One of the journalists who dared to say Russia is not going to invade Poland or western Ukraine made a very similar statement, but pretend journalist are too busy verbally playing battleship to explain what is really going on.
3 hours ago (20:53 GMT)
Russia wants to block Kyiv, create land corridor to Crimea and Transdniestria, Kyiv says
Ukraine’s military has said that Russian forces aim to block Kyiv while creating a land corridor on the southern coast towards the annexed Crimea peninsula and the Transdniestria region of Moldova.
Ukrainian forces have battled Russian invaders on three sides after Moscow mounted an assault by land, sea and air.
3 hours ago (20:57 GMT)
Russian forces have advanced closer to Kyiv: US defence official
Russian forces are making advances on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and Moscow has continued to flow forces into the country, a senior US defense official has said.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that so far Russia had fired more than 160 missiles at Ukrainian targets.[/i]
3 hours ago (20:22 GMT)
Ukrainian forces recapture Hostomel Airfield
Ukrainian forces have recaptured Hostomel airfield, the adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office has said.
Leonid Ragozin
Leonid Ragozin is a freelance journalist based in Riga.
Time to question Washington’s approach to Russia
The tragic events under way in Ukraine should reinvigorate the discussion on the wisdom of Western and specifically American policies regarding Russia and the remainder of the former USSR in the last 30 years.
How wise was it to expand NATO and the EU towards Russia’s borders, isolating Russia from its closest neighbours and breaking the natural flow of post-Soviet societies with hard borders and trade barriers? The policy was aimed at preventing a new aggressive monster state, the USSR 2.0, from rising from the ruins of the Soviet Union. But isn’t this exactly what is happening now? Wouldn’t it have been much wiser to prioritise integrating Russia – a huge nuclear power – into the West when the country was ripe and ready for it, rather than brushing it off as a largely irrelevant declining power?
Various Russian officials warned the West back in the 1990s that the efforts to isolate and sideline Russia would result in the rise of nationalist and autocratic forces in the country. Indeed Putin himself recalled in one of his latest speeches how he once asked President Bill Clinton whether Russia could also join NATO, but did not get an answer.
Back in 2000, when he was first elected in the still democratic elections, Putin was seen as a liberal and tacitly supported by the West against his more conservative rivals. A man without real political principles, just hungry for power, Putin could have become a perfect eurocrat. Hasn’t the West, with its perpetual fear of Russia, grown its own Frankenstein?
Even now, at the point of collision, the West does not have a vision for a post-Putin Russia which could motivate Russians to change the political regime in their country. Indeed, for many in the hawkish circles, an aggressive and isolated Russia is a milking cow that secures their salaries and lucrative contracts.
Russian society is responsible for Ukraine’s current tragedy and for allowing Putin to usurp power. But this war, with its many dire consequences that will emerge in the coming days and weeks, is in itself a punishment for Russians. Now all efforts should focus on finding a way to build a united Europe, with a democratic, post-Putinist Russia as an integral part.
