10 mins read
Ukrainian deputy Oleksandr Merezhko sparked a stern online backlash after publicly warning about the threat posed by what he described as a growing far-right movement in Ukrainian society. Ukraine’s far-right fringe remains a sensitive topic in the war-torn country – and an easy target for Russian propaganda.
6 mins read
Three months ago, MediaZona tried to do a volte face and claimed Russian casualties were soaring. But their analysis was based on an algorithm, not data. Simplicius did an excellent job of deconstructing the falsity of the claim. So now, the US Pentagon is pushing the same story, which was reported in the New York Times two days ago — September Was Deadly Month for Russian Troops in Ukraine, U.S. Says.
29 mins read
I don’t expect a huge Russian victory, but the West will end up weakened. My guess is that Russia hoped to carry out an elegant and bloodless military operation in Ukraine in 2022, as it did in Crimea in 2014, says Fyodor Lukyanov.
3 mins read
“This is an unfortunate truth. Yes, our politicians, our leaders have led us down many dark paths, but this is rightly not just about the sins of our fathers, because it continues today – but why are we, the people, […]
13 mins read
If you want to understand who is winning the American war against Russia on the Ukrainian battlefield, and also in the world’s commodity trade markets, you can start by calculating the life expectancy of a NATO-trained Ukrainian soldier on the front line, or of a NATO staff officer in a command bunker he thought was safe. Then you can check the life expectancy of a Russian pig.
2 mins read
Report says settlements with tokens could save billions. Russia has sought to lower reliance on dollar after sanctions
4 mins read
MOSCOW, Oct 11 (Reuters) – Speaking behind the thick white walls of Moscow’s ancient Danilov Monastery, Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk is adamant: people must not be forbidden to pray in their chosen branch of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
6 mins read
The West’s economic war on Moscow post Ukraine invasion has had limited near term success
2 mins read
During his swearing-in ceremony as the new Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Mark Rutte declared his top priorities were strengthening the alliance and bringing Ukraine closer to the bloc.
6 mins read
In its Friday editorial, Global Times took the opportunity to examine NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s farewell speech of the day before, “What has NATO’s ‘expansion’ vaunted by secretary general brought?” One million Ukrainian deaths, many more millions displaced, and the nation ruined on behalf of NATO policy weren’t any of the facts Stoltenberg mentioned.
1 min read
In his classic work Diplomat’s Dictionary, Ambassador Chas Freeman sets out a collection of definitions of the diplomatic craft and terminology; part Talleyrand, and part Ambrose Bierce. First published in 1994, this remains the most acute, the wittiest and the pithiest of all introductions to the practice of diplomacy. In an era when it sometimes seems that the US and Europe possess not diplomats but anti-diplomats, its lessons are more important than ever. To discuss the book and its lessons, Ambassador Freeman was joined by Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute.
5 mins read
The federal government is missing sight of real US priorities
6 mins read
On Wednesday, February 14, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that his panel had “made available to all Members of Congress information concerning a serious national security threat.”
13 mins read
I have said in the past that the New World Order’s enduring legacy is contempt for morality and what Immanuel Kant calls practical reason in the comprehensible universe, which was created by what Aristotle calls the Unmoved Mover. We are still working with the same definition in this article here.
4 mins read
Crises, crises everywhere, as far as the eye can see. There’s a border crisis, a fentanyl crisis and a crime crisis. Massive deficit spending is leading to a fiscal crisis. President Biden’s 39% approval rating as he seeks a second term would suggest a leadership crisis.
6 mins read
A mantra endlessly repeated by US officials and military leaders, especially in their testimony before Congress, is that America’s vast network of minor state allies in NATO and around the world provide it with resources and power that Russia and China cannot match. However, this is simply not true. It is a fantasy, unsupported by the factual historical record.
6 mins read
Three months ago, MediaZona tried to do a volte face and claimed Russian casualties were soaring. But their analysis was based on an algorithm, not data. Simplicius did an excellent job of deconstructing the falsity of the claim. So now, the US Pentagon is pushing the same story, which was reported in the New York Times two days ago — September Was Deadly Month for Russian Troops in Ukraine, U.S. Says.
29 mins read
I don’t expect a huge Russian victory, but the West will end up weakened. My guess is that Russia hoped to carry out an elegant and bloodless military operation in Ukraine in 2022, as it did in Crimea in 2014, says Fyodor Lukyanov.
3 mins read
“This is an unfortunate truth. Yes, our politicians, our leaders have led us down many dark paths, but this is rightly not just about the sins of our fathers, because it continues today – but why are we, the people, […]
13 mins read
If you want to understand who is winning the American war against Russia on the Ukrainian battlefield, and also in the world’s commodity trade markets, you can start by calculating the life expectancy of a NATO-trained Ukrainian soldier on the front line, or of a NATO staff officer in a command bunker he thought was safe. Then you can check the life expectancy of a Russian pig.
2 mins read
Report says settlements with tokens could save billions. Russia has sought to lower reliance on dollar after sanctions
4 mins read
MOSCOW, Oct 11 (Reuters) – Speaking behind the thick white walls of Moscow’s ancient Danilov Monastery, Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk is adamant: people must not be forbidden to pray in their chosen branch of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
6 mins read
The eastern city is a key military hub, but it’s also critical to Ukraine’s steel industry.
10 mins read
Ukrainian deputy Oleksandr Merezhko sparked a stern online backlash after publicly warning about the threat posed by what he described as a growing far-right movement in Ukrainian society. Ukraine’s far-right fringe remains a sensitive topic in the war-torn country – and an easy target for Russian propaganda.
2 mins read
Mark Rutte made the trip just two days after replacing Jens Stoltenberg
6 mins read
Geoffrey Roberts is Emeritus Professor of History at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy
21 mins read
As America’s drive for NATO expansion to Ukraine persists, the Ukrainian nationalism and neo-fascism it has used and engendered in pursuit of that goal has had an increasingly nefarious and divisive effect on American politics and its political system. This goes beyond the ‘mere’ polarisation and authoritarianization of American politics caused by disagreements over NATO expansion, the US role on the Maidan and in general in Ukraine after the Soviet collapse, and even involvement in the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. In particular, US involvement in Ukraine has fostered corruption as high as in the White House itself and the repression of Americans, particularly unprecedented violations of their free speech rights by the Democrat Party- Deep State and the administration of President Joe Biden. Moreover, Ukrainian extremism since 2014 also has contributed to the growing tendency in U.S. politics to lie and circumvent the rule of law in pursuit of political goals at home and abroad. Controversy in the U.S. surrounding Ukraine and NATO policy there, fostered false charges of sedition against an American presidential candidate, Donald Trump (2016), crippled his presidency with trumped up impeachment charges and other campaigns, contributed to the causal chain leading up to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, led to U.S. government censorship on Facebook and Twitter and a general authoritarianization of American politics, motivated at least one attempted assassination of the Republican Party’s presidential candidate and former U.S. President Trump in 2024, and led to open interference in this year’s presidential campaign by Ukraine’s ostensible president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy.
4 mins read
Kramatorsk (Ukraine) (AFP) – Two months into Ukraine’s offensive on Russian territory, questions are growing in Ukrainian ranks over the long-term strategy as Russian troops advance steadily in other areas.
8 mins read
A river runs through Russian and, more recently, Ukrainian history. Ironically enough, the Dnieper River that unites Russia and Ukraine in this and other ways – the river rises in the Valdai Hills of Smolensk, Russia and runs through Belarus and Ukraine – is now the focus of the greatest schism in the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Russian forces appear impossible to stop and will arrive at the Dnieper at some point along its snaking length no later than next year, with Russian troops perhaps controlling the river’s and the country’s Left Bank by then. Russia – as well as the West and whatever remains of Ukraine‘s Maidan regime will then face some serious decisions.
10 mins read
The world is now moving through an epoch-shifting transition, and a new system will be brought online as the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives time bomb that has cancerously taken over the western economy crashes.
12 mins read
I spoke persistently, but they would not listen. Jeremiah 12:23
3 mins read
Oh, Wait: It never went away…
8 mins read
Hello! Welcome to your weekly guide to the Russian economy — written by Denis Kasyanchuk and Alexander Kolyandr and brought to you by The Bell. This time we look at the rapid growth in investment that Russia has seen since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Where has the money come from? And where is it going? We also look at the continuing impact on Russian trade of the threat of Western secondary sanctions.
6 mins read
The establishment keeps coming up with convenient answers, but always to the wrong question.
6 mins read
In Moscow, a birch tree that’s meant to symbolize U.S.-Russian friendship has several times failed to thrive, as Edward Lozansky recounts. But citizen diplomats keep trying.
4 mins read
Its leaves are brittle and brown, but the birch tree, recently planted in a small Moscow park as a hopeful symbol of enduring friendship between Russia and the United States, will grow green and strong again if Edward Lozansky is to realize his lifelong mission.
5 mins read
All week long, the Biden administration has been hinting that it would authorize Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian territory with US-made Army Tactical Missiles Systems, or ATACMS. These are computer-guided supersonic missiles with a range of up to 190 miles. They can’t reach Moscow, but they could hit the Russian cities of Kursk, Voronezh, and Rostov. Britain has already authorized Ukraine to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to attack Russia. Secretary of State Tony Blinken traveled to Kiev in the company of British Foreign Secretary David Lammy to discuss the matter with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky. Some kind of escalatory announcement was expected to accompany British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Friday visit to Washington.
18 mins read
Dimitri Simes claims that the current US government – which he accuses of “lawlessness and blatant lies” – doesn’t believe in the First Amendment
6 mins read
As the drums beat louder and louder about alleged threats from Russia, the Biden administration today blew perilous new life into the debunked and disgraced Russiagate disinformation operation.
17 mins read
I had hoped to make the Summer of 2024 a memorable one—building bridges of friendship to Russia, working to develop knowledge and information as an antidote to the poison of Russophobia in America, and trying to prevent a nuclear war between my country and the Russian Federation. The U.S. government had other plans.
Vladimir Emelyanovich Maximov (Russian: Владимир Емельянович Максимов, born Lev Alexeyevich Samsonov, Лев Алексеевич Самсонов; 27 November 1930, — 26 March 1995) was a Soviet and Russian writer, publicist, essayist and editor, one of the leading figures of the Soviet and post-Soviet dissident movement abroad.
Born in Moscow into a working class family, Lev Samsonov spent an unhappy childhood in and out of orphanages and colonies after his father was prosecuted in 1937 during the anti-Trotskyism purge. He went to Siberia to travel there under an assumed name, Vladimir Maximov (to become later his pen name), spent time in jails and labour camps, then worked as a bricklayer and construction worker. In 1951 he settled in one of the Kuban stanitsas and started to write short stories and poems for local newspapers. His debut book Pokolenye na chasakh (Generation on the Look-out) came out in Cherkessk in 1956.
In 1956 Maximov returned to Moscow and published, among other pieces, the short novel My obzhivayem zemlyu (We Harness the Land, 1961) telling the story of Siberian hobos, courageous, but deeply troubled men, trying to find each their own way of settling down into the unfriendly Soviet reality. It was followed by Zhiv chelovek (Man is Alive). The former caught the attention of Konstantin Paustovsky who included it into his almanac Pages from Tarusa. The latter found its champion in Vsevolod Kochetov who in 1962 published it in Oktyabr, which he was then in charge of. It was met with both public and critical acclaim and was produced in 1965 by the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre. In 1963 Maximov became a member of the Union of Soviet Writers and in the mid-1960s joined the Oktyabr magazine's staff. All the while, though, his literary output was getting harsher, darker and more pessimistic.
Two of Maximov's early 1970s novels, Sem dnei tvorenya (Seven Days of Creation, 1971) and The Quarantin (1973) proved to be the turning point of his career. On the one hand, in retrospect they marked the high point of his creativity. On the other, steeped with the longing for Christian ideals and skeptical as to the viability of the Communist morality, both went against the grain of the norms and the criteria of Socialist realism. They were rejected by all Soviet publishers, came out in Samizdat, were officially banned and got their author into serious trouble. In June 1973 he was expelled from the Writers' Union, and spent several months in a psychiatric ward. In 1974 Maximov left the country to settle in Paris, and in October 1975 was stripped of the Soviet citizenship.
In 1974 Maximov launched the literary, political and religious magazine Kontinent to take up what many saw as the Hertzen-founded tradition of supporting the Russian literature in exile. It became the center point of Russian intellectual life in Western Europe, attracting such diverse authors as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Galich, Viktor Nekrasov, Joseph Brodsky and Andrey Sakharov, the latter describing Maximov as "the man of unwavering honesty." Maximov remained the magazine's editor-in-chief up until 1992, when, during one of his visits to Moscow, he transferred it to Russia and granted all rights to his colleagues in Moscow. He was also the head of the executive committee of the international anti-communist organization Resistance International.
Among Maximov's best-known works written in France were the novels Kovcheg dlya nezvanykh (The Arc for the Uninvited, 1976), telling the story of the Soviet development of the Kuril Islands after the World War II, an autobiographical dilogy Proshchanye iz niotkuda (Farewell from Nowhere, 1974—1982), and Zaglyanut v bezdnu (To Look Into the Abyss, 1986), the latter having as its theme Alexander Kolchak's romantic life. All three, based upon historical documents, portrayed Bolshevism as a doctrine of ruthlessness, amorality and political voluntarism. He authored several plays on the life of Russians in emigration, among them Who's Afraid of Ray Bradbury? (Кто боится Рэя Брэдбери?, 1988), Berlin at the Night's End (Берлин на исходе ночи,1991) and There, Over the River... (Там, за рекой, 1991).
The drastic change in political situation in his homeland and the fall of the Soviet Union left Maximov unimpressed. He switched to criticizing the new Russia's regime and, while still a staunch anti-Communist, started to published his diatribes aimed at Egor Gaidar-led liberal reforms regularly in the Communist Pravda, to great disdain of some of his friends.
