Vladimir Putin is interviewed by Russian TV presenter and propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov in the Kremlin in March 2024. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. As elections go, the presidential contest that took place in Russia last week must rank as among the most unexciting of recent history. Not only was the result
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Canadian Dimension: An endgame in Ukraine may be fast approaching
The military situation today is very different from that of a year ago when commentators were predicting that final victory was within Ukraine’s grasp. Photo courtesy the 148th Separate Artillery Brigade/Armed Forces of Ukraine/X. It is probably fair to say that nobody has done a very good job of predicting
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Lenin: a centenary reflection
Statue of Lenin in Nohra, Germany. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. “Ленин жил. Ленин жив. Ленин будет жить.” “Lenin lived. Lenin lives. Lenin will keep on living.” This popular slogan reflected the central role in Soviet ideology of the Soviet Union’s first leader, Vladimir Lenin, who died one hundred years ago
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Next year in Ukraine, expect the unexpected
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a crowd at an end-of-year press conference in Kyiv, December 19, 2023. Photo courtesy President of Ukraine/Flickr. “No other activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance,” wrote the great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz in his book On War. To Clausewitz, war
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: A decade after Euromaidan, Ukraine more fractured than ever
A protester during Euromaidan, December 9, 2013. Photo by Ivan Bandura/Wikimedia Commons. Of all the political events that have rocked Europe in recent years, it is probably fair to say that none have been as important, or as tragic, as the mass protest known as ‘Euromaidan’ that began in Ukraine
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Shock therapy and Russia’s fatal turn
The Supreme Soviet building, otherwise known as the “Russian White House,” after being shelled, October 4, 1993. Photo by Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Scanpix. There are events that at the time seem to portend one thing but years later take on a very different hue. So it is with the dramatic political crisis
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Nagorno-Karabakh and the failure of Armenia’s ‘colour revolution’
A billboard in Yerevan featuring the flags of Armenia and the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, October 7, 2020. Photo by Garik Avagyan/Wikimedia Commons. Thursday was Armenia’s independence day. This year, however, there was very little for Armenians to celebrate. Just one day earlier, the authorities of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh had
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: What the life and death of Yevgeny Prigozhin tells us about modern Russia
Russian oligarch and leader of the Wagner private military company Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash on August 23. Photo by Mikhail Mettsel/TASS. “A dead man walking” was how some pundits were describing Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin after his failed mutiny two months ago. Asked if he
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ukraine and the pitfalls of foreign aid
A residential building in the city of Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv, heavily damaged during the Russian occupation. Photo by Jesco Denzel/Bundesregierung. Few people came out of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan looking good. A rare exception was John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Sopko was
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Russian liberalism’s false dawn
Russian theatre director Konstantin Bogomolov. Photo by Gavriil Grigorov/TASS. Theatre director Konstantin Bogomolov likes to shock. At the end of May, he was at it again, publishing an article denouncing his one-time ideological allies in Russia’s liberal intelligentsia for their attitude towards the Russian people and towards the war in
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Belgorod raid: Why are Russian neo-Nazis fighting Putin?
Pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters at a press conference after completing their Belgorod Oblast raid. Photo courtesy the Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (UNIAN)/Wikimedia Commons. The war between Russia and Ukraine escalated further this week when two armed groups crossed from Ukraine into the Russian province of Belgorod and briefly occupied a village
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Russia and the emergence of the post-Western world
A man holds a Russian flag during demonstrations in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Photo by Issouf Sanogo. A few years back, at the University of Ottawa’s summer convocation, I was startled to see a student come forward to collect his degree whose first name was Brezhnev. One suspects that his parents
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: How Western sanctions drove Belarus closer to Moscow
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Photo by Serge Serebro/Wikimedia Commons. Philosophers like to distinguish between “deontological” ethics on the one hand and “utilitarian” or “consequentialist” ethics on the other. The first—associated most famously with Immanuel Kant—involves absolute rules and places a great importance on intentions. The second—associated with the likes of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Don’t despair: the world order is changing, but it is not collapsing
A destroyed Russian T-90A tank in Ukraine, March 3, 2022. Photo from Flickr. As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, it is hard not to be pessimistic about the future. Although it is not impossible that some decisive military action might bring the war to an end in
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The blurred reality of Russian patriotism
Andrei Reshetin, former violinist in the Soviet rock group Aquarium, recently joined the Russian army and went to fight in Ukraine. Photo courtesy Glasnarod.ru. In 1966, the Soviet writer Vladimir Soloukhin penned an article in the journal Molodaia Gvardiia (Young Guard) entitled “Letters from the Russian Museum” (the Russian Museum
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ukraine: the more war changes, the more it stays the same
Ukrainian artillerymen from the 24th brigade load an ammunition inside of a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer at a position along the front line in the vicinity of Bakhmut, Donetsk region. Photo by Ihor Tkachov. “The soldier’s main weapon against death is the shovel.” It doesn’t sound like modern hi-tech war.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: What can Nikolai Danilevsky teach us about today’s struggle between East and West?
Russian philosopher, naturalist, and economist Nikolai Danilevsky. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. November 28 marks the 200th birthday of Russian thinker Nikolai Danilevsky. Relatively unknown in the West, Danilevsky is extraordinarily influential in modern Russia, and understanding his ideas is essential to grasping the essence of the current political conflict between
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Financial war and its discontents
Panorama of Moscow Kremlin from Bolshoi Kamenny bridge. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Power and money go together. First the Dutch, then the British, and more recently the Americans, have succeeded in building financial institutions that have promoted their power on a global scale. For the past few decades, the Western
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Russia ups the ante in Ukraine
A monument in the shape of the letter “Z” is unveiled in Yekaterinburg. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. “War,” said the great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, “is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force. Each side, therefore, compels its opponent to
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Mikhail Gorbachev’s misunderstood legacy
A cartoon showing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev looking in dismay at a massive stone hammer and sickle, now shattered into many parts. Illustration by Edmund S. Valtman/Library of Congress. There can be few leaders whose reputation at home differs so widely from his reputation abroad as the last leader of
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