#StandwithUkraine

| March 3, 2022

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has united the civilised world against Vladimir Putin’s criminal regime.  Open Forum advocates arming Ukraine with the tanks, planes and missiles it needs to drive out the invaders and restore and protect its peace, independence and complete territorial integrity. The free world must oppose tyranny, support freedom and welcome Ukraine into NATO and the EU as soon as possible.  Now and forever we #StandwithUkraine

Ten years after

It is ten years since Russia illegally annexed Crimea on March 18 2014. Subsequent efforts to firmly integrate the peninsula into the Russian Federation, however, have been far from the success story that the Kremlin often likes to portray.

Be brave like Ukraine

The Pope may be calling for Ukraine to surrender, but the people of Ukraine will fight on for their freedom, their culture and their lives. We must do all we can to support them.

King of lies

Russian propaganda and disinformation continue to pose a global risk. Ukrainian territories that Russia unlawfully occupies have served as a testing ground for the Kremlin’s information operations and provide us with a glimpse into its present and future propaganda tactics.

The end of the affair

As Russia’s stalled invasion of Ukraine drags into a third year, what are the prospects to an end to the conflict, and could it escalate into a full-scale war between Russia and NATO?

Under his thumb

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has never understood why Ukrainians want to control their own destiny or choose a free democratic future as part of Europe rather than cling to the memory of Soviet suppression.

The enemy within

Tucker Carlson’s lickspittle ‘interview’ with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was yet another shot fired by Russia and his American apologists in the propaganda war against Ukraine and NATO, but what more can be done to counter the disinformation campaigns undermining Western democracies?

Ukraine is fighting our war

On the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of his country, Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko has delivered a blunt and heartfelt message to Australia—Ukraine is fighting our war.

Helping Ukraine to help ourselves

To recall Margaret Thatcher’s choice turn of phrase to George H.W. Bush when confronting Saddam Hussein’s flagrant aggression against Kuwait in 1990, this is no time “to go wobbly” on Australia’s support for Ukraine.

 

Boots on the ground

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said sending western troops to fight the Russians in Ukraine “could not be ruled out”.

Ukraine at the crossroads

Divided Americans and apathetic Europeans must double down on military, economic and political support for Ukraine or risk the spectre of a resurgent Vladimir Putin gloating in victory.

A tough year ahead for Ukraine

Europe is finally beginning to wake up to the reality a Trump-led US could abandon NATO, in addition to Ukraine, but whether European nations are able to overcome their institutional inertia and webs of entangled interests to stoutly resist Russia on their own remains an open question.

The horror, the horror

Unmarked graves, raped and murdered civilians, blasted landscapes, deserted towns, violent repression and cultural erasure are just part of the devastating toll of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine

Stay the course with Ukraine

The West cannot turn its back on Ukraine in the face of Vladimir Putin’s remorseless and ruthless aggression. He must be stopped and turned back, or Western Europe itself will be in grave danger.

Drones won’t win the war for Ukraine

Ukraine has used cheap remotely piloted drones with great success on the battlefield against the Russian invaders, but these tactical weapons will not win the war, and Ukraine is still crying out for the major weapon systems – such as F16 fighters – which would sway the conflict in their direction.

A decade of war in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine – dating back to Russia’s illegal seizure of Crimea in 2014 – has a host of lessons for Western nations in terms of combat tactics as well as the need to robustly oppose and defeat power-hungry dictators.

No retreat, no surrender

A Western-imposed peace deal in Ukraine which hands Vladimir Putin Ukrainian territory in return for a ceasefire will only feed Russia’s insatiable hunger for land – as it did with Serbia after the Balkan Wars 20 years ago.

Ukrainians stand firm in the face of terror

Support for Ukraine may be wavering in some Western countries but the people of that country remain resolute in their determination to defeat the enemy without territorial concessions or a loss of sovereignty.

Drone wars

Ukraine has been forced to rely on remotely operated drones to take the battle to the Russian invaders, given the West’s reluctance to supply the modern jets the country needs, but these small, cheap craft have proven effective and are changing military thinking around the world.

Ukraine 2 Russia 0

Ukraine is celebrating the downing of two expensive Russian air-control aircraft in recent days, and the subsequent erosion of Russia’s ability to coordinate its air and ground forces, observe and track targets and provide real-time aerial intelligence.

Rally round Ukraine

The Russian attack on Ukraine was one of the main subjects discussed at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting, where President Volodymyr Zelensky was given a warm reception by the democratic world.

Ukraine looks forward to 2024

Despite increasing Russian savagery and weariness in the West, Ukraine continues to fight for its freedom, and President Zelenskyy continued to inspire resistance in his New Year’s address.

Stand fast over Ukraine

Despite massive losses of men and material, Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin continues his assault on Ukraine, confident the resolve, resources and attention of the West will waver over time. This makes it all the more important for the democratic world to redouble its support for Ukraine and ensure the forces of darkness are defeated.

Stand with Ukraine

Violence in the Middle East has overshadowed Ukraine’s triumph in crossing the mighty Dnipro river to liberate areas occupied by Russian invaders for a year and a half. This is not the time for the West to get bored or distracted, or, even worse, re-elect the unspeakably awful Putin supporting Donald Trump.

Georgia’s lessons for Ukraine

When contemplating various scenarios for how the conflict with Russia might end, Ukraine’s leaders can take clear lessons from Moscow’s brutal military campaign against another one-time Soviet state, Georgia.

The Potemkin state

Russia’s imperial ambitions have always dwarfed its backward economy and blinkered political hierarchy, and just as the Romanov and Soviet regimes collapsed under the strain, so Putin’s failed war on Ukraine threatens to bring the pariah nation to its knees once again.

Atrocities not tragedies

Russia launched an unprovoked attack against Ukraine and its forces continue to commit atrocities against a people it wishes to eradicate from history. Russia bears complete responsibility for these crimes and its dictator, and western apologists, should not evade moral responsibility behind the empty label of “tragedy.”

Civil defence to the rescue in Ukraine

The Russian aggressors have killed, injured, raped and robbed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, displaced millions of civilians and leveled whole towns but Ukraine’s hard working civil defence has helped its armed forces save the nation from total destruction.

The hangover

Three months after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny, in which the former Putin ally marched towards Moscow with thousands of his brutal, ramshackle troops, the mercenary leader lies cold in his grave but Putin’s grip on power has also been severely shaken.

Do Russians believe Putin’s propaganda?

Do Russian people, restricted from the global internet and fed a relentless diet of propaganda, really trust their state media? To understand the answer requires a proper understanding of the Russian concept of “vranyo”.

Taking back the Black Sea

Ukraine has targeted Russia’s assets in the Black Sea and Crimea in recent months, including warships, bases, air defence systems and the Kerch bridge which connects Crimea to mainland Russia. Stepping up this pressure with new weapons will help bring Russia to its knees.

Stand with Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the United Nations General Assembly in person for the first time since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of his country in February 2022. Here is his speech in full, calling for the world to stand up to Russia’s unprovoked criminal aggression.

Russia’s war on journalists

Along with targeting civilians, hospitals, schools, orphanages, residential buildings and churches in Ukraine, Putin’s henchmen have also been gunning down journalists, just as they do in Russia itself where almost 50 journalists have been murdered since his criminal regime came to power.

Homelands – A personal history of Europe

Europe made great progress towards becoming a “whole and free” continent during the 35 years after the collapse of Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers another inflection point. In his new book, Timothy Garten Ash argues that a Ukraine victory would offer the opportunity to renew efforts to create a “whole and free” Europe.

Strike back!

The West has been reluctant to give Ukraine long range weapons to strike back against the Russian invaders lest the conflict spread, but giving Ukraine longer range missiles would do much to turn the tide of the war against the aggressors.

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.

What next for Wagner’s thugs?

The Wagner mercenary group once did Putin’s dirty work, but its leader’s rebellion cost Prigozhin his life and means its members face an uncertain future.

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 offer a fighting chance for Ukraine

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.

Russian roulette

Vladimir Putin, like Josef Stalin before him, deals with his critics by murdering them, but the underlying problem – his disastrous military campaign in Ukraine – has not gone away with the death of Prigozhin.

Dealing with post-Putin Russia

The death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin signals both Vladimir Putin’s ambition to crush any threat to his dictatorship, and the vulnerability of his hold on power, so how should the West deal with his successor, when the time arrives?

Ouroboros

The only surprise about Prigozhin’s death is that Vladimir Putin took two months to murder him, but as the brutal Russian regime turns on itself, it’s only a matter of time before Putin himself suffers a similar fate

Davids v Goliaths

The West’s timid failure to back Ukraine encouraged Putin’s imperialist invasion, just as Taiwan’s lack of allies has emboldened Chinese moves against it, but the dismal failure of Russia’s assault may give pause for thought in Beijing.

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.

No going back

A new book explains how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was designed to reabsorb it into the Russian empire but has succeeded only in driving it away forever.

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.

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.

How Putin ruined Russia

While most of Eastern Europe sloughed off Soviet domination to embrace freedom and prosperity, Russia has collapsed back into a new dark age under the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin.

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.

Supporting NATO and Ukraine

It is in Australia’s national interest to join NATO counterparts in proclaiming support for Ukraine and the inseparability of the transatlantic and Indo-Pacific partnerships in protecting freedom and democracy.

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.

Ukraine fights for the world

Ukraine’s survival as an independent sovereign state is crucial for everyone’s security as a Russian victory would overturn the international rule of law which has helped protect the peace since the end of the Second World War.

Putin’s wars

Vladimir Putin expected Ukraine to surrender without a fight, NATO to hesitate and Europe splinter. A new book traces the roots of his epic miscalculation and how his attempt to destroy the international rules based order has failed.

Downfall

A major armed insurrection on top of a long, grinding defeat in Ukraine are turning Vladimir Putin from a fear-inspiring despot into a figure of ridicule.

How Putin was saved by his poodle

Dictatorships always seem entrenched in power until they aren’t, and though Alexander Lukashenko was credited with saving Vladimir Putin’s regime in the face of the Wagner rebellion, his fall will likely follow Putin’s inevitable and hastening demise.

Send our old jets to help Ukraine

Western countries need to give Ukraine the modern fighters and main battle tanks it needs to drive out the invaders, and Australia should lead by example by handing over our surplus F18s.

A very Russian revolution

The latest episode of “A Very Russian Revolution” might be over, but Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is not. Before we settle in to watch the next show, whenever it is released, we might want to put our popcorn away and stop treating Russia’s war as something that only happens on our TV screens.

Send in the clowns

The one thing a mafia boss can’t afford is to look weak in the eyes of his subordinates, and the ludicrous events in Russia over recent days exposed much about the sordid realities of Putin’s teetering regime.

Both sides lost this game of chicken

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abortive coup against the Russian military fizzled out over the weekend with both sides chickening out of confrontation, but the fragmentation and in-fighting in Russia will only increase as a result.

The world’s weakest strong man

The weekend’s farcical events in Russia suggest that the political end for an increasingly rattled Vladimir Putin is approaching fast.

On to Moscow

Whether or not the Ukraine counteroffensive that began in early June 2023 succeeds in dislodging Russian troops from all the occupied territory, there are growing signs that the push has Moscow worried.

After the flood

Just as Saddam Hussain ignited Kuwait’s oil wells to frustrate the allied advance and destroy the assets he sought to gain through invasion, so the Russian flooding of Southern Ukraine betrays the ‘scorched Earth’ approach of a defeated and retreating army.

Damning evidence of Russia’s desperation

Russia’s cynical destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam aims to delay Ukraine’s much-anticipated counter-offensive to liberate Kherson in Southern Ukraine, and reveals both Putin’s brutality and desperation.

Putin’s cannon fodder

Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine has cost its army thousands of men, and Putin’s attempts to persuade more recruits to face death in the trenches are falling on deaf ears around the country.

Ukraine takes the fight to Moscow

Russia has bombarded Ukrainian cities for over a year, but the recent drone strikes on Moscow show that Ukraine has both the capacity and will to strike back at the heart of its enemy invader.

The tide turns for Ukraine

There’s a long way to go, and there’s no guarantee that Putin, having made the terrible decision to invade in the first place, won’t make another terrible decision in escalating the conflict, but Ukraine is winning this war.

Zelensky’s charm offensive

President Zelensky’s world tour is giving Ukraine the chance it needs to beef up its military supplies, train troops and build broader international support to force the Russians from its territory.

Give Ukraine the jets it needs to win

15 months after Russia’s invasion, the West remains curiously and shamefully reluctant to give Ukraine the fighter jets it needs to reclaim its own airspace and drive out the invaders.

Thug life

Vladimir Putin’s search for scapegoats for his humiliating failure to subdue Ukraine risks sparking a civil war with the brutal mercenary gang he has relied upon to do his dirty work.

Stand with Ukraine

The Ukrainian people have shown incredible courage and fortitude in resisting Russia’s barbarous invasion, and are now beginning the drive the invaders back east, so now is the time to redouble the West’s military and diplomatic support and pledge Ukraine’s eventual membership of the EU and NATO.

Why Russia’s running out of men

Having lost the cream of its army in the quagmire of Ukraine, Putin is desperately trying to recruit, conscript or bribe 500,000 more men to give their lives for his vanity. Unsurprisingly, he’s finding it a difficult task.

Tightening the noose

Putin’s “Victory Parade” mustered just ancient one tank this year as his badly led, poorly equipped and thoroughly demoralised troops and mercenaries retreated in Ukraine. However much he denies it, Putin is losing in Ukraine and defeat may cost him more than personal humiliation.

Counterstrike

Russia’s blundering and brutal assault on Ukraine has ground to a halt, but the West must keep arming Ukraine to ensure its plans to counter-attack succeed and drive the Russians from their country.

Russia’s ‘Victory Day’ rings hollow

President Putin and his Soviet forebears have always used Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany to stoke nationalism and buttress their own regime, but this year’s parade will be scaled back as Russian losses mount in Ukraine and the regime fears public protests against it.

Putin’s police state

Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after the latest 1930s-style “show trial” in Putin’s ever-more Stalinist police state.

The art of showing up

Woody Allen once quipped that “showing up is 80 percent of life”, so Anthony Albanese should accept his invitation to attend the NATO summit in Lithuania in July and show solidarity with other Western nations standing up to the aggressive authoritarian threat posed by Russia and China.

The long war

The West’s continued reluctance to confront Russia’s aggression in Ukraine or give Ukraine the jets, tanks and missiles it needs to destroy the invaders is dooming the country to a long and bloody stalemate.

Give Ukraine the ammo to finish the job

History and justice are on the side of Ukraine but Europe must accelerate the march of history. Western military support serve the cause of a just peace in Ukraine. It is the right decision and a necessary one.

Deportees

The International Criminal Court has called Russia’s systematic deportation of Ukrainian children a war crime, and Russia and the Soviet Union have a long and dreadful history of weaponising deportation.

Defeating Russia’s cyber-war against the West

Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the importance of securing democracies against malicious cyber actors in her recent address to ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue. This is an edited transcript of her speech.

Russia’s shadow war

The leak of 5,000 documents from Russia’s Vulkan group has exposed the ways Vladimir Putin’ wages cyber-war against the west.

Ecocide in Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has seen the deliberate destruction of Ukraine’s natural environment as a tactic of war, with no concern paid to their widespread, long-term and severe effects.

Russia’s forever war

Russia expected to crush, annex and absorb Ukraine in a matter of days, but after a year of dogged struggle, the Kremlin is now changing its tune and warning of a ‘forever war’.

Buffoonery in Belarus

Vladimir Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine has not only humiliated his army and isolated his country, but pushed Sweden and Finland into the arms of NATO. Putin’s threat to move tactical nuclear weapons into his ‘mini me’ vassal of Belarus will only harden the resolve of democratic nations to oppose him.

The war of words

Russia, in its various guises, has been trying to eradicate Ukrainian nationality, culture and language for hundreds of years, but every assault redoubles the commitment of Ukrainians to preserve and defend their language and nationhood.

The sorry story of Russia

A new book places Putin is his historical context, noting that Russia has always been an imperialist, expansionist power, determined to conquer as much territory as its brutal, backward, authoritarian culture will allow.

Beauty and the beast

The bestial cruelty displayed by Russia’s invaders has shocked the world but only deepened Ukraine’s determination to fight for its survival.

Putting Putin in the dock

Many dictators die safe in their beds, but there is growing international support to bring Russia’s murderous tyrant to justice for his untold crimes against Ukraine.

Bring the stolen children home

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, for the forced abduction of thousands of Ukrainian children.

Tanks for the memories

Two films about tanks highlight how Vladimir Putin and his cronies rule Russian culture with an iron fist to pump out their propaganda message.

“Tell England we are dying of hunger”

The current war is not Russia’s first attempt to liquidate Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians were deliberately starved to death by Stalin and the world was reluctant to listen until the reporting of brave journalists like Gareth Jones uncovered the full-scale of the horror.

Darkness and light

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin of Russia represent the best and worst of political leadership, appealing to hope and fear respectively, but both appeal to national sentiments to galvanise support in their respective countries.

Russia casts its pall over Moldova

Russia is using the same poisonous lies and aggressive rhetoric it used to justify its invasions of Georgia and Ukraine against the small neighbouring state of Moldova.

Rebuilding a united Ukraine

Russia’s savage invasion aimed to obliterate Ukraine and its people, but has only united them in the desire to defend and rebuild their proud but sorely damaged country.

The killing fields of Bakhmut

The cold blooded murder of Ukrainian prisoner Tymofiy Shadura by Russian troops, who not only filmed their own war crime but uploaded it to social media, epitomises the bestial brutality of Russia’s assault on Bakhmut.

All at sea

Kyiv has undermined Russia’s naval dominance of the Black Sea by demonstrating innovation and initiative through the use of missiles and drones, leaving Russia’s few remaining warships skulking in port or lobbing missiles at civilians far from the conflict zone.

Wartime trauma in Ukraine

The mental anguish inflicted on the people of Ukraine by the Russian invasion will linger long after the invaders are driven from the battlefield.

Unpicking Putin’s propaganda

Russia’s propagandists try to dupe Western leftists and American isolationists by claiming Putin’s invasion of Ukraine aims to defend Russia and Ukraine itself against US-led Western imperialism, while tapping into the patriotism which Putin and his communist predecessors weaponised to justify their own hegemony.

The future of air power

Defence analysts have been predicting the eclipse of manned aircraft since the invention of ground to air missiles in the 1950s, but Russian air losses in the war in Ukraine could see a fundamental shift in military doctrine with expensive manned platforms replaced by cheaper drones for some close support missions.

How Ukraine won the war of words

Russia’s well funded army of internet propagandists have laboured to undermine Western democratic cohesion for years, but wit, intelligence and agility have allowed Ukraine to triumph against their lumpen foe on the internet and social media as well as on the battlefield.

Russia’s grade Z performance in Ukraine

When Russia’s ramshackle armies trundled into Ukraine a year ago, very few gave the defenders a chance and Western support was lukewarm, but the grit, wit and defiance of a nation threatened with extinction at the hands of a murderous tyrant has turned the tables in spectacular style.

Time is the other enemy

The inexorable passage of time is war’s most inflexible and how Ukraine and Russia’s clocks tick down in terms of men, morale and material will decide who wins this war.

“We’re fighting this war for you”

‘If Putin is allowed to win, the face and deterrence value of collective security on the international rules-based systems will be fatally wounded,’ Kyiv’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, tells The Strategist.

How Ukrainian brains beat Russian brawn

Western armies can look to Ukraine for an example of how to integrate technologies and weapons to remain agile and adaptable while the blundering Russian behemoth shows the dangers of corruption, incompetence and poor command and control.

Russia skulks into the shadows

Putin invaded Ukraine a year ago to eradicate it from the map and restore his nation’s international prestige, but after 12 months of shame and humiliation he may only have ensured Russia’s eclipse, and perhaps implosion.

No peace without victory

Calls for ‘peace’ in Ukraine from the West would only hand victory to Russia. The best path to a lasting peace in the region is to help Ukraine liberate its territory and for Russia to accept the failure of its aggression.

A year of despair and defiance

Russian President Putin thought he would overrun Ukraine in a few days. As the war raging for the last 12 months has proved, these military volunteers and their fellow Ukrainians ‘had other ideas.’

Champion of the world

Everything that Vladimir Putin is not, President Zelensky’s global reputation as a contemporary hero rests on his personal courage and his ability to articulate an endlessly inspiring message of resistance and dignity in the face of the brutal Russian invasion.

Give Ukraine the jets it needs to win

After a year of war, the West remains reluctant to give Ukraine the modern fighter jets it needs to drive Russia from its skies, but air power will be vital to a successful conclusion to the war.

The Russia problem

Russia’s ‘all-out military aggression against Ukraine’ is the latest escalation in Russia’s long, clandestine war with the West and must be confronted on the battlefield, writes Keir Giles in his new book “Russia’s War on Everybody and What It Means for You”.

Standing firm against Mordor

After a gruelling 12 months of war, US President Joe Biden’s visit to Kyiv should kick-start greater Western support for Ukraine to ensure it defeats the Russian invasion.

Russia’s new man in Ukraine

The appointment of Valery Gerasimov to command all Russian forces involved in the invasion of Ukraine is unlikely to bring Putin’s ‘special military operation’ to a successful conclusion after a year of bloodshed and destruction.

Ukraine and the future of collective global security

Shortly after its start, the war in Ukraine was cast as a “make or break” moment for the future of global collective security. One year later, it is time to consider the international scorecard and the remaining challenges on the way to a more peaceful world.

Are we the baddies?

Vladimir Putin’s absurd attempt to stoke Russian nationalism by evoking the memory of Stalingrad ignores the glaring fact that Russia is now playing the part of the Nazi invaders.

Ukraine needs better weapons to win

Ukraine needs modern weapons of all kinds to resist the Russian invasion, and a handful of older Western tanks won’t help it win the war.

Hawks and doves

As with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, Western appeasement of Vladimir Putin only fed his ambition, leaving firm principles backed with military might as the only solution to the current crisis in Ukraine.

50 down, 250 to go

The belated release by Britain, Germany and the USA of modern Western tanks to Ukraine is a welcome step towards driving the Russians out of the country, though many more tanks – and fighter planes – will be required to ensure the job is done.

The West dithers while Ukraine burns

While nations like Estonia and Poland have been generous with their military support of Ukraine, larger NATO countries have dithered about sending the heavy weapons required to repulse the Russian invasion.

Tanks a lot

After almost a full year of fighting, the Western allies are finally beginning to give Ukraine the modern tanks it needs to defeat the Russian invasion.

Mercenaries and massive troop call-ups won’t defeat Ukraine

Fresh threats of a major military offensive and the use of mercenaries, many recruited in Russia’s jails, are unlikely to bring victory to Vladimir Putin a year after his invasion of Ukraine, says retired Australian Army major general Mick Ryan.

The battle for Soledar

The bloody battle for Soledar highlights the brutality of Russian tactics and underlines the need for additional arms for Ukraine, including modern Western tanks and aircraft.

A lesson in courage

Russia’s army has kidnapped Ukrainian children and targeted Ukraine’s schools in its efforts to eradicate the nation, but Ukraine’s teachers and school children remain determined to carry on their education regardless.

Ukraine stands firm under Russia’s terrorist bombardment

Putin appears determined to continue his war, so forcing a change of mind in Moscow through Ukrainian fighting spirit and western support will be the only way to bring this tragedy to an end in 2023.

Ukraine’s miraculous Christmas

As the Russians rained missiles on civilians in Kherson to celebrate Christmas Day, President Zelensky delivered another inspiring message to his embattled people and the watching world.

We stand, we fight and we will win

President Zelensky of Ukraine spoke before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday night, delivering an impassioned speech that thanked the United States for its support in his nation’s fight for survival against the Russian invaders.

Democracy v the dictators

Just as autocracies ally with each other to stay in power, so the world’s democracies must unite against the current tide of tyranny.

The year of economic warfare

Major powers around the world have launched a range of economic attacks against each other in recent years, most notably Russia’s leverage of energy supplies to punish the supporters of Ukraine.

Drones bring Russia into range for Ukraine

Russia continues to pound civilian targets in Ukraine, knocking out power supplies to try to freeze its people into submission, but cheap drones are helping Ukraine fight back against the aggressor and turn the tide of the war.

The Belarus battalion

Growing numbers of brave young Belarusians are joining the fight against Russia in Ukraine, and dream of liberating their own nation when this battle is won.

How Czechs view the war in Ukraine

Vaclav Malik, a former Czech intelligence officer, sees a long war ahead in Ukraine as Russia continues its efforts to exterminate Ukraine and exhaust Western support for it.

Nobel Peace Prize winners honoured at awards ceremony

Ales Bialiatski, Memorial, and the Center for Civil Liberties, the three winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize were honoured during the recent awards ceremony in Stockholm and praised for their brave fight against tyranny and oppression in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine eyes the liberation of Crimea

The Kinburn spit, a tiny headland at the mouth of the Dniepro river, has “enormous strategic importance” in the next phase of the Ukraine war, and its recapture will be step closer to defeating the invaders and liberating Crimea.

The people v Putin

Despite relentless propaganda, leaked Russian figures show support for the war in Ukraine has fallen to just 25% of the population, but dictators don’t have to run for re-election, and Putin shows no sign of stepping down.

Now is the winter of Russia’s discontent

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ground to a halt months ago, and, despite Putin’s bluster, Ukraine is now poised to win back more territory against the dispirited invaders.

Bringing Russia’s thugs to justice

The Ukraine conflict offers a microcosm of the tensions in the international legal order, not least the difficulty of prosecuting wrong doers from powerful authoritarian countries.

Russia must lose – and be seen to lose

Vladimir Putin moved to obliterate Ukraine assuming Western acquiescence after years of appeasement of his brutal regime. The failure of his ramshackle military has forced him into unconvincing diplomatic overtures but this should not blind other nations to his goal of undermining the liberal global order to restore imperial spheres of influence.

Putin’s toxic legacy

While Russia’s beleaguered dictator amuses himself by lobbing rockets at Ukrainian civilians, his country has become an international pariah and is falling apart around him.

Finland flies the flag for freedom

Finland’s impressive Prime Minister Sanna Marin used her speech at the Lowy Institute to urge Western democracies to stand firm against authoritarian aggression and redouble their support for Ukraine.

Prosecuting Putin

The trial of Slobodan Milosevic offers a model for the prosecution of Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin for his war crimes in Ukraine.

How Ukraine keeps the lights on

Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine to steal its resources and wipe it from the map, but like its brave soldiers, Ukraine’s economy has remained remarkably resilient in the face of murderous Russian terror attacks on its people and civilian infrastructure.

Prosecuting Russian war crimes

The convictions in a Dutch court of 3 men guilty of mass murder in the shooting down of civilian airliner MH17 in 2014 pave the way for war crime prosecutions to punish the many atrocities committed by Russian troops during the current invasion of Ukraine.

#NAFO

Russia’s troll farms were supposed to be a powerful weapon to sway Western opinion against Ukraine, but have been routed in the meme wars, just as Russia’s military has embarrassed itself on the ground.

Rave reconstruction

The good humour and resilience of the brave Ukrainians rebuilding their country stands in stark contrast to the grim brutality of their barbarous invaders.

No safe harbour for Russia

Ukrainian surface and air drones conducted a daring raid on the occupied Crimean port of Sevastopol last week, where Russia’s dwindling Black Sea Fleet is based.

Putin limps away from Kherson

Russia’s humiliating retreat from Kherson – the only regional capital it ever captured in nine months of war – is yet another body blow for Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s terror bombing won’t break Ukraine

Sergey Surovikin, the Russian general put in charge of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, has a well-deserved reputation for inhuman savagery, but history suggests his terrorist attacks on Ukraine’s civilians will only harden Ukraine’s will to resist the barbarians at the gate.

Cometh the hour

In a dark era of thuggish authoritarians and timid, vapid democrats, President Zelensky of Ukraine has become not just the saviour of his country, but a ray of hope for the world.

Fracturing Russia could collapse

Putin’s gamble to eradicate Ukraine and humiliate the west has backfired spectacularly, calling into question the future of Russia itself.

The end of the affair

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seemed certain to end in victory when it began, but Ukraine’s resistance soon bogged down the Russian advance, and final victory for Ukraine now seems ever more likely.

#Russiaislosing

Max Kellerman, of HBO’s much missed boxing commentary team, used to talk about a fighter winning the story of the fight, and when it comes to Ukraine, that’s President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy.

General Winter won’t save Russia this time

The onset of winter saved Russia from Napoleon and Hitler, but the onset of winter will only further bog down Russia’s botched and rapidly unraveling invasion of Ukraine.

The public-private partnership of war

There are plenty of ongoing lessons from the Ukraine war, but one issue not receiving enough focus is the crucial role of the private sector.

Get out

Russia’s military position in Ukraine is looking hopeless so how will Vladimir Putin worm its way out?

Mum, I don’t want war

Vladimir Putin and his army of thugs have gone out of their way to terrorise, target and kidnap Ukrainian children, and a new art exhibition shows the mental toll on their victims.

A despicable act by a desperate man

If you wanted an indication of how badly Russia’s war is going and how much pressure Vladimir Putin is under, then the missile attacks on Kyiv and Ukraine’s major cities over the last day or two are as good as any.

Not a bridge too far

Ukraine’s stunning strike against Putin’s vainglorious bridge to occupied Crimea dealt another heavy blow to Russian pride and capability.

Russia’s aggression drives its allies away

Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine is straining its relations with former Soviet states which have problems of their own and show no wish to be drawn into the conflict.

Helping Ukraine to help ourselves

Although ‘realists’ call for the appeasement of aggressor states, Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is a clear breach of an international law rule that is critical to the security of smaller states and middle powers like Australia.

Dr. Evil

Russia had a chance to embrace freedom and peace after the collapse of communism, but KGB operative Vladimir Putin – now the longest serving Russian dictator since Stalin – has dedicated his life to restoring the iron fist of tyranny.

Downfall

Forcing untrained, unwilling conscripts to fight in Ukraine and shifting the blame for failure onto his subordinates is uniting both the Russian people and elites against embattled dictator Vladimir Putin.

Putin fakes victory in the jaws of defeat

Putin’s phony referendums and paper annexation of 15% of Ukraine will not end the war, gain international recognition or secure his increasingly precarious position.

Alla dearest

Few prominent Russians have had the courage to oppose Putin or speak out against the war, but iconic singer Alla Pugacheva has posted a message decrying the conflict to her 3.5 million followers on Instagram.

The paranoid style in Putin’s politics

Russian propagandists – and their western apologists – claim that Putin’s calamitous invasion of Ukraine was forced by NATO expansion, but the truth is the only threat to peace in Europe is Russia itself.

Death of a dinosaur

Putin’s call-up of conscripts show he is determined to march Russia further into the abyss, regardless of growing protests at home and mounting losses in Ukraine.

A Marshall Plan to rebuild Ukraine

Putin’s calamitous invasion of Ukraine has wrecked dozens of towns and cities and wreaked hundreds of billions of dollars of damage. The western allies must help rebuild Ukraine when victory on the battlefield is achieved, just as the Marshall Plan helped rebuild western Europe after WW2.

Zelensky’s call for UN reform must be answered

President Zelensky’s impassioned plea for reform at UN to reduce the power of hostile states to block global peace, justice and security are popular around the world according to opinion surveys.

Putin’s conscription call-up has already backfired

Putin’s call-up of reservists to fight in Ukraine underlines the weakness of his military, and is already sparking protests and exits as a population which broadly supports the war but has been isolated from its horror begins to confront its grim reality.

A bad week for Putin

Vladimir Putin’s imposition of conscription has prompted long queues at borders and airports as men flee the order to die in Ukraine, while his plan for fake ‘referendums’ in occupied territories will be ignored by Ukraine’s defenders and the rest of the world.

President Zelenskyy’s address to the UN

In sharp contrast to Putin’s belligerent and blustering TV appearance, President Zelenskyy of Ukraine addressed the 77th session of the United Nations and pledged continued Ukrainian resistance in typical inspiring, articulate and resolute style.

The mad dog’s last gamble

Russia’s tyrant has reacted to Ukraine’s gains in the war by conscripting 300,000 additional soldiers, announcing fake referendums and threatening the use of “lots of Russian weapons” but such bluster only reveals Putin’s weakness rather than demonstrating strength.

Putin plays the imperialist card

Russia’s plan to annex 15% of Ukraine’s territory in the East will allow it to pretend it is defending its own territory, rather than invading another nation, but the pantomime only digs Russia deeper into the mire of its own making.

Putin flounders in Asia

Western sanctions are degrading Russia’s basket case economy and Putin’s appeal to Asia does nothing to mask his military humiliation in Ukraine.

How Ukraine routed the Russians

Three key insights about modern warfare can be drawn from the recent Ukrainian success in routing the Russian invaders but further success depends on continued support from the West.

Australia must do more to help Ukraine

Ukraine’s heroic but lonely resistance against Russian aggression is paving dividends as the invaders retreat in disarray, but more sophisticated and long-range weapons are required to defeat the enemy.

Ukraine won’t give an inch against Russia

Russian apologists such as Noam Chomsky have constantly urged Ukraine to surrender but the enemies of the West must face the fact that Ukrainians remain determined to save their nation from destruction.

Ukraine is winning its impossible war

Many ‘realists’ and apologists were eager to surrender on Ukraine’s behalf when Putin’s troops invaded in February, but Ukraine’s stunning recent victories proves the doubters, appeasers and faint hearts that Ukraine can and will win, if only we support them.

The Russian fish rots from the head

The fatal lack of flexibility and independence within the Russian military is no accident, and reflects the paranoia of Russia’s leadership clique and the personality flaws of Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine’s heroes push Putin to the brink

Ukraine’s stunning counter-attack has forced Russian forces to flee from Kharkiv and Putin is now cowering in his mansion to avoid his military officials. Staring defeat in the face, what might his next desperate move be?

An arsenal for democracy

Australia can become a key part of the arsenal of democracy by leveraging the benefits of Industry 4.0 and producing innovative weapons to help Ukraine and Taiwan resist the might of their toxic neighbours.

Friends of Putin

While Vladimir Putin is ostracized from Europe and the USA, he is far from friendless in the world, as dictators and would-be despots realise that defeat for Putin would undermine their own self-serving ambitions.

Desperate Russia may lash out against the world

Putin is growing increasingly desperate as his army fails to subdue Ukraine, and Russia is likely to become even more dangerous and unpredictable as a result.

Ukraine fights on – but needs western weapons

Ukraine continues to resist Russia’s murderous invasion, but ultimate victory will require increased flows of Western weapons and continued international support.

How Putin’s winter followed Gorbachev’s spring

Former KGB operative Vladimir Putin wasted no time in reestablishing state control over the political freedoms introduced by Gorbachev as soon as he came to power in 1999.

Eyewitness to an empire’s fall

The late Mikhail Gorbachev tried to revitalise the Soviet Union but presided over its destruction, leaving a legacy which his tyrannical successor is fighting to restore.

Russia sinks into the quagmire

Putin shows no sign of backing down from his disastrous invasion of Ukraine, but the longer the war continues the more damaging it will be to Russia.

Ukraine turns the tide in Kherson

Ukraine’s counter-attack in the south of the country is driving back the Russian invaders and increasing optimism that Putin’s ramshackle thugs can be ousted once and for all.

Ramping up the costs for Russia

Ukraine and its partners must hold their nerve and ratchet up the pressure on the Kremlin to force it to end its war of aggression.

Independence day

Ukraine has celebrated its 31st independence day despite the bloody sixth month assault on its territory by its barbarian neighbour.

The battle for Russia

Russia’s thuggish dictator seems determined to wage war against the world, but may soon face a battle for personal survival himself.

Sharpening Ukraine’s sword against Russia

Ukraine is seeking out innovative weapons and other military equipment developed by Australian companies to give its troops a technological edge in their war of survival against the Russian invaders.

The brand of bravery

Despite the legions of Russian internet trolls, and Putin’s many apologists in the West, Ukraine has conclusively won the war for the world’s hearts and minds and become a synonym for courage in a world of doubt, defeat and moral vacillation.

Ukraine stands stronger than ever

Both Russia and the West expected Ukraine to fold quickly against Putin’s invasion, but six months into the war, Ukraine still stands, alone but undaunted, against its barbaric invader.

How commercial satellites are helping Ukraine

Satellites owned by private companies have played an important role in the war in Ukraine, exposing Russian lies and atrocities and helping the defenders repel the invaders.

Russia’s war renews the push for renewables

Europe’s revulsion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have accelerated the global transition to renewable energy.

You can’t stand aside

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has delivered a heartbreaking account of the impact of Russia’s barbaric war on his country to thousands of Australian students.

Russia’s invasion wins no friends in Belarus

Belarus dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka might have little choice but to pose as Russia’s staunch ally in its war on Ukraine, but he will be a general without an army if he decides to send in his troops.

Russia’s real enemy is Putin

“Russiaphobia’ means fear of Russia, not hatred of Russians, and is entirely rational given Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine and threats against the rest of Europe. The biggest enemy of Russian interests isn’t “Russiaphobia” but the monster in the Kremlin.

We must all step up to save Ukraine

Putin cares nothing for the ire of the West, the lives of Ukrainians or even his own soldiers as his monstrous army slowly grinds over Eastern Ukraine, crushing everything in its path. The West cannot let this catastrophe fall out of the headlines, we must all step up and fight for Ukraine.

A world divided between light and dark

The deepening division of the world between liberal democracies around the world and the aggressive dictatorships of Russia and China is forcing non-aligned nations to pick sides.

Britain gets ready for war

Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute’s Land Warfare Conference in London, the British Chief of the General Staff has outlined Britain’s military response to Russian threats of war in response to Britain’s support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

NATO must stand fast against the Russian ogre

While they remain too timid to fight for the freedom they profess to support, NATO nations have shown varying degrees of outrage and support for Ukraine’s brave and lonely fight against the marauding Russian ogre, and must redouble their resolve to fight further aggression with more than just brave words.

King rat

Vladimir Putin fancies himself the king of a resurgent Russia, occupying Eastern Europe and cowing the West, but like the Bond villains he so closely resembles, his own hubris, self-indulgence and bloated self-serving ambition will ensure his downfall.

The deep roots of Ukraine’s foreign legion

In sharp contrast to the vapid equivocation of the West’s political leaders, thousands of volunteers from around the globe have flocked to Ukraine to fight on the front lines against Russia’s savage invaders. Such ‘foreign legions’ have a rich history in warfare, and may yet help turn the tide against Putin’s barbarian horde.

Russia’s demonisation of Ukrainians abroad

Russia’s defamation and dismissal of Ukrainians abroad protesting its appalling invasion of their country continue its long history of slandering those who opposed or escaped the dark shadow it casts over their country.

Will Belarus enter Russia’s war on Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin may increase the pressure on Belarus, already a client state of Russia, to attack Ukraine’s northern border as the West continues to sit on its hands and leave Ukraine to fight for its freedom alone.

Putin waits for the West to get bored

The West is growing weary of Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite leaving Ukraine to do all the fighting, and Vladimir Putin is counting on the free world’s short attention span and lack of moral fibre to grind his way to European domination.

Prosecuting Putin

The capture and prosecution of Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic offers a playbook for bringing Vladimir Putin to justice for his savage assault on Ukraine.

Zelenskyy wins the war of words

Ukraine’s inspirational leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy has used skillful oratory to link his nation’s current fight for freedom with past battles fought by allies around the world.

Being banned from hell is no dishonour

Being banned by Russia is a mark of honour, given the thuggish barbarity of its poisonous regime.

Russia’s rape of Ukraine

Just as Soviet soldiers raped millions of German women at the end of World War Two to assert their dominance, so Russian soldiers have indulged in mass rape across Ukraine, just as their military has raped the country.

The last gasp of imperial Russia

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a last, clumsy, self-defeating attempt to assert its control over people who want to be free from Moscow’s dark shadow.

Popular resistance in occupied Ukraine

Russia has paid a heavy price to occupy parts of Eastern Ukraine, and popular resistance from Ukrainians trapped under its rule is likely to ensure an uncomfortable stay for the invading Russian forces.

Standing up the the strong men

The threat posed by authoritarian states demands a robust response from the world’s democracies and we must not allow their victims to fight on alone.

Choose freedom

The first Shangri-La Dialogue since 2019 is a chance for world leaders and ministers to discuss urgent and long-term international security questions, and underlined the need for the free world to stand up against authoritarian challenges.

Put the squeeze on Moscow, not Ukraine

The West must redouble its pressure on Moscow to end its invasion of Ukraine, rather than urge Ukraine to make concessions if a permanent peace is to be found.

Russia’s doctrine of hatred

Russians have been fed a diet of lies and disinformation about Ukraine for years, stoking the inhuman actions of their troops during Putin’s invasion.

The global costs of Putin’s war

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has devastated the global economy as well as millions of lives, but also underlines the false economy of under-investing in defence when menaced by murdering tyrants like Russia’s brutal dictator.

Wild honey

Russian poet Anna Akhmatova wrote that “wild honey smells of freedom” but Vladimir Putin has followed in the dark footsteps of Josef Stalin and other Soviet leaders in ruthlessly suppressing any opposition to his dictatorial rule, forcing artists to choose between leaving the country, silence, imprisonment or death.

Gas may be expensive, but freedom is priceless

Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia, delivered an impassioned speech on the war in Ukraine on receiving the Grotius Prize at an award ceremony on the 6th of June in London.

Tanks can’t crush the human spirit

This weekend marks 100 days since Russia invaded Ukraine and 33 years since the Chinese Army massacred students in Tiananmen Square but, wherever they roll, the tanks of authoritarian states can never crush people’s desire for democracy.

Making Russia pay for Ukraine

Three months into its three day war, Russia still struggles to secure its grip on Eastern Ukraine, but the death and devastation it has brought to the country cannot be denied and must be paid for.

The hundred day war

A hundred days into Russia’s three day ‘special military operation’ its meagre gains in the Donbas region are coming at the cost of a terrible butcher’s bill on both sides.

Putin’s war casts a dark shadow across the region

The war in Ukraine is deepening the divide between former Soviet states ruled by dictators reliant on Russia and progressive western leaning states which chose freedom and democracy.

Russia’s reign of thieves

The pernicious effects of decades of authoritarianism and endemic corruption have been vividly on display during Russia’s botched invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s heroism may help save Taiwan

Ukraine is not the only peaceful, democratic country menaced by a much larger, authoritarian aggressor. If Russia had strolled to an easy victory in Ukraine, China would surely have been emboldened to attack Taiwan, but the combination of fierce resistance and international support may make even President Xi think twice.

Africa fails the Ukraine challenge

Few African countries have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so there may be little sympathy for nations on the continent who feel the rippling effects of the war.

Why Ukraine looks west

Vladimir Putin assumed his tanks would roll across Ukraine in three days, presenting a weak and divided west with a fait accompli, but far from strengthening his grip on Europe, Putin has inflamed sentiment against him and ensured Ukraine’s attachment to the West.

Putin forces the world to take sides

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s growing aggression in Asia and the Pacific may soon force the rest of the world to take sides in an ideological, economic and perhaps military confrontation between freedom and tyranny.

The battle for ideas will shape new global order

The world has a choice to make between the freedom and democracy offered by the West and the aggressive authoritarianism of Russia and China.

Asia hides in the sidelines on Russia’s invasion

Europe’s firm stance against Russia’s outrageous invasion of Ukraine stands in sharp contrast with the silence and ambivalence shown by most Asian nations.

Weaning Europe from Russian fuel

Europe remains dependent on Russian fuel exports for a third of its energy needs, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exposed the folly of depending on a hostile state and funding its war machine, forcing Europe’s politicians to finally begin to cut energy ties with Putin’s criminal regime.

Many paths to justice in Ukraine

It is unlikely the ICC will bring lasting justice in Ukraine, but there are many legal avenues that could help as well as victory on the battlefield against the Russian invaders.

Not even the end of the beginning

84 days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the latest and most bloody act in a long running war against its neighbour – Vladimir Putin’s plans appear to be in tatters but previous wars caution against premature conclusions of victory.

Learning defence lessons from Ukraine

The West refused to accept Ukraine into NATO, sell it arms to defend itself, or fight by its side against the Russian invasion, but now the Western powers, including Australia, are learning valuable lessons in winning a modern war against a major opponent.

Bringing Russia’s war criminals to justice

Some of the Russian troops who have murdered, raped and plundered their way across Ukraine have been captured and will be put on trial by Ukraine, but Russia has no intention of investigating its own wrong doing and the stone-faced leaders who ordered this terrible war may never face justice.

Naval lessons from the Black Sea

The sinking of Russia’s flagship and the ongoing humiliation of its navy in the Black Sea by Ukrainian drones and missiles offers lessons for navies in the Pacific, not least in offering clues to counter China’s naval aggression.

David v Goliath – How Ukraine has held off Russia

Having refused to arm or fight for Ukraine, or allow it to join the EU and NATO, the West expected Ukraine to fold quickly to a Russian invasion, but inspired leadership, incredible courage, modern western weapons and a willingness to learn from past mistakes have humiliated Vladimir Putin and his lumbering army.

Paper tigers on parade

The problems dogging Russia’s botched invasion of Ukraine are rooted in its disfunctional society as much as the technical shortcomings of weapons which look better on paper than they work in the field.

How Ukraine won the propaganda war

Russia’s army of internet trolls and official propagandists have fared about as well as their ill-fated tanks on the battlefield in their war against the intelligent, agile and creative defenders of Ukraine.

Putin attends his own funeral

Russia celebrated its ‘victory day’ over fascism on May 9 but its own descent into fascism continues, and no amount of big hats and goose stepping can hide how badly things are going for Vladimir Putin.

Europe must invest in its own survival

The end of the cold war allowed European powers to slash defence spending, but the reality of Russia’s threat to the free world demands a much greater investment in the tools required to defend freedom and independence from Putin’s barbarism.

Will Russia double-down on its Ukrainian disaster?

Russia is suffering heavy losses in the third month of its supposed 3 day invasion of Ukraine, but rather than recognise his folly, Putin seems intent on pushing on and trying to swamp Ukrainian resistance with sheer numbers.

Parades and Patriarchs in Putin’s Russia

Vladimir Putin is using a potent mix of patriotism, xenophobia, religious fervour and nostalgia for the power of the Soviet Union to maintain popular support for his failed invasion of Ukraine.

Russia attacks and the whole world suffers

Beyond the ruined cities, murdered civilians and raped women of Ukraine, the global consequences of Russia’s attack include food shortages and global price spikes as well as millions of refugees, underlining the case for global action to defeat the invasion.

Destroying Russia’s war machine

The West refused to support Ukraine in the past, and gave a green light to Russia’s invasion, but the success of Ukraine’s resistance means that Western aid is now pouring in and Russia’s once vaunted military machine is being humiliated.

Russia’s debacle gives China pause for thought

A swift Russian victory in Ukraine would surely have encouraged China to invade Taiwan, but determined local resistance, effective sanctions and the power of modern Western weapons will give Xi pause for thought.

Don’t let Russia turn Ukraine into Syria

Russia brutalised Syrian cities and civilians in its brutal campaign to prop up Assad’s appalling regime, and its repeating the same thuggish playbook in its desire to crush Ukraine.

12 reasons to arm Ukraine

The USA and Europe sat on its hands while Russia menaced Ukraine, with all too many people either excusing Putin’s actions or shying from the fight. Now that Ukraine has proved its ability and will to survive, the West has a moral and self-interested duty to help the Ukrainian military win its struggle against tyranny and aggression.

I came, I saw, I vetoed

The United Nations is supposed to offer a forum to uphold international law, but the vetos wielded by authoritarian states on the Security Council has rendered it impotent to tackle crises like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Why Europe’s far right sticks with Putin

European leftists instinctively sided with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but now it’s far right populists in the USA, France, Hungary and elsewhere who excuse Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and oppose help for that embattled country.

Russia’s gas weapon backfires

Russia’s weaponization of its controversial natural gas supplies to the West is beginning to backfire by destroying demand for it.

Home is where the heart is

Many of the millions of Ukrainian refugees who fled the Russian invasion in February and March are looking to return home. ‘Nobody wants to run from the war’ says one of Ukraine’s displaced millions contemplating the conflicting pulls of home, family and safety.

This is what a hero looks like

In sharp contrast to the rapacious narcissist haunting the Kremlin, and the timid pygmies in the USA and EU who initially left Ukraine to burn, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has inspired his embattled country and the world with the simple virtues of courage, conviction and honesty.

Russia’s long slide into pariah status

Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine is the culmination of its long slide into the diplomatic abyss. Only Eritrea, Belarus, North Korea and Syria voted against the UN resolution condemning the attack.

Tracking wartime destruction from space

A new automated analysis of satellite imagery can reveal the extent of building destruction in conflict zones, providing vital information for humanitarian aid.

Russia’s long slide into pariah status

Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine is the culmination of its long slide into the diplomatic abyss. Only Eritrea, Belarus, North Korea and Syria voted against the UN resolution condemning the attack.

Eyes in the sky on the Russian invasion

Satellite imagery has uncovered evidence of Russian war crimes – including numerous mass graves of murdered civilians – as well as helping Ukraine’s defenders pinpoint and destroy Russian vehicles and bases.

Ukraine’s ambassador appeals for heavy weapons to defend freedom for us all

Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia says the country needs large stocks of heavy weapons, tanks, artillery, long-range missiles and air-defence systems to defeat the Russian offensive.

Reframing security in a post-invasion world

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is part of a new era of ideological competition and great power confrontation that has uprooted the post-Cold War international order.

Russia’s Ukraine invasion must be Australia’s clarion call

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has shown that war between major powers has become a reality to be faced squarely, rather than an abstract concept to be dismissed or wished away.

Generation “Z”

Just as generations of Russian children were brainwashed into accepting communism, so young people today are being indoctrinated to support Putin’s brutal internal repression and aggressive foreign wars in the name of fervent nationalism.

Sanctions on Russia could prove a windfall for Australia

Australia is Russia’s closest competitor in global markets and is the obvious winner as Putin’s pariah state loses exports due to international sanctions.

President Zelenskyy’s Orthodox Easter address

While the Orthodox Church in Russia officially supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Zelenskyy used the holiest day in the Orthodox calendar to hope for peace and thank the nation’s people for their courage.

One woman’s war

Russia launched its appalling assault on Ukraine at daybreak on the 24th of February. Here is one woman’s experience of the war so far.

Ukraine’s struggle is our fight too

Supporting Ukraine is the best way to strengthen global deterrence against military adventurism from authoritarian regimes. The more Australia can do to strengthen Ukraine, the more confidence we can have that fellow democracies will help us in the future.

The great game in the digital age

Optimists once hoped the collapse of European Communism presaged the ‘end of history’, but Putin’s menacing of Europe – mirrored by China’s naked ambition in Asia – is forcing the democratic world to resist once again the rise of rapacious authoritarianism.

Euphemisms won’t help Ukraine

The West must abandon the language of appeasement and call out Russia’s war on Ukraine for the thuggish aggression it is.

Russia’s slide into tyranny

After Soviet communist dictatorship collapsed, Russia’s brief flirtation with democracy descended into autocracy as an ever more powerful President centred absolute power in his own hands.

Wolverines!

Red Dawn, a 40 year old film in which American teenagers resist a Soviet invasion against all the odds, is helping to inspire Ukraine’s heroic fight against its Russian invaders.

They know we know they’re lying

The ridiculous lies which Russia tells to evade blame for its outrageous actions in Ukraine are part of a larger pattern of barefaced falsehoods and deception in which truth has no meaning at all.

Putin’s plan to bury Ukraine

Russia’s plan to annihilate Ukraine and assimilate its citizens into a greater Russian empire underline the urgent need to defeat Putin’s thuggish invasion and overthrow his criminal regime.

Listen to Ukraine, not apologists for Russia

Many Western commentators still go out of their way to excuse Russia’s aggression and ignore the right of Ukraine and Eastern Europe to live in peace, freedom and democracy.

Why Australia’s highest peak honours an anti-Russian freedom fighter

Russia has been bullying, invading and oppressing its East European neighbours for centuries, and Australia’s highest mountain is named after one of the many heroic freedom fighters who opposed its brutish assaults on their lands.

The battle for Donbas

Russia has waged a proxy war in the east of Ukraine for the last eight years, and the region is now the main battleground in Russia’s wholesale invasion, with the once idyllic port city of Mariupol falling at the cost of thousands of civilian casualities.

Russian sanctions start to bite

Russia’s economy has been hit hard by Western sanctions, although continued energy sales continue to pump billions into Putin’s war machine.

The good, the bad and the ugly

The political, economic and social ramifications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are already rippling around the world, uniting democratic nations in Europe but exacerbating tensions and divisions elsewhere.

A warning from history

The atrocities committed in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine by Russian troops on helpless Ukrainian civilians recall the horrific memories of the Katyn massacre of 20,000 Polish officers and decades of Soviet lies and denials.

Sounds like teen spirit

While teenagers in Australia fret about school and friends, their peers in Ukraine face an army of thugs determined to destroy them, but despite the threat to their lives and nation they retain their hopes and good humour for the future.

7 lessons from Ukraine

While the West seemed content to leave Ukraine to Putin’s wolves, spirited resistance and agile tactics have slowed and reversed the Russian advance, building momentum for increased international support and offering lessons for Australia’s armed forces.

When good men do nothing

Russia’s vile atrocities against Ukrainian civilians is deliberate and systematic, and yet even the horrors of Bucha are not enough to stir the West into full scale economic and military action against Putin’s terrorist regime.

Tanks for the memories

Russian military power rests on indiscriminate brute force deployed against civilian targets by tanks and artillery, but the success of Ukrainian fighters armed with modern drones and anti-tank missiles may be a nail in the coffin of tanks in modern warfare.

No more hand wringing, fight for Ukraine

Two decades of Western weakness and appeasement did nothing but enable the brutality unleashed by Russia in Ukraine. Now Russia has chosen war, we should give them one to remember.

I am not a beauty for you

Rape is not a new weapon in warfare – or Russian army history – and the gang rapes, torture and mass killing of civilians in Ukraine by Russia troops will continue until Putin’s hordes are stopped by force.

Russia’s support is fed by grade Z propaganda

Despite a handful of brave protestors, the Russian people overwhelmingly support Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine and swallow the ludicrous narratives and alternative facts peddled by compliant media.

Katyn 2.0

Russia’s horrific string of atrocities across Ukraine and the barefaced lies of propagandists to deny responsibility evoke memories of another time Russia invaded a neighbour, murdered thousands of captives, then threw the blame on others.

Barbaric acts feed filthy lies

We should not be surprised that a brutal dictatorial regime which will invade its peaceful neighbour and murder its civilians in the face of global outrage has no qualms about lying about it too.

Welcome to the hell

Hundreds of murdered civilians have been found by Ukrainian forces, bound and shot in the back of the head by the retreating Russian invaders, but still the West offers only words rather than action to hold Putin to account for his crimes.

If the cap fits

The epithet ‘fascist’ is often thrown as a generalised political insult, but when Russia invaded Ukraine, its leader was immediately labeled “fascist” by Ukrainians and others and for once that label fits.

Russia’s genocide in Ukraine

There’s a real threat that Russia will commit wholesale genocide in Ukraine and, as evidence of civilian mass murders and other war crimes emerge, there is good reason to believe it is already underway.

Bullies, not victims

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the latest in a series of acts of naked aggression by Russian rulers against the country’s neighbours, motivated by grand imperial claims and a self-pitying narrative of victimhood.

Russia’s troops are on the run

Russia’s well armed but poorly motivated troops have been mauled by spirited Ukrainian resistance, with reports of desertions mounting – alongside evidence of dreadful atrocities against civilians as they retreat.

Sending Bushmasters would prove support for Ukraine

Sending Australian Bushmasters to Ukraine will be a highly visible demonstration that the world is watching and supporting the fight against Russia, a symbol as important as any military capability they will provide.

Could a palace coup oust Putin?

With no democratic means to remove Vladimir Putin from power, and the ruthless suppression of protests on the streets, could a palace coup offer the only way to eject the architect of Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine?

Putin’s people – How the KGB took back Russia then took on the West

Catherine Belton’s book “Putin’s People” explains how the Russian dictator and his KGB cronies snuffed out democracy in Russia and began to rebuild the Soviet Empire to entrench themselves in power.

Putin’s revanchist excuses for going to war

What are the causes of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine and why have they created Europe’s most serious conflict since World War II? The answer is in the mind of President Vladimir Putin, the only person in today’s Russia with the authority to go to war.

A giant among pygmies

The power of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s address to the Australian parliament underlined his growing international stature, and offered a sharp contrast with the petty personalities and politics in Australia’s domestic political scene.

Russia’s war has lessons for the ADF

The success of Ukraine’s spirited but limited armed forces against the supposed might of the Russian invaders offers lessons for Australia’s own defence forces.

Putin must go

Adding to the bounty on Putin’s arrest or assassination would be another way to ramp up pressure on Russia’s dictator, and might just offer the easiest end to his bloody campaign in Ukraine.

Zelensky needs more than applause from Australia

President Zelensky and the heroes of Ukraine are fighting for freedom on behalf of us all, and they need real help to resist Russia’s band of thugs, vandals and murderers , rather than the usual mix of platitudes and empty gestures.

A red line in Ukraine

There is no risk-free option for dealing with an expansionist and tyrannical nuclear power, but imposing a ‘no atrocities’ red line for Ukraine offers the best prospect of both preventing a second Holodomor and minimising the long-run risk of nuclear war.

Russia’s road to defeat

The Russian soldier is Putin’s weak point. Squeeze him until he surrenders or send him home wounded or in a body bag, to deliver the message the Russian people aren’t getting from their state-run media: Get out of Ukraine! And then maybe we can all sleep better.

Europe at war

The debate about whether we’re in a new cold war has a decisive, brutal answer with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

@Heart @Soul @Ukraine

Ukraine’s official Twitter account exemplifies the spirit, creativity, courage and humour which have characterised its heroic – and sadly unsupported – resistance to Russia’s thuggish invasion.

Fighting back v fairy tales

Russia’s army has underperformed in its invasion plans, while Ukraine’s has risen to the challenge, and the reasons may have their roots in the respective country’s fairy tales.

Hands of friendship and the Russian fist

Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees builds on the collective memory of Russian brutality in Eastern Europe, not least the events that tore Poles and Ukrainians apart over two centuries ago.

Countering Putin’s propaganda blitz

The heroic protest of Marina Ovsyannikova on Russian TV against the Ukraine War was seen across the world, and despite Putin’s best efforts, the truth about the war is percolating through the cracks of the Kremlin’s propaganda.

How to handle a mad dog?

How do you solve a problem like Vladimir Putin? A two-level game is needed, based on understanding the psychology behind his destructive leadership, to drive a wedge between him and the Russian people.

Putin’s history is bunk

Putin’s skewed view of Russia’s history reflects his regime’s embrace of a form of crude, reactionary ethnic nationalism that emphasises ethnicity, hierarchy and autocracy.

The West’s weakness spurred Putin’s gamble

The swift Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 exposed the gaps in the West’s deterrence policy. Moscow’s decision to escalate the Russo-Ukrainian conflict was driven by its desire to exploit the same gaps again, this time for an even larger strategic objective.

Why Russia’s church backs Putin’s war

Patriarch Kirill’s support for the bloody and unprovoked invasion of a country where millions of people belong to his own church underlines how Orthodox leadership have usually been little more than an arm of the authoritarian state.

Ukraine’s economic rebirth – and survival

The successful liberalisation of Ukraine’s economy stands in stark contrast with Russia’s oligarchies, offering another reason why Putin remains determine to crush it.

The circle of we

Western social media support for Ukraine is encouraging, but its people need practical help and military assistance to withstand Putin’s bloodthirsty campaign to literally wipe its people and culture from the map.

Alley of a hundred heroes

Ukraine has many memorials to the fallen heroes of its struggle for freedom and democracy, and Russia’s invasion will see many more raised in the future.

Putin’s pet fascists

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has tried to justify his invasion of Ukraine as an attempt to ‘denazify’ the nation, but in reality it is Putin who has relied on neo-nazis to help crush democracy in Russia and promote his interests abroad.

Ukraine’s women stand tall

Although they have suffered terribly in Russian captivity, thousands of Ukrainian women have taken to the front line to fight Putin’s invasion, continuing a proud tradition of resistance to tyranny.

The case for killing Putin

The killing of tyrants such as Vladimir Putin has a long history, and while any action may have unforeseen consequences, justice would see the violence he has unleashed on innocents fall upon his own head.

The West owes Ukraine more than words

The Western democracies should offer greater support for Ukraine, including direct military action, to reward the hope, courage and faith shown by Ukraine in its defence of freedom against tyranny.

Putin’s war on history

Vladimir Putin has worked hard to suppress research into the many crimes of the Communist era he is trying to recreate, just as his invasion of Ukraine has been justified through a litany of lies and paranoia.

Ukraine chose Europe, so Russia chose war

Three weeks after Putin’s invasion, the people of Ukraine are putting up fierce resistance to the latest in a long line of authoritarian Russian attempts to crush their national spirit and identity.

Ukraine’s fight for freedom – 100 years ago

Ukraine, like Poland, the Baltic States, and many other nations have a long history of fighting for freedom against their Russian oppressors, and the revolt of Ukraine against the Bolsheviks a century ago may have lessons for today.

Would NATO even defend itself?

The West allowed Vladimir Putin to devastate Ukraine, and now fears are growing that Russian threats to NATO’s eastern members would not generate the tough response implied by NATO membership.

Russia targets Ukraine’s hospitals

The barbarity of Russia’s deliberate attacks on Ukraine’s hospitals is matched only by its army’s desperation as their wretched invasion stalls.

The real leader of the free world

Speaking from his nation’s besieged capital of Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a powerful appeal to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, underlining his growing status as the defacto leader of the free world.

Russia’s brutal recent history shows its blueprint for Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is merely the latest step in its remorseless suppression of internal debate, brutal crushing of separatist movements and piecemeal invasion of its neighbours over the last twenty years.

Russia steps up attacks on women and children

As the West stands by and does nothing, Russian attacks on women and children in Ukraine are intensifying, as Putin tries to suppress national resistance to his faltering invasion.

Cyberwar – the battle to keep Ukraine online

Russia has done all it can to block Ukrainian voices on the internet, but the mass of real-time content streamed around the world by Ukraine’s citizen reporters has united and galvanised the world’s response to Russia’s savage invasion.

We must fight for Ukraine

International outrage and economic sanctions have not made Putin rethink his murderous invasion of Europe’s largest country. It’s time for the West to back up its words and good intentions with actions and fight to save Ukraine.

Russia’s big brother

The violence unleashed on the people of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin is matched only by his utter disregard for truth in his justifications for war.

The cost of war

International sanctions have placed Russia on the verge of bankruptcy, but Putin cares as little about the economic suffering of his people as he does about the misery he is inflicting on the people of Ukraine.

Murder in uniform

Heartbreaking images of Putin’s war in Ukraine are circulating around Russia as well as the rest of the world. If Putin grinds on, the smartphone war may just deliver regime change in Russia rather than Ukraine.

Dumb bombs and rust

The incompetence of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shows how easily a determined NATO response with modern, motivated and well-led armed forces could have saved millions from Russia’s lumbering reign of terror.

A tale of two thugs

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the military coup in Myanmar 12 months ago appear very different conflicts, but both are calamitous strategic mistakes directed by autocratic leaders who surrounded themselves with yes-men while the world around them changed.

Russia in the dock over war crimes

Russia has displayed its contempt for international norms by its invasion of Ukraine, but international courts are already gearing up to bring Russian war criminals to justice, however symbolic their deliberations may be.

A country, not a region – it’s Ukraine not ‘the Ukraine’

Commentators and journalists referring to ‘the Ukraine’ in their coverage of the Russian invasion are falling into the Soviet trap of denying Ukraine the statehood it holds and is fighting against all odds to retain.

Europe at the crossroads – again

Putin has united a fractious Europe against him, and every day the brave Ukrainian defenders withstand the Russian onslaught, the pressure for Putin to return to the negotiating table ramps up.

Everyone can boycott Russia

Governments, organisations and companies around the world have cut their ties with Putin’s Russia, but ordinary consumers can do their bit by spurning Russian goods and services.

Beauty and the beast

Russia cares nothing for international law, the sovereignty of other states, the lives of civilians or the wrath of the rest of the world. It is little surprise therefore that Ukraine’s priceless cultural heritage is becoming yet another victim of its brutal war.

Russia’s nuclear bluster

Vladimir Putin’s threat that NATO intervention to save Ukraine from his clutches would inevitably lead to nuclear war is as hollow as every other statement he makes, but is still proving effective at staying the West’s hand.

Russia’s bloodbath in Ukraine

Russia is suffering a heavy rate of casualties at the hands of determined Ukranian resistance, provoking memories of the Soviet folly in Afghanistan which provoked similar international outrage over 40 years ago.

Nine observations on the war in Ukraine

A week and a half since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, here are nine observations on developments in the worst war in Europe since 1945 – not least that NATO air power could have turned Russia’s long and lumbering convoys into mincemeat.

Putin’s mini-me in Belarus

Russia has few friends left in the world, but controlled by its own hard-line dictator for 28 years, Belarus is a client state which not only supports the invasion but is actively fighting on Russia’s side.

Tech giants put the squeeze on Russia

The high sounding moral principles often espoused by major technology firms seldom reflect their actual activities or intentions, but even the ‘big 5’ are now putting the squeeze on an increasingly isolated Russia.

It’s time for action to save Ukraine

With the situation in Ukraine reaching a critical point, Western democracies must back their rhetoric with action to force the Russian invaders back behind their borders once again.

The world signs up for Ukraine’s cyber army

Over a quarter of a million people around the world have joined Ukraine’s ‘cyber-army’ to respond to the Russian cyber attacks and propaganda that accompanied its invasion of Ukraine. It’s time for Australia to aid the fight, rather than hinder it.

Europe turns blue and gold for Ukraine

After two decades of ignoring or appeasing Vladimir Putin’s bluster and aggression, European leaders have finally faced the reality of the angry and voracious bear on their borders.

Lies, damned lies, and Russian propaganda

Terrified of the truth and his own people, as all dictators, are Vladimir Putin is locked in a vicious struggle not only to subjugate Ukraine, but also to keep the Russian people in line through limiting information about the war to official lies and propaganda.

Putin’s MAD option

Russia’s massive nuclear arsenal, and Putin’s professed willingness to use them, has stayed the West’s hand in helping Ukraine, but an increasingly crazed Putin might use them against Kiev, knowing the West might not respond.

Help pours in for the heroes of Ukraine

The head of Ukraine’s diplomatic mission in Australia, Volodymyr Shalkivskyi, says military and humanitarian aid sent by friendly countries is helping Ukraine fight its Russian invaders.

Calls grow for NATO no-fly zone

As Ukrainian civilians come under direct attack from Russia’s invading army and refugees pour into other central European countries, the clamour for a military response from NATO is getting louder.

Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow?

Fears the West’s failure to militarily intervene to save Ukraine from Russian tanks may embolden a Chinese assault on Taiwan may be misplaced – as China’s bloody history of regional bullying suggests they plan to do it anyway.

Russia – The failed state

While Vladimir Putin cowers in his bunker, increasingly isolated from reality and the rest of the world, the devastation his troops are wreaking on Ukraine is being equaled by the desolation and isolation of his own fiefdom as Western sanctions begin to bite.

Words are worth something

The West continues to stand by and watch Russia’s desecration of Ukraine without offering direct military action, but at least the rhetoric of its leaders reflects the gravity of the situation and recognises the true nature of the threat posed by Russia.

Will Putin’s iron grip begin to slip?

Brutal despots such as Vladimir Putin aim to rule for life, no matter how many people they have to kill to stay in power. They can only be removed on the streets or by the elites, so will sanctions encourage the people or the oligarchs to oust him from power?

Understanding Australia’s Ukraine policy

Australia has expressed its support for Ukraine in the current crisis, although we have only just begun to supply military aid. Expressing support for democratic values falls short of fighting for them, and the current war may just be a foretaste of a closer conflict to come.

Ukraine’s agony rekindles Europe’s resolve

After decades of minimal defence spending and nervously tip-toeing around Russian strategic sensitivities, nations across Europe are mobilising their forces and flocking to join NATO now the true nature of Russian intentions can no longer be denied.

Protests erupt in Russia against Putin’s war

Thousands of protesters against Putin’s war have marched in over 50 Russian cities, despite years of blanket propaganda in state controlled media and sweeping arrests of those brave enough to raise their voice against Putin’s regime.

Russia’s cyber-assault is a warning to Australia

Russia’s savage assault on Ukraine began long before the first tanks rolled in, as 21st century battles are now being fought in cyberspace, as well as with missiles on land, sea and air.

The long war to come

Russia gambled on Ukraine – and world opinion – folding as quickly as Crimea to its attack, but the spirited resistance of the Ukrainian people and outrage from the rest of the globe to its brutal assault mean that it faces a bitterly contested occupation until Putin is finally overthrown or sees reason.

Putin’s desperate nuclear gamble

Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for a worthless guarrantee from the USA and Russia of its independence and freedom. Now, as Putin’s aggression rebounds against him, the Russian dictator is playing the nuclear card to bully the civilised world.

Anonymous declares war on Russia

Russian state cyber-hackers waged unrelenting war on Ukraine’s online infrastructure long before the war began, but now hackers and citizens around the world are fighting back and targeting Russia’s cyber systems in retaliation.

Even FIFA kicks Russia from international sport

Russian teams and sports people are being kicked out of every sport in the world, and even FIFA, the notoriously corrupt and Russia-friendly international football association, is finally following suit and isolating Putin’s criminal regime from its tournaments.

What use is the United Nations?

For the first time since World War II, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has employed force to appropriate territory of another UN Member State, and yet the United Nations seems powerless to take any worthwhile action.

The revolution will be televised

Phone, dashcam and CCTV footage of Russia’s horrific crimes in Ukraine has help harden world opinion against Putin’s thuggish regime, and may yet play a role in his downfall.

Saint Olga of Kyiv – Ukraine’s patron saint of defiance and vengeance

The past few days have seen Ukrainians bravely defying a vicious onslaught of Russian aggression. Ukrainians are used to adversity and they have a special medieval role model who personifies their bravery in the face of hardship imposed by their Russian foes.

Russia’s well-oiled killing machine

Russia has a long and ignoble history of invading its neighbours, but its armed forces’ embarrassing performance against tiny Georgia in 2008 provoked an intensive modernisation which has now been unleashed in all its fury against the people of Ukraine.

Putin sets the world against him

Putin’s brutal vision of a resurgent Russian empire will not stop at the borders of a butchered Ukraine.

Bringing Putin to his knees

Russia’s dictator is now threatening to use nuclear weapons against the West as his bloody aggression aligns the world against him, but tough financial sanctions should offer a more credible threat against Russia’s creaking economy.

Kick Russia’s kleptocrats in their wallets

Putin runs a ‘rogue mafia state’, having turned Russia into ‘a gas station with nukes,’ in the words of Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and so the best way to hit the ruling clique is to seize the money they have looted during their self-serving reign.

Ukraine’s heroes fight on against the odds

The heroism of Ukraine’s leaders, soldiers and citizens has won the admiration of the world, and against all the odds they continue to fight against the Russian invaders, sadly without the direct support of the West.

The modern Munich moment

If we are on the path to another bloody global confrontation, future historians will no doubt claim it would have been easier to stop Putin in 2008 when he invaded Georgia, or 2014 when he seized Crimea, or 2022 when he invaded Ukraine.

A world split asunder

The real-time feeds of Russian attacks in Kyiv and Kharkiv bring home the brutal reality of what Putin is doing to people who dared live in democracy on his doorstop.

Putin’s bloody gamble

While Russia’s dictator claims his invasion of Ukraine is to counter western militarisation, it is the West’s failure to arm and protect Ukraine which has enabled this reckless adventure.

The short arm of the law

The fact that Russia, the current president of the UN Security Council, launched its invasion of Ukraine during a Security Council meeting to resolve the crisis tells you everything you need to know about its contempt for international norms – and their powerlessness to stop it.

Don’t fall for Putin’s propaganda

Sanctions and military aid will help Ukraine survive Russia’s brutish invasion, but dismantling Putin’s ludicrous justifications for the war may be just as important in the court of world opinion.

What the West should do now

The west sat by and did little when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and annexed Crimea in 2014 but the full-scale invasion of Ukraine currently underway in pursuit of Putin’s crazed imperial ambitions is impossible to ignore.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine deals another blow to the rules-based order

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, and China’s growing menace to Taiwan and the South China Sea, pose a threat to the democratic world order which the USA, Europe and their allies appear both powerless and unwilling to confront.

Why Russia’s invasion flouts international law

The world confronts a Russia crisis – rather than a Ukraine crisis – given Vladimir Putin’s delusions of rebuilding the Soviet Empire. Russia perverts the language of international law in order to flout it, and continues its descent into a pariah state, rather than living in peace with its neighbours.

Putin’s tanks roll into Ukraine

The Russian dictator’s de-facto annexation of yet more Ukrainian territory in the name of absorbing more ethnic Russians into his empire recalls Adolf Hitler’s insidious assimilation of neighbouring states before the start of the Second World War.

Three scenarios for war in Ukraine

A failure by the west to confront and repel hostile Russian action in Ukraine would have serious repercussions for the future of Europe.

Putin rolls the dice for war

Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons after it won its freedom from the Soviet Union in return for Russia respecting its independence – an agreement Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is now flagrantly disregarding as he inches ever closer to plunging the world into war in an effort to shore up his authoritarian regime.

Will sanctions stop Russia?

While the process of imposing economic sanctions is firmly institutionalised in the US and increasingly so in other Western nations, there’s little empirical research into their effectiveness.

Russia looks beyond Ukraine to the Asia-Pacific

The ongoing European security crisis is much bigger than Ukraine as Russia continues to expand its malign and bullying influence in the Asia-Pacific as well as intimidate and invade its fearful neighbours.

Russia’s secret war against Ukraine

The risks of all out combat with the West over Ukraine may stay Russia’s hand, but its tactics of hybrid warfare to extend its power and influence – as employed by China in Asia – are already underway.

Ukraine’s long fight for freedom

Ukrainians do not want democracy because they are being “subverted” by the West, as Russia claims. Ukrainians want freedom because they are proud of living in a sovereign state, rather than an imperial Russian borderland.

Shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine

Australia should maintain solidarity with Ukraine and the wider democratic world in efforts to deter Russia from launching a new attack.

The west must stand up for Ukraine

The West needs to stand up against Putin’s bullying of Ukraine and show determination, unity, and a serious commitment to uphold international legal norms and defend freedom and democracy against Russia’s authoritarian and neo-imperial designs.

Understanding Putin’s threat to Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s military build-up on the Ukraine border threatens to plunge Europe into a wider war, and appeasement or acquiescence will only bolster his dreams of restoring the Soviet empire.

SHARE WITH:

Leave a Comment