeli army’s chief of staff says it won’t be only comprised of victories and that the Iranian response will be unprecedented. The far right coalition in Israel didn’t collapse and secured itself another six months of unchallenged rule. (1)
Now that Trump is boasting about his China deal, what’s the likelihood of him slapping 500% tariff on China as per Lindsay Graham’s Ukraine bill? The latter has always been a non-starter, but many in Ukraine still believe it’s feasible.
Unsurprisingly, the same author ventures into eugenics in another piece. (6 End)
news.err.ee/1609463608/h...
Even Dugin - a certified fascist and a guru of European neo-nazis - is not dumb enough to purport in the 21st century that Asian is a synonym of uncivilised or aggressive. (5)
The piece primarily mirrors Duginist obscurantism and suchlike fraudulent political philosophy in Russia, but gosh it’s so unsophisticated compared with Russian equivalents. (4)
Being “Asian”, Russia therefore cannot be reformed - only defeated and rendered powerless, the author concludes. Therefore, no peace talks, but a forever war. Win-win - never heard. (3)
Russia is inherently “Asian” - the author, a senior Estonian diplomat, mentions both Mongolia and China as its role models (who cares that Mongolia is a stable democracy today). (2)
A hilariously biased and openly racist view on Russia, based on a Polish book from the 1930s, which however reflects - to a large extent - the current paradigm adopted by Western mainstream that still fancies itself to be “liberal”. (1)
news.err.ee/1609718379/h...
It is the securocratic class that’s leading us down this path, defence lobbies, people who thrive on conflicts, security agencies that love infowars and hate transparency, media personalities that cater for them. People with names and affiliations.
The reason people say things like is that in all truthfulness they believe that the risk for their countries is zero while the risk of their expertise being questioned after Ukraine gets a much worse peace deal than Minsk or Istanbul’22 is going to be pretty huge. (3 End)
Britain was involved in planning the failed Krynki operation, according to UP. There were claims about its involvement in other operations. The danger of a direct clash has been there since HMS Defender incident in 2021. Top experts/ex-officials like Hill should really weigh up their statements. (2)
This is a crazy, dangerous statement and a blatant lie - Russia is not at war with Britain. But having said that, Fiona Hill will have to do everything to prove her words to be true. This is how self-fulfilling prophecies have worked since the start of this conflict in 2014. (1)
Peace talks will likely proceed despite intensifying mutual strikes which strive to change the balance despite all the evidence that it is very unlikely to be changed, unless there is a major escalation engulfing other countries. (6 End)
But continued contacts with Trump’s administration and Trump’s own ambiguous reaction to Ukrainian strikes will probably make the Kremlin think twice before overreacting. It knows it’s winning on the battlefield and that Ukrainian/Western resilience has its limits anyway. (5)
Tacit encouragement of Ukrainian strikes from Washington, as in Kellogg’s latest statement, is incentivising Putin to respond harsher. (4)
The critical issue is gas storage. Last year’s attacks on the relevant facilities created a major headache for the Ukrainian government as it prepares for the upcoming heating season. Lack of heating in winter will result in a new avalanche of refugees descending on the EU. (3)
But last night’s strikes on power generating facilities is the least that can be expected after Ukrainian train and airbase attacks in Russia. (2)