Become a Citizen Diplomat, learn for yourself, converse with Russian counterparts, hear what Russian experts have to say about a dozen different critical issues: Gorbachev on Cold War I and II, Russian experts’ understanding of national and international politics, Russia’s financial system, the impact of U.S. sanctions, rebuilding Russia’s healthcare and educational systems….
David Bromwich: Short Cuts
Democrats, held captive by their theory of the stolen election, combined with neoconservative opinion-makers and the right wing of Trump’s cabinet to lead a revival of the Cold War; in this way, they have helped to set in motion an ugly international process with wide reverberations…
Former Senator Lugar, nuclear nonproliferation champion, dies at 87
As a senator, Lugar sought to curb the spread of nuclear weapons globally. His greatest achievement, forged alongside centrist Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, was a law under which the United States paid for the dismantling and elimination of the nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union as well as chemical and biological arms.
Sarah Lindemann-Komarova: Russiagate, There are No Winners
I would like to suggest we go beyond the nuclear threat and promote something more comprehensive, a real, global peace movement. We can no longer be scared into thinking this is an impossible dream, a fantasy by naïve people. The reality, the one certainty is there are no winners in war.
Doug Bandow: Should Trump Worry About the Putin-Xi Meeting?
The Chinese-Russian bilateral relationship is better than at many points in the past, but it remains superficial.
The Hill: How Obama engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion a boost
The Ukrainian embassy in Washington on Thursday confirmed the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions.
Kenneth Rapoza: No, Ukraine’s New President Zelenksiy Is Not Putin’s Puppet
Contrary to the opinion of one or two loud-mouthed Russian conspiracy theorists — the kind that sees FSB spooks and lackeys hiding in closets and in newsrooms throughout the Western world — newly elected Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is not a tool of the Kremlin.
Paul Pillar: The Mueller Report Exposes U.S. Election Weaknesses
It behooves the United States to spend more effort and attention on repairing democracy in the homeland than it has done in recent years—and more than any effort to impose democracy in someone else’s country.
Matt Taibbi: The Press Will Learn Nothing From the Russiagate Fiasco
You know what was fake news? Most of the Russiagate story. There was no Trump-Russia conspiracy, that thing we just spent three years chasing. The Mueller Report is crystal clear on this.
Paul Robinson: Corrupting Democracy
…the idea that we have some type of pristine process which is pure and ‘democratic’ until defiled by ‘foreign meddling’ is rather naïve. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we shouldn’t be doing all we can to make matters better, or that we shouldn’t be wary of things which might make them worse.
Nicolai N. Petro: Petro Poroshenko’s Nationalism Cost Him the Presidency
This is one of the lessons that Western policymakers can learn from Poroshenko’s crushing defeat.
Thomas Meany: The Canonization of Richard Holbrooke
Whether Russia and the rise of China signaled the return of nineteenth-century power relations was likewise not a going concern with Holbrooke, who was far too fixated on news cycles to keep his mind concentrated on what the world rapidly converting to capitalism would mean for American power.
Lyle Goldstein: How Russia Can Help Break the Deadlock with North Korea
A Putin-Kim summit will mainly be another photo-op for the North Korean leader. But Moscow has more cards to play in Pyongyang than is commonly realized.
AP: North Korea’s Kim on way to Russia to meet Putin on Thursday
Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a much-anticipated summit Thursday, the Kremlin said, ending weeks of speculation about the meeting’s timing and venue.
U.S. Hoped Putin Would be a ‘Sober Yeltsin’ – Part 3 of Stephen F. Cohen’s Interview on The Real News Network
After the fall of the Soviet Union, a dysfunctional and pro-American Russian President Yeltsin presided over the chaos of the 1990’s; when Putin came to power, the West was very disappointed at the independent and nationalist character of the Putin led state and the demonization began.
Ivan Katchanovski: The Buried Maidan Massacre and Its Misrepresentation by the West
The new Ukrainian government is faced with reopening an inquiry into evidence of an organized mass killing in Kiev that Poroshenko stonewalled. Ivan Katchanovski investigates.
Leonid Bershidsky: How Zelenskiy Beat Ukraine’s Establishment.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy won by promising always to ask the people first.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev: Can Zelensky Make Ukraine Great Again?
Volodomyr Zelensky fits squarely in the mold of anti-establishment populist candidates who have been winning elections all throughout Europe…
Peter van Buren: Mueller Time is Finally Over
Despite some muddled dissent, the special counsel said clearly that Trump never committed a chargeable crime.
Glenn Greenwald: Robert Mueller Did Not Merely Reject the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theories. He Obliterated Them.
Several of the media’s most breathless and hyped “bombshells” were dismissed completely by Mueller.