Is Vladimir Putin Dead? Unlikely.
If you follow Russian politics, or dwell in the darker corners of the internet, you may have noticed a story spreading like wildfire in recent days around Telegram and X, the site formerly known as Twitter, and finally jumping into the mainstream media. The news? Vladimir Putin, Russian dictator and Ukrainan warmonger, was suddenly dead at age 71.
Read full storyWar & Peace in the Middle East
The world’s longest and most intractable conflict explodes. In general, I’m deeply skeptical of war as an effective method of statecraft, particularly wars that are meant to solve complex and longstanding ethnic, religious, or sociopolitical problems. Specifically, I’m referring to defensive and preventive wars launched in response to attacks, rather than illegal wars of territorial aggression, like for example, Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine, prohibited by international law and overtly genocidal in nature.
Read full storyA Massive Surprise Attack on Israel
After what can only be described as an unmitigated Israeli intelligence failure, and a massive armed incursion into Israeli territory by scores of Hamas militants which resulted in the mass murder and kidnapping of hundreds of Israeli citizens, it’s clear that the perpetually simmering Middle Eastern cauldron has begun to boil extraordinarily hot. This vicious surprise attack by Hamas marks the beginning of what will be a costly and catastrophic conflict for both sides, one that could explode across the region like flames over dry tinder.
Read full storyUkraine Pounds Occupied Crimea
Kyiv is battering Russian forces in Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine. Once again, the Ukrainian military has reached out and touched a key Russian commander, in an audacious missile strike that left the Kremlin speechless and pro-war Russian commentators reeling, and which was one more indication that Russia still hasn’t figured out how to protect even its most senior military leaders in Ukraine, 19 months into the war it started.
Read full storyTucker Carlson on Russian TV?
Either way, he’s still the Kremlin’s favorite propagandist. Days after The Atlantic published a scathing article written by the historian and writer Anne Applebaum, which compared Tucker Carlson with “Axis Sally” and “Tokyo Rose,” the various women who spent the Second World War spreading English-language propaganda via radio broadcasts directed at American troops fighting in Europe and Asia on behalf of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, a curious piece of news appeared that seemed to clarify things a bit.
Read full storyOpinion: America Won't Survive Another Trump Election
2024 will be a clear choice between dictatorship and democracy. In the interview Donald Trump did with Kristen Welker, broadcast Sunday on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press,” the former president revels in his mounting political strength, and for once, he’s not lying. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows him with a 50 point lead over Ron DeSantis, his nearest competitor, and he continues to build momentum. Incidentally, that poll came out the same week that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith asked Judge Tanya Chutkan for a limited gag order to stop Trump from threatening witnesses and influencing potential members of the jury in his upcoming federal trial, set to begin in early March.
Read full storyA Genocidal Message from Moscow
The Kremlin sends another grisly message written in blood. If anyone was still wondering why the United States and our European allies are arming and supporting Ukraine, the Kremlin delivered a potent, blistering reminder in the form of a missile attack that turned a crowded market in Kostyantynivka into a scene of fiery devastation and death yesterday. The strike reportedly killed at least 17 civilians, and was impossible to justify in any military, political, or moral sense. It was genocidal terror, and thus typical of the Kremlin’s insane war of aggression in Ukraine, which has been one prolonged episode of genocidal violence.
Read full storyUkraine's Offensive Heats Up
On the verge of a breakthrough in Ukraine’s counteroffensive. In the last week or so, as Western analysts, officials, and observers have been anxiously preoccupied with the sluggish pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the Ukrainians themselves were quite busy, as they bombed an airport in Pskov, and hit Moscow and St. Petersburg, showcasing an expanding appetite and ability to strike deep into the Russian homeland. Stunning videos and satellite images of Pskov showed four destroyed Ilyushin-76 aircraft, used to transport paratroopers and military equipment, in what the UK’s Ministry of Defence called “the largest attack on Russia since the start of the conflict.”
Read full storyYevgeny Prigozhin Dies Fiery Death
It was curious. Only days after Yevgeny Prigozhin had humiliated Vladimir Putin, capturing the southern military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don and marching an armed column toward Moscow, the mercenary boss was reportedly moving around freely between St. Petersburg and Moscow. He was supposed to be sequestered in Belarus with his Wagner fighters, according to the deal supposedly brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, but he wasn’t.
Read full storyA Stalled Offensive in Ukraine
Kyiv and Washington face some painful soul-searching. As Ukraine’s much-hyped but bitterly disappointing summertime counteroffensive stumbles, with paltry territorial gains and little change in the conflict’s larger dynamic, policymakers in Washington and Kyiv must now confront a difficult reality. The stalled three-month-old offensive has raised hard questions about Ukraine’s strategic direction in the war going forward, ones with profound geopolitical implications in America, Europe, Asia, and beyond.
Read full storyThis is the Future Oppenheimer Feared
Humanity is walking along a razor’s edge in Ukraine. I recently watched Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic, Oppenheimer, shortly after reading the biography that inspired it, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s definitive American Prometheus. It was a harrowing reminder that humanity remains trapped on a nuclear precipice, with no answer to the issues of war and peace that Oppenheimer knew mankind would have to master if it hoped to survive his terrible creation.
Read full storyThe Russian Army is Convulsing
Vladimir Putin’s military is approaching the breaking point. In some ways, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s insurrection was an authoritarian system vainly attempting to self-correct, following Vladimir Putin’s grossly mismanaged and strategically inept invasion of Ukraine, an unprovoked war of aggression that amounts to the gravest geopolitical miscalculation since Adolf Hitler commanded his Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union in 1941.
Read full storyMutinous Wagner Chief Returns to Russia
The Wagner chief comes back home to retrieve his seized guns and money, as Vladimir Putin forgives and forgets. As Yevgeny Prigozhin was seizing Rostov-on-Don and marching on Moscow, during his 36-hour insurrection, the Russian Interior Ministry was raiding his palatial home, discovering the wealth and paraphernalia of the world’s most famous mercenary. Footage of the raid brought to mind the arrest of a major cocaine trafficker, as masked Russian special operations police tore through Prigozhin’s sumptuous St. Petersburg villa. The officers were armed with black submachine guns and, presumably, loyalty to Vladimir Putin, as the Russian dictator faced down the single greatest threat to his rule in over two decades in power.
Read full storyVladimir Putin is Politically Wounded
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted insurrection reveals fatal weakness. It has been a difficult and perilous few days for Vladimir Putin, who finally issued a somewhat tepid and unusually delayed response to the stunning Wagner insurrection, several hours after Yevgeny Prigozhin issued his own audio statement explaining his aborted mutiny. The two leaders seemed to be trading barbs, while communicating to the Russian people, a sign that the dynamic between them remains in flux, unfinished.
Read full storyA Political Meltdown in Russia
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s stutter step coup d’etat fizzles out. It has been a stunning series of developments in Russia, as the Kremlin faces its gravest political crisis in decades, with potentially earth-shaking geopolitical implications. The brash mercenary warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin stepped up and challenged Vladimir Putin, rapidly capturing the southern city of Rostov and the military headquarters there, before moving on nearly unimpeded toward Moscow, blasting numerous Russian helicopters out of the sky, with video emerging of his tanks and masked fighters prowling the streets of Russian cities.
Read full storyWagner Chief Makes His Move
Yevgeny Prigozhin accused of “organizing an armed rebellion”. As the Ukrainian army unleashes its summertime counteroffensive, in what amounts to a grave military challenge for the Kremlin, there’s another festering threat closer to home, and certainly far more dangerous from Vladimir Putin’s perspective. Friday saw yet another dramatic escalation in the long-running battle between Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Wagner paramilitary outfit, as the two supposed allies traded more than just harsh rhetoric. By the end of the day, Wagner’s camps had been bombed, and the FSB was accusing Yevgeny Prigozhin of leading an armed rebellion against the Russian state.
Read full storyRussia Moves Nuclear Weapons Into Belarus
Amid threats to bomb Washington, Russia moves nukes into Belarus. With Ukraine’s counteroffensive now seemingly in full swing, and several villages already reportedly liberated by Ukrainian ground forces, the Kremlin is once again resorting to nuclear brinksmanship, as if to signal the potential consequences of a successful Ukrainian advance. Of course, Vladimir Putin has made nuclear saber-rattling a central part of his murderous adventure in Ukraine, using the explicit threat of a nuclear holocaust to ensure Russia could attack its neighbor unimpeded, effectively keeping the U.S. and Europe on the sidelines of the conflict.
Read full storyOP-ED: The DOJ Indicts Donald Trump
The DOJ makes a historic move against the former president. In a momentous move against a former American president, and the man who is the current Republican frontrunner, the Department of Justice has charged Donald Trump with 38 criminal counts related to his mishandling of classified documents. The indictment was filed in Federal District Court in Miami by Special Counsel Jack Smith, bringing charges stemming from Trump’s retention of boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, and his prolonged refusal to return them to authorities.
Read full storyThe Russian Army is Splintering
Armed Russian factions are cannibalizing themselves. In Helsinki last Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken icily dismissed calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine, and flayed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a devastating “strategic failure,” while reiterating Washington’s ironclad support ahead of Kyiv’s bubbling counteroffensive, which appears to be in its initial stages. It was as if Blinken was attempting to erase the shame of the last American president in Helsinki, when Donald Trump sided with Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies, and revealed his cowering subservience to Moscow before the entire world.
Read full storyUkraine Lashes Out at Russia
The war in Ukraine is rapidly becoming a war in Russia. The recent seizure of Bakhmut by Russian forces was perhaps the single bright spot in a dismal season of failure and frustration for the Kremlin, and even that small tactical victory was tainted, because it was almost certainly a strategic loss, given the enormous number of casualties Russia suffered to achieve it, estimated at 100,000 soldiers. Still, with drones bombing Moscow yesterday, and the war in Ukraine increasingly spilling into Russia itself, it’s clear that the Kremlin’s problems are only just beginning.
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