Canada’s ‘New Red Scare’ is profoundly undemocratic
The cover of the The Communist Threat to Canada, a booklet published by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in 1947. In the past decade, a disturbing phenomenon has arisen in…
Paul Robinson
Ukraine’s ‘victory plan’ faces sobering realities
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on September 26, 2024. Photo courtesy Volodymyr Zelensky/X. ...
Ukraine rolls the dice on Kursk incursion
Photo by Madeleine Kelly/ZUMA Press The war in Ukraine keeps throwing up surprises. For the past few months, the news has been almost universally bad for the Ukrainians. The Russian…
In Ukraine war’s shadow, cracks emerging in European consensus
Image by natanaelginting/Freepik As the election excitement heats up in the United States, increasing concern is visible in some quarters about the likely effect of the election on Ameri...
Far-eastern promises
Portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are displayed side by side in Pyongyang, June 19, 2024. Photo courtesy KRT/Reuters. A few years ago, it…
The West’s double standards on Georgia’s ‘foreign agents’ bill
Protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia, April 9, 2021. Photo by Eval Miko/Vecteezy. The Republic of Georgia has not enjoyed a stable life in the 30 years or so since it gained…
Putin is here to stay, whether the West likes it or not
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…