Why New Zealand must help Ukraine

ASEAN countries have hesitated to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or help Ukraine defeat the aggressors, but it’s in the interest of every state – not least New Zealand – to support the international order, defeat Russia and deter China from similar imperialist adventurism.

Ukraine’s future lies in NATO

Although Vladimir Putin strives to reabsorb Ukraine into a resurgent Russian empire, Ukraine’s future lies in being another strong democracy in a united and resolute NATO.

Ukraine’s cardboard airforce

Australia has refused to send surplus F18 fighters to help Ukraine, but it has supplied low-cost cardboard drones to successfully attack enemy targets in Russia.

F16s give Ukraine a fighting chance

After months of diplomatic pressure, European governments have finally persuaded the US government to let them supply badly needed F-16 aircraft to the Ukrainian air force, with 40 jets on their way to drive the Russian air force back behind its borders.

How Ukraine won the social media war

Russia’s well funded propagandist bots and troll farms proved as ineffective as its lumpen armed forces in the social media war for Western hearts and minds in vital first weeks of Putin’s failed invasion.

Revenge of the Tartars

A resistance group of Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group native to the occupied peninsula who suffered terribly under the Russian Empire and Soviet rule, are now a prominent player in Ukraine’s struggle against the Russian invaders.

What now for the Wagner gang?

The Wagner mercenary group overplayed its hand in Ukraine but Prigozhin may now concentrate on continuing to disrupt the security of at-risk states, bringing a new plague of chaos to the world.

NATO must stand firm against Russian incursions

NATO must be ready to respond in a firm but measured manner to Russian incursions and provocations as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sees hesitancy in the West as weakness. The lack of a unified and strong NATO response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and hybrid warfare in the Donbas fed Putin’s ambitions to launch his doomed full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine marches forward

The West’s timid refusal to give Ukraine the jets it needs has slowed its brave counter-offensive against heavily mined and fortified Russian positions, but increasing progress is being made.

Putin’s bridge is falling down

Ukraine’s successful strike against the bridge built to link Russia with its illegally occupied territory in Crimea is another crushing blow to Russia’s ability to sustain its invasion and to Putin’s battered pride.

Ukraine needs tanks, planes – and cluster bombs

It seems perverse that Ukraine should be criticised for wanting to use cluster bombs against Russian military targets when those very invasion forces have been using them for more than a year against Ukraine.

Remembering Victoria Amelina

Victoria Amelina, murdered by Russian rockets aimed at civilian centres, joins a long procession of Ukrainian writers whose lives were cut short by oppressors intent on this nation’s destruction.