Victoria Nuland: whence the ill wind blows

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland’s remark “Fuck the EU” let drop within the context of her strategy discussions for Ukraine with Ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt, has made the rounds of world media today bringing to the fore the mindset of arrogant world puppet-masters which has defined Barack Obama’s foreign policy team from the very start of his presidency five years ago. The ill wind from Washington heralds only rancor and divisive international relations ahead.

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Timothy Snyder: American Intellectual Discourse on the Holocaust and Much Else

In his showcasing the Great Famine in Ukraine of 1932-33, we see how Snyder the scholar (and not just Snyder the pundit dealing with current affairs) plays into the hands of those many American ideologists who conflate Stalinism with Communism, Communism with Great Russian imperialism, and Great Russian imperialism with Putinism. Read on…

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Push-back to Sylvie Kauffmann’s op-ed page essay “How Europe Can Help Kiev” in The International New York Times

Kauffmann’s op-ed essay shows that she deals in platitudes and makes foolhardy mistakes of fact and interpretation which, due to her august position in mainstream media, few if any call out.  In this brief critique, I will break that silence…

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Ukraine-Russia Rapprochement, 17 December 2013: Point, Set, Match

The grim expressions on the faces of Russian ministers seated in the front rows of the Kremlin hall where Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovich announced their agreement on rapprochement yesterday, sealed by $15 billion in loans and a steep discount on natural gas, indicated skepticism that many ordinary Russians also share over the generous handout to their dodgy southern neighbors. Has Putin got it right?  Read on…

 

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Rebuttal to Timothy Snyder’s essay on Ukraine in the ‘New York Review of Books’

When I learned that the eminent historian on East Central Europe, Yale professor Timothy Snyder, published a commentary article in The New York Review of Books five days ago entitled “A Way Out for Ukraine?”   I lost no time bringing it up on the screen for a close read. Disappointment came quickly…Read on

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Ukraine, between East and West: What Lessons can be Drawn?

Given the divisions in Ukrainian society over its history, its official languages, and its future civilizational orientation, the only way forward, the only win-win situation that can come out will be arrived at if all interested parties – EU, Russia and Ukraine – sit together at the table to define how Ukraine can move forward…Read on

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Bill Browder, Master of Bait and Switch

At a Brussels Press Club event on 12 November entitled “EU-Russia Relations before the Summit,” Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder treated a select audience of journalists and human rights activists to a variety show which included the launch of a book he has financed, Why Europe Needs a Magnitsky Law. The ultimate objective of his campaign, which now hits the road to the USA, is regime change in Russia. Read on…

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