Russia international relations

Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury June 17, 2022 Food crises, economic stagnation and price increases are worsening unevenly, almost everywhere, following the Ukraine war. Sanctions against Russia have especially hurt those relying on wheat and fertilizer imports. Unilateral sanctions illegal Unilateral sanctions – not approved by the UN Security Council – are illegal under international law. Besides contravening the UN Charter, unilateral sanctions inflict much human loss. Countless civilians – many far from target countries – are at risk, depriving them of much, even life itself. Sanctions, embargos and blockades – ‘sold’ as non-violent alternatives to waging war by military means – economically isolate and punish targeted countries, supposedly to force them to acquiesce. But most sanctions hurt the innocent majority, much more than the ruling elites. Originally published at Human Wrongs Watch on June 7, 2022 Like laying siege on enemy settlements, sanctions are ‘weapons of mass starvation’. They “are...

Peter PeverelliTFF Associate June 17, 2022 When you have been working with cross-cultural issues, helping develop a model of measurable culture using 7 cultural dimensions, you tend to develop a sensitivity for cues that seem to indicate a cultural aspect in everything that people around me say and do. It sometimes irritates colleagues, friends and other intimi. However, some time ago one of those hunches struck me as so spectacular, that I felt I needed to share it with my larger network. Our politicians and media remind us daily that the current turmoil in Ukraine is the most horrible issue the world has to deal with at this moment. Fortunately, Russia stands alone in its military aggression and the entire (rest of the) world is uniting in sanctions to force Russia on its knees and give up. Other views can only be heard on LinkedIn, which has become one of...

Telford Taylor giving his opening remarks at the judges trial, Nuremberg, 1947. Ellen Taylor June 12, 2022 I was in Nuremberg during the war crimes trials which followed WWII. My father, Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor, was Chief Prosecutor during the  second,  American phase.  The French, Russian and British staffs had gone home to  continue trials at home, but the US stayed longer, and  scheduled about 400 additional  defendants. They were divided into twelve  categories: judges, doctors, industrialists, etc. There were 142 convictions and ten death sentences. I remember the  high spirits of the occupying  troops and  tribunal staff, The joy of triumph and victory. I  danced with them in the ballroom of  the Grand Hotel, where the  officials and court lawyers spent their evenings.  I scared myself by looking  into seemingly-bottomless bomb craters, played in the war-shattered  wreckage of  our commandeered  townhouse, and listened to stories told by the servants, who...

Russia’s very existence is under threat. The country has to take serious measures to ensure it survives Dmitry Trenin June 6, 2022 The stand-off between Russia and the Western nations, which has been developing since 2014, escalated into an active confrontation with the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, back in late February. In other words, the Great Game has ceased to be a game. It has become total war, though a hybrid one so far, since the armed conflict in Ukraine is not of a full-scale nature at present. However, the danger of it intensifying towards a direct collision not only exists, but is increasing. The challenge Russia is facing has no equivalents in our history. It’s not just that we have neither allies nor even potential partners left in the West. Frequent comparisons with the Cold War of the mid and late 20th century are inaccurate and rather...

Jack F. Matlock, Jr. May 27, 2022 An avoidable crisis that was predictable, actually predicted, willfully precipitated, but easily resolved by the application of common sense, writes Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. We are being told each day that war may be imminent in Ukraine. Russian troops, we are told, are massing at Ukraine’s borders and could attack at any time. American citizens are being advised to leave Ukraine and dependents of the American Embassy staff are being evacuated. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president has advised against panic and made clear that he does not consider a Russian invasion imminent. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has denied that he has any intention of invading Ukraine. His demand is that the process of adding new members to NATO cease and that in particular, Russia has assurance that Ukraine and Georgia will never be members. President Joe Biden has...

Photo by Jiyeon Park on Unsplash Edward Curtin May 19, 2022 Isn’t it always? With the start of World War III by the United States “declaring” war against Russia by its actions in Ukraine, we have entered a time when the end of time has become very possible. I am speaking of nuclear annihilation. I look down at my great-uncle’s gold Elgin pocket watch from the 19th century. His name was John Patrick Whalen, an Irish immigrant to the US who fled England’s colonialist created famine in Ireland. It tells me it is 5:15 PM on April 21, 2022, a date, coincidentally, with a history.  Originally published at Off-Guardian No doubt John looked at his watch on this date in 1898 when the United States, after the USS Maine exploded from within in Havana harbour (a possible false flag attack), declared war on Spain in order to confiscate Spanish territories – Cuba, Puerto Rico,...

Ben Norton May 18, 2022 NATO sees Ukrainians as mere cannon fodder in its imperial proxy war on Russia The US-led NATO military alliance has made it clear that it is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian in order to bleed Russia and advance Western geopolitical interests. In a shockingly blunt admission, The Washington Post acknowledged that some NATO member states want “Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying” in order to prevent Russia from making political gains. Originally published at Globalresearch In an April 5 report on peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, the major US newspaper disclosed that NATO is afraid that Kyiv may give in to some of Moscow’s demands. The Washington Post wrote explicitly: “For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.” Anonymous...

A 30 mins panel discussion led by Ms Liu Xin, a very important TV personality known to CGTN’s 150 million viewers because of her program “The Point”. CGTN stands for China Global Television Network – more about it here. And here is its YouTube Channel. The participants in this edition of “The Point” are: Yury Tavrovsky, chairman of Experts Commission of Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace and Development Ulrich Brückner, professor, Stanford University in Berlin Michael E. O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution Brian Berletic, Geopolitical Analyst, Bangkok And here it is on YouTube. Enjoy the debate! Is this type of reasoning, based on decades of free research and knowledge-building, of merit in a democracy and for the discussion about NATO?If you think so, TFF would be grateful for your support. Thanks!

Richard E. Rubenstein May 17, 2022 Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it was fair to call the ensuing conflict “Putin’s war.” True, the U.S. and Europe could probably have avoided the invasion by calling a halt to NATO expansion and negotiating seriously with the Russians about key security issues. True, U.S. arms had been pouring into Ukraine since the overthrow of the pro-Russian government there in 2014, and Ukraine was using them to kill pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region. But Putin was still responsible for crossing the line into organized violence. It does matter who shoots first, and he shot first. Originally published at Transcend.org Even so, that is not the end of the discussion. Far from it. At first one could rightfully have called this Putin’s war, but it has now become Joe Biden’s war as well. Consider what has happened so far. The advance...

Diplomatic Security Service conducts a training at the National Cathedral in Washington in 2020. (U.S. State Department) Sam Husseini May 2, 2022 The late U.S. secretary of state’s association with Biden and the Clintons can be seen as a war-making, mutually absolving clique, writes Sam Husseini. It’s fitting that U.S. President Joe Biden and Bill and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should eulogize Madeleine Albright at the mammoth Episcopalian institution calling itself the “National Cathedral.” After all, just last year, Albright eulogized fellow war maker, “trailblazer” and fellow Episcopalian Colin Powell there for his “honesty, dignity, loyalty and an unshakable commitment to his calling and word.”  Albright, Biden and the Clintons covered for each other’s criminal war making — and ultimately, they all enabled and covered for Republican criminality as well. All showed they were capable of murderous deceits.  Originally published at Consortiumnews.com It sparked some measure of attention during the 2020 election,...

In a little more than 5 minutes, Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development Director Jeffrey Sachs pulls the entire US/NATO narrative apart. It’s very clear public education. One may wonder how much longer a man like Sachs will be invited to appear in Western mainstream media – he simply knows too much, has a macro perspective that pulls it all together, speaks with a passion and even uses the word “peace” too.

Members of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment march in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2019. Their flags display the group’s Wolfsangel logo, a variant of that used by the Nazi SS. (Goo3 / Wikimedia Commons) Branko Marcetic April 29, 2022 The same Western media that once documented and decried Ukraine’s far right is now playing it down and even rehabilitating its leaders — including actual Nazis. Such apologetics aren’t doing any favors for Ukrainians or their fight against Russia’s aggression. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of neighbouring Ukraine a month ago, something curious has happened with Western media coverage of the country’s far-right. Amid the global wave of indignation at Russia’s war of aggression, which Moscow has justified on the pretext of “denazification,” the Western press — fixated for the last five years on the prospect of fascism and the far right at home — has begun playing the issue down....