US President Joe Biden and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on March 25 announced a joint Task Force to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian hydrocarbons and “strengthen European energy security as President Putin wages his war of choice… Read moreUkraine war windfall for US fracking industry
Crimean Tatar community leaders on March 29 issued a demand that return of the Crimean Peninsula, unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014, be a condition imposed by Kyiv in its talks with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine. The… Read moreTatars demand return of Crimea to Ukraine
In Episode 117 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg recalls the history of the Neither East Nor West position taken by anarchists and anti-authoritarians in the Cold War—seeking to build solidarity between anti-war and left-libertarian forces on either side of the East-West divide…. Read morePodcast: is ‘Neither East Nor West’ still possible?
Rights organizations and monitors in Ukraine are collecting evidence of Russian war crimes to turn over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), and say they have documented hundreds of atrocities. Gyunguz Mamedov, the former head of the “War Department” in the Ukrainian… Read moreUkraine: hundreds of Russian war crimes reported
In Episode 116 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides an overview of geostrategic and political thinking on the criticality of Eastern Europe and especially Ukraine, from the Crimean War to the contemporary catastrophe. Despite contemporary misconceptions, Karl Marx and… Read morePodcast: Ukraine & ‘the Russian menace to Europe’
A Russian military court on March 22 sentenced two Crimean Tatar men to long prison terms for peaceful activities. Timur Yalkabov received 17 years and Lenur Seidametov received 13. Both were active in the Crimean Solidarity movement, formed to advocate… Read moreRussia imprisons more Crimean Tatars
Belarus has served as a staging ground for one leg of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv officials warn that Belarusian forces may join Putin’s war effort. But resistance to the Russian aggression is emerging in Belarus—apparently including acts… Read moreBelarus: ‘partisans’ sabotage rail lines to Ukraine
In Episode 115 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to dissect Vladimir Putin’s ultra-cynical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Putin presides over Nuremberg-type mass rallies celebrating war and conquest, spews overtly genocidal rhetoric, and prepares concentration camps for the Crimean Tatars. Alexander Dugin, “Putin’s Rasputin” and… Read morePodcast: against Putin’s Big Lie
By a vote of 13 to two, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled March 16 that Russia “shall immediately suspend…military operations” in Ukraine. The two dissenting votes were from ICJ Vice President Kirill Gevorgian of Russia and Judge Xue Hanqin of China. The… Read moreWorld Court orders Russia to halt invasion of Ukraine
Exiled leaders of Russia’s Itelmen, Kamchadal, Udege, Shor, Saami and Selkup indigenous peoples issued a statement on March 10 declaring that they are “outraged by the war President Putin has unleashed against Ukraine. At the moment, the entire population of Ukraine is in grave danger. Old people,… Read moreRussian indigenous leaders protest Putin’s war
In Episode 114 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to dissect Vladimir Putin’s cynical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism—now abetted by pseudo-pacifist war propaganda. “Anti-war” voices in the West join with Putin in relentlessly portraying Ukraine as a neo-Nazi state on the dubious basis of right-wing… Read morePodcast: against pseudo-pacifist war propaganda
The Tatar people, whose homeland on the Crimean Peninsula was illegally annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014, are now mobilizing across their diaspora to resist the Russian invasion of the Ukrainian heartland. The World Congress of Crimean Tatars released a statement calling the Russian… Read moreCrimean Tatars take up arms for Ukraine
