Two weeks ago, thousands of representatives from businesses and governments from across the world gathered in London to “support Ukraine’s recovery”. But was the gathering of all those Western corporate elites at the Ukraine Recovery Conference entirely altruistic? There are, …
Dodging shells on Ukraine’s eastern front
I’m running. Shells explode around me. Sometimes they roar like thunder; sometimes they whistle on approach. Large parts of the forest are on fire. Smoke rolls by like dry ice.
“Run. Run. Run,” says Dima. I follow him over the …
How will Ukraine rebuild?
One lonely road cuts through the Azerbaijani town of Fuzuli. On one side, a cluster of decaying, vacant houses sit in a dip in the landscape, the remains of the original settlement. Three decades ago, it was home to around …
The Prigozhin roadshow isn’t over
Waking up on Saturday morning, Putin must have wished he’d kept catering in-house. Only the day before, the Ukraine war seemed to be proceeding relatively well for Russia, at least by the lowered expectations of this stage in the conflict. …
How Putin enabled the Wagner revolt
Why do Russia’s wars always start with disaster? The answer is straightforward: because the autocrats who rule Russia — be they Tsars (with the exception of Napoleon’s nemesis Alexander I), Joseph Stalin or Vladimir Putin — appoint obedient toadies sadly …
Putin declares war on Prigozhin
Here in Odesa, the mood is a mix of incredulity, fascination and schadenfreude. Or, as my friend Hanna tells me with glee: “It’s popcorn time — it’s just a shame there’s no popcorn in Ukraine these days.” The word “Prigozhin” …
Interview 1812 – Moving Ukraine Closer to NATO – #NewWorldNextWeek
This week on the New World Next Week: NATO talks about a Ukraine-NATO council that will move Ukraine closer to NATO…but they’re totally not inviting them in, guys; the IMF is working on a CBDC platform (along with every other …
Eat, Pray, Get Cancelled
This week has brought mixed news for beleaguered Ukrainians. Their army’s counteroffensive is taking a heavy toll on its own troops; there have been damaging missile strikes on the cities of Kryvyi Rih and Odesa; the breach in the Nova …
Germany’s self-destructive Greens
The Greens were supposed to be Europe’s new hope. At the twilight of the Trump era, their champions on both sides of the Atlantic argued that they would be the perfect antidote to the far-Right. Back then, the largest and …
How Aleksandr Dugin influences the West
As Europe’s leaders anxiously await the results of Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive, it is significant that Aleksandr Dugin’s latest essay opens by citing Ernst Jünger’s influential 1932 essay The Worker, to call for Russia’s total mobilisation to win the war. Though …
The plan behind Ukraine’s counteroffensive
“Kill them all — I never thought I’d say that, but these bastards have no humanity.” Dasha stabs her finger into the air as she makes her point over coffee in Odesa. Across south-eastern Ukraine, people are enraged at the …
Why Putin will use nuclear weapons
However you try to spin it, the drone strikes that struck Moscow’s wealthiest neighbourhoods on Tuesday night represented a grim turning point in Putin’s flagging campaign against Ukraine. The surprise attacks — which killed eight people, and for which Kyiv …
The Arab Spring exposed America’s weakness
When Bashar al-Assad touched down in Riyadh last week, to be embraced by the Saudi king on the occasion of Syria’s readmittance to the Arab League, the Syrian War drew to a close, and with it the Arab Spring. His …
Kissinger’s final warning
How one chooses to celebrate Kissinger’s Century depends on where you sit in the “Kissinger wars”. To his detractors, Henry Kissinger was an imperialist who pursued US global supremacy with unmatched ruthlessness and cynicism. To his supporters, he was a …
Poland’s leaders have endangered Nato
On 16 December 2022, the most significant territorial breach in Nato’s history took place, but the chances are you didn’t hear about it. That day — almost a month after a presumed-to-be errant Ukrainian air defence rocket made international headlines …