Reading Time: 4 minutes Russia—and more pertinently Putin—is threatening Lithuania with non-diplomatic retaliation in reply to the Baltic state’s sanctioning of goods from Russia to its exclave Kaliningrad. As if things weren’t precarious enough to Europe’s east, the situation is on the brink of some frightening escalation. But this is no time to de-escalate. What has happened with Lithuania […]
Russia
Posted inWar and Peace
When Russian propaganda goes hilariously wrong
Reading Time: 4 minutes Russian propaganda is no laughing matter. It’s keeping almost an entire nation under its spell, inoculated from the truth with a constant provision of carefully curated narrative disinformation. The vast majority of Russian citizens appear to be unwittingly sucked in. Whether there are those who have seeds of doubt but who suppress those skeptical desires […]
Posted inPolitics
Does Putin have Parkinson’s disease?
Reading Time: 5 minutes There is definitely something going on with the health of Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin. This was, it seems, particularly evident in a stage-managed appearance with his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu put on for the cameras yesterday in the Kremlin. Watch the video below to see for yourself. Now, I don’t want to be throwing around […]
Posted inSpace
Can we still make peace in space?
Reading Time: 6 minutes What a year for symbols of peace and progress. On Thursday, April 7, the UN General Assembly removed Russia from the Human Rights Council on which it had sat for weeks while displacing 10 million Ukrainians, internally and abroad. In the inadequacy of an international organization formed after World War II to sustain peace among […]
Posted inWar and Peace
Where to now, Putin? Because there is no way you can win.
Reading Time: 9 minutes Over the last few months, I’ve been keeping close tabs on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and sharing my analysis both editorially and in conversation on my YouTube channel. This is, after all, what appears to be the most public war in history, with as many armchair generals as there are serving soldiers. The war itself is […]
Posted inWar and Peace
Even I knew more than the Russian intelligence services: Assessing Putin’s plans
Reading Time: 10 minutes Who knows what’s in the mind of a narcissistic conspiracy theorist military dictator? In the case of Vladimir Putin, we actually can get a decent idea of what he originally wanted and how they have had to necessarily change. When Putin amassed his troops on the Russian and Belorussian borders, we knew there was going […]
Posted inPolitics
The global impact of the war in Ukraine
Reading Time: 5 minutes A war is like an earthquake: it can be devastating and its human toll can be tragic. It can occupy the airwaves and cyberspace, monopolizing the collective consciousness and conscience of the citizens of the world as they gaze sadly upon the ruins. But not every earthquake disturbs the tectonic plates enough to reshape them; […]
Posted inWar and Peace
The price of war: Ukrainian refugees get aid from The Satanic Temple
Reading Time: 6 minutes While the conflict over Ukraine continues to cripple Europe with both political and refugee crises, displaced refugees include a diverse group of Ukrainian nationals. This includes Christians, secularists, Muslims, and members of other religious traditions including Satanism. While it is taken for granted that larger religious organizations will be offering aid to members of their […]
Posted inWar and Peace
Archbishop says Putin only wants to ‘reconstruct Christian civilization’
Reading Time: 3 minutes Carlo Maria Viganò—once the papal ambassador to the U.S. among other countries—has claimed that the invasion of Ukraine is an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to reconstruct “Christian civilization” in Europe. According to Religion News Service, Viganò, in a lengthy letter running to almost 10,000 words, excoriated countries that are “demonizing” Putin and imposing […]
Posted inPolitics
There’s no nice and neat moral solution to the Ukraine conflict
Reading Time: 3 minutes Although people will be approaching the present war from different angles, looking to load their evaluations with differing amounts of blame for the various players—Putin, NATO, the EU, Ukraine, the West, the IMF etc.—we all desire a nice and neat moral solution. It doesn’t matter who you are and what side you are on, surely […]