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 […]
ukraine
Posted inWar and Peace
The GOP’s Russian church connection
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Republican Party has a long history of opposition to Russia. They were the leaders in Cold War rhetoric, deploring both the communism and atheism of the Soviet regime. In the early 1950s, The Red Scare, promoted by right-wing Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, warned the American people that communism was creeping into our government. He […]
Posted inWar and Peace
A horrific ‘gay purge’ in Chechnya shows the limits of our moral attention
Reading Time: 4 minutes In 2019, a brutal ‘gay purge’ took place in the Russian republic of Chechnya. It was not the first. Since 2017, gay men have been hunted, abducted, and tortured by the Chechen authorities. Some have been murdered. The story was briefly covered by Western media. Thinking that the return (yet again) of concentration camps to […]
Posted inWar and Peace
The day the white pelicans came
Reading Time: 4 minutes One recent glorious morning in tranquil South Dakota, as Russia rained more death and destruction on Ukrainian cities and hamlets, I awoke to a perfect day, my wife peacefully checking her email beside me and turning to smile, and our cat trying to tunnel under the covers to a remembered warm spot. That’s what the […]
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 inWar and Peace
Beyond Ukraine: The global response to (un)civil wars
Reading Time: 6 minutes With Western attention on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s easy to forget the added pain of people from regions where crimes against humanity have been raging all this time. But it’s a whole different level of heartbreak for many to witness European borders suddenly opening wide, stronger sanctions put in place, and international organizations rallying […]
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 inComedy
Vladimir Putin hosts first ever Kremlin bake sale
Reading Time: < 1 minute Moscow, Russia – Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin hosted the first ever Kremlin bake sale to raise funds for his war of aggression against the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Under the watchful eyes of soldiers, onlookers remarked, “Wow, these baked goods totally don’t suck!” President Putin and his team of bright-eyed bake sale aficionados were […]
Posted inNews
Putin’s complaints about ‘cancel culture’ ring hollow given Russia’s methods of ‘cancelling’ critics
Reading Time: 3 minutes First the Russian regime poisoned Alexei Navalny in 2020, after he urged Russians to rid themselves of Vladimir Putin and his corrupt cronies. In this video he branded his country “an insatiable toad”. After he survived the assassination attempt, he was jailed earlier this week on what his many supporters say were trumped up charges […]