In October 2023, Ukraine will hold elections for the Verkhovna Rada, the unicameral parliament of Ukraine. In the previous elections Vladimir Zelensky's party "Servant of the People" received 43.16% of the vote. Since then the popularity of the party and Zelensky himself has been gradually declining, but in 2022...
Already made vacation plans? How about something completely new? How about a country where “the air smells of freedom”? How about a vacation in Ukraine? The brave political tourists have led the way: British prime ministers (three in number), the American president, the German chancellor, the entire European Commission and many...
The U.S. media and Washington political establishment has been unified in condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in lauding the Ukrainian resistance. Censored reports from the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine, however, make clear that the war was started eight years ago by Ukraine–after its legitimate government was overthrown in a...
Last Week's Episode—Ukraine Crisis Fueled by U.S. and NATO Expansion The outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine did not come out of nowhere. Fundamental to understanding the current crisis is the history of U.S. and NATO expansion in Europe—which the U.S. repeatedly promised Russia would not happen. Richard Becker...
The AFL-CIO recently hosted a fundraiser by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) which aimed to support labor organizations in Ukraine assisting families suffering through the current crisis. One of the labor organizations is the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) which is a partner of the AFL-CIO’s...
“Shock and awe” was George Bush senior’s name for his “Desert Storm” attack on Iraq in 1990 – 91. A United Nations report described the effect on Iraq as “near apocalyptic,” sending Iraq back to the “pre-industrial age.” But it wasn’t enough. After a decade of sanctions against Iraq,...
But Will the Strategy Succeed This Time? Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously bragged about having induced a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 by supporting Islamic fundamentalists with the goal of “giving the Soviets their Vietnam.” The collateral damage of the war—the destruction of Afghanistan and...
Let us begin a conversation in response to what currently qualifies as the most profound question, the one that needs most urgently to be addressed if we are to have any chance of understanding what we conveniently refer to as the “Ukraine crisis.” This is, more accurately, a planetary...
Last week I was embedded with the Russian army and visited two towns in southeastern Ukraine. The first town was called Henichesk, a port city along the Sea of Azov in Kherson Oblast (province) of southern Ukraine, bordering on Crimea. The Russian army, patrolling the city, went with us—the embedded...
Deletion needed to preserve big lie of an unprovoked Russian invasion The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—a CIA offshoot founded in the early 1980s to advance “democracy promotion” initiatives around the world—has deleted all records of funding projects in Ukraine from their searchable “Awarded Grants Search” database. The archived webpage captured February 25, 2022 from...