Britain joined Russia in blocking a UN Security Council statement condemning the Azeri blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh
Russia
A bloody attack on a Ukrainian Orthodox Church priest, close to the Orthodox Christmas, in a church....and sanctioned by the government.
Why Ukraine may be under even more pressure than Russia to Do Something when the ground finally freezes in Ukraine.
Just because the weather gods are now smiling on Europe does not mean its energy crunch is over.
A piece about NATO's recent noises re Ukraine sadly reveals how supposedly non-captured, well-meaning activists have lost the plot.
Is Ukraine's spin getting threadbare?
Paul Niland looks at how even Russia's minimal war aims in Ukraine are vague and impossible, eroded by the attrition of the Ukrainian armed forces and a failing mobilisation
The West is arraying financial weapons never deployed before against a country of Russia’s size, forsaking some of the principles that have defined it.
Part of what has defined the West – and most of what has been the world’s engine of prosperity for the past century and a half – has been the free flow of goods across borders, a working banking system, and property rights.
There’s been an implicit understanding that no sizeable nation (Russia’s economy is about the size of Australia’s) would be denied access to these things. Otherwise the financial system wouldn’t be the financial system.
That seems to have been the understanding of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But ten days ago, the West did the unthinkable, and the global financial system may never be the same again.
Oct 19, 2022ROBERT SKIDELSKY Admired in the West but loathed by his countrymen as a harbinger of Russia’s post-Cold War misfortune, Mikhail Gorbachev fully grasped the immense challenges of reforming the ailing Soviet Union. Today’s Russia largely reflects the anti-Western grievances stemming from his failure. LONDON – Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader, was buried last month … Continue reading Gorbachev’s Tragic Legacy
Nov 8, 2022 ROBERT SKIDELSKY and PHILIP PILKINGTON Decades of deindustrialization have hollowed out the UK economy and made it woefully ill-prepared for wartime disruptions. As the financial speculators who funded its current-account deficits turn against the pound, policymakers should consider Keynesian taxes and increasing public investment. LONDON – A wartime economy is inherently a shortage economy: … Continue reading Too Poor for War