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…
Paul Robinson
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Putin’s ‘ally’—a case of misreporting
Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. Photo by Mahdieh Gaforian/Wikimedia Commons. In British reporter Chris Ayres’s memoir War Reporting for Cowards, he describes the arrival briefing he got from the woman he…
Status anxiety and the war in Ukraine
A defaced mural of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Serbian capital Belgrade. Photo by Ana Simic. Years ago, I was an exchange student in the Soviet Union. Margaret Thatcher…
Russia at a turning point?
Photo by Firdaus Omar/Flickr In March of this year, news came from Russia that former Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais had quit his job as presidential special representative for the…