In this exclusive interview with Alexey Pavlovsky, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Australia since 2019, he shares his insights on the complex dynamics between Russia, Ukraine, and the West, as well as his reflections on Australia’s stance in the ongoing conflict. You have been Ambassador to Australia since 2019. What interested you about Continue reading »
Ukraine / Russia
At the beginning of World War I, when the British Expeditionary Force in France was being battered by the advancing German army there was great anxiety in Britain. Then the Russians magically came to the rescue. …a ‘Great Rumour’ spread across the United Kingdom that Russian troops had landed in Scotland on their way to Continue reading »
Vladimir Putin rarely uses English in his speeches. So if in his speech to the recent BRICS meeting in Kazan he insisted the reason for Russia’s 2022 attack on Ukraine was that he was duped (he pronounced it ‘dooped’) by Germany and France in the 2014-5 Minsk Accords then he probably meant it. The Accords Continue reading »
One zombie thesis about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that keeps resurfacing is the idea that it was provoked by NATO expansion. It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Eugene Doyle reprises this idea, leaning on the views of one ex-CIA analyst, George Beebe. Beebe claimed in 2021 “that Russia was likely to invade Ukraine given the Continue reading »
Earlier this week I pointed to a Ukrainian (South Korean, U.S.) propaganda campaign which claims that thousands of North Korean soldiers will soon fight with on the Russian side against Ukraine: To have North Koreans fighting in Russia against the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk would make little sense. That incursion is for one already mostly defeated.Besides Continue reading »
As it reels from one battlefield defeat after another, Ukraine faces a fateful choice: sue for peace or fight to the bitter end. Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists would prefer purifying blood sacrifice to a shameful defeat, while Western hardliners want to wear Russia down by fighting to the last Ukrainian. This yearning for Ukraine to re-enact a Continue reading »
“… the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down”, as Lord Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General, is said to have put it.
The end of WWII was an uneasy time for East-West relations. Grateful as they were for Stalin’s help, the U.S. and its allies remained wary, as Churchill's 1946 “iron Continue reading »
Newsweek has recently (Oct 7) reported that Russian mobile nuclear missile launchers have been placed on combat alert. This could mean nothing – Russian mobile missile launchers do regularly go on patrol, both for scheduled alerts and for training purposes. However, the way in which the move has been telegraphed does suggest that Russia means Continue reading »
As the war in Ukraine heads into its third winter Western leaders appear to be sinking further every day into a delusional belief in the success of their hydra-headed attempts to first de-fenestrate Russia before moving on to do the same to China Continue reading »
There must be a negotiated end to the Ukraine War. The alternative is nuclear armageddon. Continue reading »