Social democrats all?

29 01 2019

Reading about how almost all Ukrainian presidential candidates are social democrats (in their rhetoric), I came across some nifty political hat collections. Which of them fits best?

On those Ukrainian politicians, political sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko explains this phenomenon (and disavows them all) in his interview with Jacobin.

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“These people are sick…”

15 11 2017

The border war in eastern Ukraine is, it turns out, also about art. Or so this video (below) suggests.

It was made in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, after its military occupation by the separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic” a few years ago. The first interviewee is Leonid Baranov, head of a special committee that lodged itself on the premises of Donetsk’s Izolyatsia Art Center after its takeover by pro-Russian separatist fighters. The building housing the non-profit art center had previously been an insulating materials factory.

Baranov decries the art of the center and vigorously defends the DPR’s occupation of it: Read the rest of this entry »





Fugitive radioactivity

12 11 2017

Cross-posted from Immanence

The Washington Post reports that “Ruthenium-106, named after Russia” has been wafting all across Europe.

Two quick observations here.

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Plot thickening agents…

26 05 2017

Inside Russia’s social media war on America (Time)

The Great British Brexit Robbery (Guardian)

Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War (The New Yorker)

The information war is real, and we’re losing it (Seattle Times)





Russian “infowar” & the U. S. elections

13 12 2016

As the story of the Russian state’s influence on the recent U.S. elections continues to unfold, here are some web sites that document various dimensions of it, and of Russian media strategies more generally. These are mostly critical analyses, which may carry their own biases. Those seeking defenses of Russian state media, or critiques of U. S. media, of the CIA, and so on, should look elsewhere, as that’s not what this page is about. This list will grow, so check back periodically if you’d like to stay up to date.

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Rise of the global alt-right

16 11 2016

With Donald Trump in power, this web site just might get a new lease on life — reincarnated as a place for examining the rise of what has been called the “global alt-right,” with its network of connections between Putinists (like Alexander Dugin, Konstantin Rykov, and Igor Panarin), Trumpists (like Steve Bannon, Richard Spencer, and Alex Jones, among others), and those filling a similar niche around the world.

The Trump campaign’s connections with Russia, of course, go well beyond such hazy connections as these. Ukrainian fears of these connections are legion. As Natalia Humeniuk puts it,

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Ukraine update

1 11 2016

It’s been a while since I posted anything new on this blog. Since I’ve just returned (to western Europe, at least) from a trip to Ukraine, and since I’ve had a few requests to share my impressions, here they are. This is not a scholarly analysis, and it avoids the vigorous debates going on among political and sociological observers — which, from the outside, may appear as “glass half full, glass half empty” polemics. It is just a general overview rooted in my years of visiting this country. 

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Engaging with history in Ukraine

15 08 2015

Writing in The Nation, Jared McBride raises some important questions about the uses of (and control over) history in wartime Ukraine.

Marci Shore’s “Reading Tony Judt in Wartime Ukraine” indirectly, but provocatively, answers them.

Andrei Portnov’s “On Decommunization, Identity, and Legislating History, from a Slightly Different Angle” provides a balanced perspective on the same issues.





Link dump

26 07 2015

Links to various articles relevant to the topics explored on this blog (I may add to this list, so please check back periodically):

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/17/how-we-know-russia-shot-down-mh17.html

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2015/07/13/open-source-information-reveals-pro-kremlin-web-campaign/

http://voxukraine.org/2014/10/01/trust-and-prejudice/

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/everything-you-thought-you-knew-about-right-wing-parties-is-wrong?utm_content=buffer0240a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.VXjEqPKHSh4.facebook

http://culture.lb.ua/news/2015/05/08/304258_filosofi_tsitiruet_putin_.html

https://www.opendemocracy.net/denis-gorbach/struggle-for-progressive-politics-in-ukraine

http://krytyka.com/en/articles/country-war-love-excerpts-donetsk-diary

http://rbth.com/opinion/2015/02/05/the_real_leviathan_43475.html





Nihilist vs. Kagarlitsky

22 04 2015

Russophone leftists Nihilist.li provide a “take-down” of prominent Russian left-wing intellectual Boris Kagarlitsky, translated here.  Kagarlitsky has been an influential voice on Western Left understandings of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Nihilist arose from the ashes of Left Affair (Liva Sprava).








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