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California State University, the U.S.’s largest four-year public college system, will no longer ask applicants to furnish SAT or ACT scores for admission after trustees voted unanimously Wednesday to abolish the requirement. The system joins the ranks of the University of California, which first moved in May 2020 to distance itself from entrance exams before abandoning them entirely last year … Trustees’ action Wednesday — which they have been moving toward since elimination of the tests was recommended late last year – does away with the admissions mandate for first-time, first-year students. Collectively, the UC and Cal State decisions strike against a linchpin of admissions procedures … More than 1,800 colleges are not mandating SAT or ACT scores for the fall 2022 cycle …

During the 70 years that the Soviet Union existed, Ukraine was an integral part of the nation. Yet this geographic and political reality posed no threat to the United States. A Russia and a Ukraine, both inside the USSR, was an accepted reality that was seen as no threat for the seven decades that they were united. Yet, today, because of a month-old war between Russia and Ukraine, over who shall control Crimea, the Donbas and the Black and Azov Sea coasts of Ukraine, America seems closer to a nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Why? … Meanwhile, in the secure American homeland, 5,000 miles from Kyiv, there is no shortage of foreign policy scholars beating the drums for a “victory” over Putin’s Russia and willing to fight to achieve that victory – right down to the last Ukrainian.

… Around September 2001, left-wing idealism dropped its old peace-loving nature. Instead, it became an armed crusade to democratize the world, with NATO as its weapon. The old conservative view of armed conflict — war as deterrence and then, if that failed, reluctant defense — was swept aside by an almost joyous desire to begin the world over again, this time using bombers … I have pursued a lone heresy of wondering why NATO even survived the end of its enemies, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Do we still maintain alliances against Austria-Hungary or the Ottomans? … We have all heard about beating spears into pruning hooks, but NATO has done something much more adventurous. It has beaten a shield into a sword.

Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. Secretary of State, a prominent liberal interventionist, and promoter of NATO expansion, died on Wednesday from cancer at the age of 84 … Albright was a major influence on the Clinton administration’s foreign policy, and consistently pushed for a more hawkish and interventionist line in response to foreign crises and conflicts … “My mindset is Munich,” she would often say as an explanation of how she saw the world, and like generations of Europeans and Americans haunted by WWII she made the mistake of seeing new Munichs around every corner … Albright has long served as the exemplar of overreaching American interventionism in the 1990s … She helped to lay the groundwork for America’s excessively militarized approach to the rest of the world over the last twenty years.

Madeleine Albright — US Ambassador to the UN, 1993-1997, and US Secretary of State, 1997-2001 – speaks with journalist Lesley Stahl in this May 1996 “60 Minutes” interview about the death and suffering caused by US sanctions against Iraq. “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” says Stahl, and then asks: “And, you know, is the price worth it?” Albright responds: “I think that is a very hard choice, but the price — we think, the price is worth it.” The deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children, this high-ranking US official suggests, is acceptable “collateral damage” in achieving US policy objectives in the Middle East. Runtime: 38 secs.

… The passing of former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Wednesday has been no exception. Western media responded to the news of her death with a plethora of obituaries eulogising her achievements … For me as an Iraqi, however, the memory of Albright will forever be tainted by the stringent sanctions she helped place on my country at a time when it was already devastated by years of war. Millions of innocent Iraqis suffered terribly and hundreds of thousands died because of the sanctions which, in the end, achieved almost none of Washington’s policy objectives … The most prominent memory of Albright that I have in my mind is from an interview she gave to CBS 60 Minutes in 1996.

Ukraine is asking all countries to criminalize the use of “Z” as a symbol to publicly support the Russian invasion of its neighbor. In a tweet shared on Tuesday, Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs Dmytro Kuleba wrote: “I call on all states to criminalize the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” “`Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden,” Kuleba said. The symbol “Z” — together with the letter “V” — was first noticed as a marking on Russian military vehicles in the first days of Moscow’s troops invasion of Ukraine. The letters on the tanks and vehicles which on February 24 entered Ukraine were assumed to be markers for Russian troops to identify their force contingents …

Two German states have outlawed public displays of the letter “Z,” which has become synonymous with support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Authorities in Bavaria and Lower Saxony said over the weekend that anyone who displays the symbol at public demonstrations or paints it on cars or buildings could face a fine or up to three years in jail, the English-language site The Local reports. And an Interior Ministry spokesperson told reporters on Monday that people throughout Germany who display the letter to endorse Russia’s aggression could be liable to prosecution. “The Russian war of aggression on the Ukraine is a criminal act, and whoever publicly approves of this war of aggression can also make himself liable to prosecution,” the spokesperson said at a news conference, according to Reuters.

An oligarch with Russian ties reportedly paid Ukrainian locals to spray-paint swastikas around the city of Kharkiv in the months leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In a report Wednesday, Rolling Stone cited multiple sources that identify the oligarch behind the alleged plot as Pavel Fuks, a Jewish-Ukrainian businessman who has accumulated most of his wealth from ventures in Russia. Fuks, who reportedly held Russian citizenship in the past, was allegedly approached by Russian agents and persuaded to pay local criminals anywhere between $500 and $1,500 through intermediaries to vandalize the streets of Kharkiv with Nazi symbols. According to the report, this lasted for three months, between December and February, and up until Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24.

… Consumers of all income brackets are increasingly living paycheck to paycheck, including those earning higher incomes. The number of consumers living paycheck to paycheck has increased steadily since April 2021 and was 64% in January 2022 – 12 percentage points higher than April 2021 – with a 3% jump in just a month between December 2021 and January 2022 … The share of those who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 who report living paycheck to paycheck is also on the rise. In May 2021, 53% of these middle-income consumers lived paycheck to paycheck. In January 2022, 67% reported living paycheck to paycheck — up from 66% in December 2021.

They are the supposed nonpartisan group of top spies looking out for the best interest of the nation. But the 51 former “intelligence” officials who cast doubt on The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter really were just desperate to get Joe Biden elected president. And more than a year later, even after their Deep State sabotage has been shown again and again to be a lie, they refuse to own up to how they undermined an election … Thus, Big Tech, former government officials, and the media conspired together to bury a story … In short, they peddled online disinformation to sway an election … There have been no consequences. Twitter and Facebook still censor information based on political bias, and Congress takes no action. Many of the letter signers continue to be used as “experts” by the media.

In this recent talk, a distinguished specialist of international relations explains his view that the US and “the West” is primarily responsible for the Ukraine war catastrophe — the consequences of which are still unfolding. Putin and other Russian leaders regard the threat of a NATO-member Ukraine as a basic, existential threat, says John Mearsheimer, and for that reason will not back down until it’s removed. In a widely viewed 2015 lecture Mearsheimer had warned that the US policy of expanding the NATO military alliance eastward against Russia would inevitably provoke a strong and forceful Russian response. For years this highly regarded professor at the University of Chicago has called for a more realistic and less self-righteous US foreign policy. Runtime: 24 mins.

… Joe Biden is a Cold Warrior, burdened fully with a world view Obama was not. That world view says the role of the United States is to create a global system and enforce its rules. We can invade nations that did not attack us and demand regime change but you cannot … Putin invaded Ukraine because, unlike Biden, he understands the new, new world order has different rules. Joe Biden, not always a quick study, has two choices. He can give in to the voices for war and try and prop up the myth of World’s Policemen for another round, or he can understand the consistent failures of American crusades and the global Pax Americana since WWII, especially those in the Middle East of the past two decades, plus the rise of multipolar economic powers to include China, have changed the rules. Negotiation is no longer appeasement.

… The same people who so vehemently call for Israel to be Jewish lack that same vigor when calling for France to be French, Germany to be German, or Sweden to be Swedish … Those same Zionists, by and large, fight against the nationalist sentiments in Europe … They are the same groups that push for the death of Europe and her people … He is a hypocrite because he wants his country, the US, to protect the nationalist and ethno-centric aspirations of Israel, his homeland, but not those of Europe … The peculiar position of these Jews is not so much in their exclusive nationalist desires for one state. It is in their exclusive denial of such nationalist rights to the peoples of Europe. For some strange reason, there is a hate for the European race, and that hate translates into a desire for its ultimate destruction.

Russia has not defaulted on its sovereign debt after all. Nor is it likely to do so under the current sanctions regime, and as long as Europe continues to finance Vladimir Putin’s military state with purchases of gas, oil, and coal. The Kremlin is already sufficiently confident to reopen the Moscow stock exchange for bond transactions … The ruble has not collapsed. It has stabilized after a 40 percent devaluation, a manageable drop for a semi-autarkic closed economy. The fall is less than the current slide in Turkey over recent months … We are facing the failure of western sanctions policy. Calibrated half-measures are not sufficient to change the Kremlin calculus …

… While the fighting goes on, the conflict in Ukraine is increasingly dangerous … This is playing with nuclear fire. The prime goal of the US should be to end the Ukraine conflict and stop pouring weapons and encouragement into Ukraine … Ukrainians must re-learn co-existence with Russia, like Finns … Good statecraft demands that Washington move mountains to settle the conflict in Ukraine, in which it has no vital national interest but faces nuclear peril. … Unfortunately, Ukraine has become what little Belgium was in 1914, a highly emotional issue propelling the mad rush to war. Westerners feel the sorrow of Ukrainians while totally ignoring the terrors they inflicted on Gaza, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Somalis and Libyans.

If any good has come out of the Ukraine war for the Arab world, it is the diminished status and influence of the US in West Asia. Washington is losing many of its traditional allies in the region, especially in the Persian Gulf, and this trend looks like it will accelerate. Four recent developments illustrate this … In short, what we are seeing today are manifestations of a revolt against US hegemony in the Arab world by the axis of Arab ‘moderation’ led by the Egyptian-Emirati-Saudi trio … The process of Arab normalization with Israel is bound to slow down. It is the most grievous error that normalizing countries – old and new – could have made, and should be halted completely. But there is optimism in this regard, as turning against the US also implies turning against Israel.

A return to a version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is “in sight,” which means that the typical chorus of opponents to the deal are launching a last-ditch effort to prevent an agreement. A letter sent to President Biden by Sen. Ted Cruz and 32 other senators claimed they will use “the full range of options and leverage available” to prevent a deal from being reached. With this context in mind, Sen. Chris Murphy made a blistering speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday making the case for the JCPOA. Murphy aimed at answering one simple question: What is the alternative?

Former Vice President Mike Pence told an Israeli newspaper on Tuesday that a future Republican administration will tear up any new nuclear deal made with Iran today. Beyond all of the political bloviation, it is important to understand how Pence’s statement undermines the U.S. bargaining position right now in Vienna … One of the biggest sticking points on behalf of the Iranian negotiators has been the inability to ensure that any future White House won’t waltz in and rip up the renewed agreement. So far they haven’t been able to get that kind of assurance, even from the Democrats who are supposedly behind getting a deal out the door … It means that any carrots the U.S. puts forward in the talks are devalued precisely because we are explicit about their lack of durability.

… While America also seeks a defeat for Russia’s aggression, President Joe Biden has a higher imperative: to avoid a war between the United States and the world’s other nuclear superpower, Vladimir Putin’s Russia … During the Cold War between the Soviet Empire and the West, the great achievement of presidents from Harry Truman to George H.W. Bush was that they avoided the kind of war that consumed millions of lives of Western peoples from 1914 to 1918 and 1939 to 1945 … Wars finished all the great powers of the 20th century, save the USA. America’s desire today may be to inflict a defeat on Putin’s Russia. U.S. vital national interests, however, dictate a negotiated peace.

It is simply astonishing how many western journalists, including normally cautious BBC reporters, are shamelessly fawning over young women building Molotov cocktails on the streets of Ukrainian cities like Kyiv. It’s suddenly sexy to make improvised explosives – at least, if the media consider you white, European and “civilized.” That might surprise other, more established resistance movements, especially in the Middle East. They have invariably found themselves tarred as terrorists for doing much the same … Condeleeza Rice, an architect of the criminal invasion of Iraq, has not been challenged by the media over her utter hypocrisy in agreeing that “When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime.” If that is the case – and international law says it is – then Rice herself should be on trial at the Hague.

… It is genuinely hard to overstate how overwhelming the unity and consensus in U.S. political and media circles is. It is as close to a unanimous and dissent-free discourse as anything in memory, certainly since the days following 9/11 … Every word broadcast on CNN or printed in The New York Times about the conflict perfectly aligns with the CIA and Pentagon’s messaging … Disinformation and utter hoaxes are now being aggressively spread as well … Western media outlets have also fully embraced their role as war propagandists. They affirm any story provided it advances pro-Ukrainian propaganda without having the slightest idea whether it is true.

Apart from Hitler himself, perhaps the most fascinating figure of Third Reich Germany is the regime’s chief publicist and spokesman, Joseph Goebbels. He is widely portrayed as a master of lies and deceitful propaganda. But this familiar image, which is particularly entrenched in the United States, is itself a propaganda falsehood. Historian Helmut Heiber wrote: “Goebbels was accordingly able to celebrate his information policy as being not only superior to the enemy’s in its monolithic character, but also of a ‘seriousness and credibility’ which `simply cannot be surpassed.’ … Seen in the long view, Goebbels preached, the best propaganda is that which does no more than serve the truth.” As French scholar Jacques Ellul noted, the postwar image of Goebbels as a master dissembler is itself a propaganda distortion.

A Baltimore City teacher came forward with devastating information that showed 77% of students tested at one high school are reading at an elementary school level. The teacher works at Patterson High School, one of the largest high schools in Baltimore with a 61% graduation rate and a nearly $12 million budget … Project Baltimore the results of iReady assessments … But Project Baltimore obtained the results for all of the students tested at Patterson High School. In reading, 628 Patterson High School students took the test. Out of those students, 484 of them, or 77%, tested at an elementary school reading level. That includes 71 high school students who were reading at a kindergarten level … Just 12 students tested at Patterson High School, were reading at grade level, which comes out to just 1.9%.

President Vladimir Putin gave an extensive speech on the Ukrainian crisis on Wednesday, as he met with regional heads to discuss measures of socio-economic support to counter the wave of anti-Russian sanctions. Putin provided his take on the ongoing conflict with Ukraine, its causes, and the goals Russia pursues. Launching the “special military operation” was the only option Russia had left to end the years-long bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, Putin stressed … Ultimately, the West’s desire to maintain its global dominance is the root of the ongoing Ukrainian turmoil, as well as crises in the other parts of the globe, Putin believes. “Today, the entire planet has to pay the price for the ambitions of the West, for its attempts by any means to maintain its crumbling dominance,” he said.

Putin is not a military general. He is a modernist leader, a trained spymaster and strategist who understands that war is a continuation of politics by other means (Clausewitz). Accordingly, if we want to grasp Putin’s motives we should refrain from trying to assess Russia’s military campaign in terms of ‘strict military objectives.’ We should instead look at the military campaign as a political instrument that is set to mobilize a global and regional geopolitical shift and on a mammoth scale … Putin is taking the most spectacular measures to protect his life and his regime. We in the west find it ‘laughable,’ but Putin knows very well that the only way the West can deal with its own incapacity is to eliminate him and his regime one way or another.

… In early 2014, Russia had already invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. Shortly thereafter, pro-Russia insurgents in the eastern Donbas region began a grinding secessionist war against Kyiv. Russian troops soon entered the fray. So, quietly, did the CIA. As the battle lines hardened in Donbas, a small, select group of veteran CIA paramilitaries made their first secret trips to the frontlines to meet with Ukrainian counterparts there, according to former U.S. officials … The initiative was described to Yahoo News by over half a dozen former officials, all of whom requested anonymity to speak freely about sensitive intelligence matters … Until now, however, the details of the CIA’s paramilitary training program on Ukraine’s eastern frontlines have never been revealed.

CIA paramilitaries had been training Ukrainian forces on the frontlines of the Donbas war against Russian-backed separatists since 2014 and were only pulled out by the Biden administration last month, Yahoo News reported on Wednesday, citing former US officials. The CIA first sent a small number of paramilitaries to eastern Ukraine when the war started in 2014, which was sparked by a US-backed coup in Kyiv and the Donbas separatists declaring independence from the post-coup government … The secret CIA program in eastern Ukraine was much more provocative than the other training programs since it essentially meant the US was involved in a proxy war on Russia’s border.

Russia’s war in Ukraine will disrupt commerce and clog up supply chains, slashing economic growth and pushing prices sharply higher around the globe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned Thursday. In a grim new assessment, the 38-country OECD said that over the next year, the conflict would reduce gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — by 1.08% worldwide, by 1.4% in the 19 European countries that share the euro currency, and by 0.88% in the United States. But government spending and tax cuts could partially limit the damage, the organization said.

… To make sense of this and react properly, we must be very clear-eyed about the goal of the U.S. Neither Russia nor China has attacked or even threatened the U.S … The goal of the U.S. is crystal clear – it regards itself as the Exceptional Nation and entitled to be the number one power on the planet, eclipsing all others … The Wolfowitz Doctrine is but the latest in a series of such proclamations that have proclaimed global domination as the goal of U.S. foreign policy since 1941 the year before the U.S. entered WWII … Such “difficulties” for the U.S. were solved once before – in WWII. One way of looking at WWII is that it was a combination of two great regional wars, one in East Asia and one in Europe … At the end of it all the U.S. emerged as the most powerful economic and military power on the planet.

In an interview with Reuters, Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman for decades, made a startling offer. Moscow could end the Ukraine war immediately, said Peskov, if four conditions were met. Ukraine should cease all military action, recognize Crimea as part of Russia, accept the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk separatist enclaves, and enact a constitutional commitment to “neutrality,” which would prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Were this to be done, said Peskov, the war “will stop in a moment.” … As of now, the winner of this Russia-Ukraine war appears to be China.

… Sooner or later this war will end in a compromise peace in which Moscow will have to give up its maximal aims but Ukraine will also have to make certain concessions. Complete Russian victory or complete Russian defeat are both equally unlikely … U.S. and Western sanctions should be used to support the peace process and compel Russia to end its aggression and reach an agreement, not to bring about regime change in Russia … The Biden administration and all responsible members of Congress should tell Zelensky honestly that he cannot expect Washington to go to war with Russia. There is a shameful history going back to Georgia in 2008 of Americans making quasi-promises of military aid that they had no real intention of ever fulfilling, thereby encouraging countries to take disastrously uncompromising positions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has opined that the latest rounds of unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies over the Kremlin’s military campaign in Ukraine, mark the end of an era. According to Putin, from now on the West will be losing its “global dominance” both politically and economically. Speaking on Wednesday, the Russian head of state proclaimed that the “myth of the Western welfare state, of the so-called golden billion, is crumbling.” Moreover, it is the “whole planet that is having to pay the price for the West’s ambitions, and its attempts to retain its vanishing dominance at any cost,” Putin said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks about the military operations so far in Ukraine, the impact of sanctions imposed by the US and other countries, plans for the future, and other matters, in this address of Wednesday, March 16, to Russian Federation regional leaders. Military operations in Ukraine, he says, are unfolding “successfully, in strict accordance with pre-approved plans,” and have “fully justified themselves.” The sanctions imposed against Russia, he says, amount to “aggression and war with economic, political, information means.” He expresses confidence about the future. “The struggle we are waging is a struggle for our sovereignty, for the future of our country and our children,” he says. Runtime: 37 mins. With English subtitles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered an unsettling warning to any Russians who might be supportive of the United States and other Western countries. “Any people, and particularly the Russian people, will always be able to tell apart the patriots from the scum and traitors and spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths,” Putin said during a televised address on Wednesday. “I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion, and readiness to meet any challenge.” … “The struggle we are waging is a struggle for our sovereignty, for the future of our country and our children.” Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, he declared, “fully justified themselves.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin charged Wednesday that the West is trying to divide Russia through “the fifth column” and “national traitors,” apparently referring to Kremlin critics. “(The West) now, once again, wants to repeat the attempt to squeeze us, to put pressure on us, to turn us into a weak dependent country, to violate (our) territorial integrity, to dismember, in the best way for them, Russia. It didn’t work out then, and it won’t work out now,” Putin said in a long emotional speech, opening a video conference meeting with government officials … The [military] operation in Ukraine is unfolding “successfully, in strict accordance with pre-approved plans,” and decried Western sanctions against Russia, describing them as “aggression and war with economic, political, information means.”

Saudi Arabia is considering accepting payment for oil sales to China in Chinese yuan rather than US dollars. Such a shift, some observers believe, could threaten the supremacy of the dollar, which has been the world’s reserve currency since the 1940s. British PM Johnson recently visited Saudi Arabia and the UAE to try to shore up oil production there, and thereby offset dependency on Russian oil imports. Mark Weber of the Institute for Historical Review in California and Sanam Vakil of Chatham House in England comment. Saudi consideration of accepting payments in yuan does not represent a breakdown in US-Saudi relations, says Weber. Rather, he says, “it’s part of a general trend that’s been developing for some time that reflects a steady decline in the relative economic and financial clout of the US in the world.” Runtime: 4:31 mins.

Israel is grappling with how to deal with dozens of Jewish Russian oligarchs as Western nations step up sanctions on businesspeople with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. A worried Israeli government has formed a high-level committee to see how the country can maintain its status as a haven for any Jew without running afoul of the biting sanctions targeting Putin’s inner circle … Several dozen Jewish tycoons from Russia are believed to have taken on Israeli citizenship or residency in recent years. Many have good working relations with the Kremlin … Israel, founded as a haven for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, grants automatic citizenship to anyone of Jewish descent. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, an estimated 1 million Jews from Russia and other former Soviet republics have moved to Israel.

… There are still lots of ways the war in Ukraine could get much worse than it already is. They are all terrifying enough. And yet, there is another threat as well, one that hasn’t even started to be added into the potential reckoning: a financial crash … One point is certain. We have only seen the beginning of the financial turbulence. It will get a lot rockier over the next few months … Very soon many of the developing economies will have to make an unpleasant choice over whether they carry on paying their foreign creditors, or continue to buy oil and grain instead. It is not hard to work out which will come Erst. A series of sovereign defaults are inevitable, especially as debt levels have soared in the last decade.

… Much of what is happening in Ukraine can be traced back to the Obama Administration. State Department officials like Victoria Nuland and Antony Blinken planned and executed the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014. This is what set us on this path to conflict, as the government put in place after the coup began demanding NATO membership. Blinken, Nuland, and the others responsible for this heinous act returned to government in more senior positions under President Biden and they have continued to push their Ukraine agenda … The only solution for the US is to get out. Let the Russians and Ukrainians reach an agreement. That means no NATO for Ukraine and no US missiles on Russia’s borders? So what! End the war then end NATO.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a monstrous act of aggression that has plunged the world into a perilous situation. By any reasonable standard, his move was an over-the-top response to any Ukrainian or NATO provocations. However, that conclusion is different from saying that there were no provocations, as far too many policymakers and pundits in the West are doing now … Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly — ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst.

Mark Weber joins host Frodi Midjord to bring informed, reasoned perspective to the Ukraine war and the US-Russia clash. Weber traces the background and origins of the conflict, and looks at how it can be resolved. US leaders for years have ignored Russia’s legitimate security concerns, he says in this 105-minute “Guide to Kulchur” session. Instead, American politicians and the mainstream media have promoted an arrogant and insultingly hostile view of Russia and its President. Wise diplomacy by American leaders could have prevented this war. The US has been more hostile to Putin and today’s Russia than they were toward Soviet leaders and the USSR, Weber notes.

… While we support Kyiv in its just war, there are limits to that support. We are not going to risk war with Russia for the independence or territorial integrity, or even the continued existence, of Ukraine. Second, as we are unwilling to send MiGs to Ukraine to stop the Russian bombing, lest that involve us in a war with Russia, what is there of sufficient value to us in Eastern Europe that we would actually declare war on Russia, a war that could horribly damage or destroy us both? … The U.S.-NATO reply: “We’re with you up to a point. But we are not risking our own security and survival, in what is not our war, for yours.”

… Thanks to a relentless flow of propaganda, the American public has become increasingly convinced that the United States “looks weak” and must stand up against Vladimir Putin … There is also more than a measure of hypocrisy in the Biden Administration taking the lead on punishing Russia for aggression. The United States has gone to war with a non-threatening Vietnam, and has destroyed governments and engaged in completely illegal military occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya and Syria … Its ally Israel bombs Syria on nearly a daily basis, engages in assassinations, kills Palestinian children, and annexes Arab land that it has obtained by force on the Golan Heights and West Bank, dispossessing the original inhabitants. When that happens, the US Congress and White House look the other way.

… There’s no excusing the invasion, but the double standards and hypocrisy coming out of Washington, D.C., are quite striking. For example, President Joe Biden has correctly asserted that “nations have a right to sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The United States, however, has been the only government in the world to formally recognize Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights and Morocco’s annexation of the entire nation of Western Sahara, both seized by force in defiance of the United Nations … Biden’s insistence that countries must not invade other nations on false pretenses is incredibly hypocritical considering his strident support as a Senator for the U.S. invasion of Iraq …

Fédération Internationale Féline (FIFe), an international cat federation with members in about 40 countries, is banning Russian cats from its competitions for the next three months, joining the growing global backlash to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine … As of Tuesday, no cats bred in Russia may be imported and registered in any FIFe pedigree book outside Russia, and no cats belonging to exhibitors living in Russia may enter any FIFe shows outside the country. The restrictions are valid through the end of May and will be reviewed as necessary, officials said.

… This blog takes a look at the dachshund, and the prejudice this German breed encountered during World War One. As a dog lover, Mary Evans herself amassed an enormous and varied collection of canine-related material in her lifetime, giving rise to this unusual pictorial perspective on how dachshunds were portrayed, and occasionally persecuted, in the Great War … With its German name and origins, the dachshund was used by cartoonists as a short hand for the German threat. Though often employed in humorous illustrations, the Teutonic associations of the dachshund resulted in a decline in its popularity as a breed, as patriotic dog lovers of the allied nations choose to express their allegiance through their choice of pet. … Attempts were made to rebrand the breed …

Meta Platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy. The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to internal emails to its content moderators. “As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

A new report shows half of Americans are not able to handle an unexpected expense. The report by MagnifyMoney, a section of Lending Tree, says 50% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. The lower the income, the more likely someone will be living check to check according to the survey … The largest expense reported by those surveyed is their rent/ mortgage, following by phone and utility bills and then credit card bills … The report also breaks down how long people of each generation could go without a check, according to the survey. It found Baby Boomers could go 17 weeks, Gen Xers could last 10 weeks, Millennials came in at 9 weeks and Gen Zers could go 7 weeks, on average. The report also found more than seven in 10 Americans say they’re constantly stressed by finances.

… Do Americans want to know why Russia went to war? They might not like to hear that “their” government must shoulder a good deal of blame, but it’s undeniable that since World War II the power that occupies Middle North America has had its heavy hand in virtually every part of the world … The goal must be a ceasefire. Biden can facilitate that by doing what he should have done long ago: put in writing that Ukraine and Georgia will not join NATO, that the missile launchers will be removed from Eastern Europe, and that the war exercises on Russia’s border will end. Ukraine could help by accepting the status of neutrality with Finland-like assurances that it will not let its territory be used offensively against Russia.

… Moscow has been complaining about the West’s meddling in Ukraine for over 14 years. Russian forces are now waging a slow-motion offensive against parts of Ukraine and, so far, trying to keep down casualties … Compare this to the wide-scale US destruction of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Palestine … The best, fastest way to end the Ukrainian civil war is to partition off its Russian-speaking eastern regions, quench its surging nationalism, and promise Russia it will not join NATO or any other foreign alliance for 20 years. And tell CNN to refocus its hysteria on surging crime in New York City and Chicago.

An upcoming all-Tchaikovsky concert by Wales’ Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra has been deemed problematic, and the program has been redesigned to remove all pieces by the famed Russian composer. The concert, set to be held at St David’s Hall, in Cardiff, on March 18, was scheduled to feature Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812 Overture’ and ‘Marche Slave’ and to conclude with his ‘Second Symphony’. It will now comprise Dvorak’s ‘Symphony No. 8’, John Williams’ ‘The Cowboys Overture’, and Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’. Martin May, the orchestra’s director, described the ‘1812 Overture,’ in particular, written to commemorate the Russian defense against Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, to be “inappropriate at this time,” citing the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

… The Western view is that the Kremlin is supposed to understand and accept that the alliance’s activities, among them war games replete with American tanks staged in nearby Baltic states and rockets stationed in Poland and Romania – which the U.S. says are aimed at Iran – in no way present a threat to Russian security … In June 1997, 50 prominent foreign policy experts signed an open letter to Clinton, saying, “We believe that the current U.S. led effort to expand NATO … is a policy error of historic proportions” that would “unsettle European stability.” … Putin’s sense of Russia’s insecurity vis-à-vis a much more powerful NATO is genuine, but during the current impasse over Ukraine, his recent statements have become more fevered and even paranoid.

Declassified US State Department documents prove that CNN and other American mainstream media outlets have been deceiving the public about the repeated pledges given in 1990 and 1991 by US and other European officials to Soviet leaders that, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany, the NATO military alliance would not be expanded Eastward into Central and Eastern Europe. These documents prove that the Russian president is telling the truth when he cites those broken promises. Russia has been demanding the same level of security that the US insists on for itself. Runtime: 10:36 mins.

U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today [Dec.12, 2017] by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The documents show that … subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.

… U.S. policy in summary: Ukrainians should keep fighting and dying, killing Russians, while we stay out — and cheer them on. In the greatest European military crisis since NATO was founded, U.S. actions and inaction speak louder than its words … Bottom line: We are not willing to risk war with Russia over Ukraine, as that nation of 44 million is not a vital interest nor a member of NATO. We will not establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, as that would mean war with Russia. But had Russia attacked Estonia, not Ukraine, we would be at war with Russia, because Estonia is a member of NATO … Does this seem logical? Does this make sense? … If the Finns show an interest in joining NATO, would NATO defend Finland against Russian military action while its application for membership in NATO was being considered?

… Claims that Ukraine currently maintains dangerous biological weapons labs came from Russia as well as China … The neocon official long in charge of U.S. policy in Ukraine testified on Monday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and strongly suggested that such claims are, at least in part, true … Any attempt to claim that Ukraine’s biological facilities are just benign and standard medical labs is negated by Nuland’s explicitly grave concern that “Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of” those facilities and that the U.S. Government therefore is, right this minute, “working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces.”

Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that there are “biological research facilities” in Ukraine the US is concerned Russian forces might seize. She made the comments when asked by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) if Ukraine has chemical or biological weapons … Nuland’s comments came after Russia accused Ukrainian authorities of destroying pathogens studied at Pentagon-linked laboratories. “During a special military operation, the facts of the Kiev regime’s emergency cleanup of traces of a military biological program funded by the US Department of Defense implemented in Ukraine were revealed,” the Russian Defense Ministry said … The Russian military has claimed that it uncovered 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine linked to the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).

… Washington’s attempt to make Ukraine a Nato political and military pawn (even absent the country’s formal membership in the alliance) may end up costing the Ukrainian people dearly. History will show that Washington’s treatment of Russia in the decades following the demise of the Soviet Union was a policy blunder of epic proportions. It was entirely predictable that Nato expansion would ultimately lead to a tragic, perhaps violent, breach of relations with Moscow. Perceptive analysts warned of the likely consequences, but those warnings went unheeded. We are now paying the price for the US foreign policy establishment’s myopia and arrogance.

… Russian actions in Ukraine deserve universal condemnation. But as crimes go, Putin’s aggression pales in comparison with the human toll exacted by Saddam Hussein’s US-supported war of choice against Iran. As for the calamitous results of the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the impact of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine rates as trivial by comparison. The point is not to measure relative iniquity in a balance, but simply to note that while the ongoing events in Ukraine may be tragic, they are not all that unusual. The professed surprise of pundits and politicians stems either from wishful thinking or willful ignorance. History hasn’t ended. The global triumph of democratic liberalism is a mirage.

… I have spent the past several years investigating allegations of U.S.-backed covert regime change during the Cold War. I’ve done so by going through relevant documents from the National Archives, National Security Archive and presidential libraries … Between 1947 and 1989, the United States tried to change other nations’ governments 72 times. That’s a remarkable number. It includes 66 covert operations and six overt one … During the Cold War, for instance, 26 of the United States’ covert operations successfully brought a U.S.-backed government to power; the remaining 40 failed … I found 16 cases in which Washington sought to influence foreign elections by covertly funding, advising and spreading propaganda for its preferred candidates, often doing so beyond a single election cycle.

… Western media has championed the cause of Ukraine in a totally one-sided manner. So, we have plucky David v. evil Goliath. Never mind that civil war between Ukrainian nationalists, militant rightists and the Kiev regime has been flaring for 14 years … So far, Russian forces, whose doctrine calls for massive artillery use, have been sparing in their use of big guns and rocket batteries. Much more is very likely to come. The Russian Air Force and Black Sea Fleet have also been notably absent … As much as we feel sympathy for Ukraine, we must also remember that Russia remains a great power of sorts and needs to be shown a clear exit from this mess. America must not be carried away by glee at Russia’s discomfort and try to complete the destruction of the once mighty Soviet Union into an eastern Yugoslavia.

In 2008 as then-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili realized that his attack on Russian peacekeepers and civilians in South Ossetia had elicited a Russian military response that ended up with the Russian army practically knocking on his door in Tbilisi, he infamously appeared on a BBC interview voraciously chewing his necktie. It demonstrated to the world that the plucky US-educated leader who dared take on the Russian bear for the sake of “democracy” was in fact an unhinged and unstable figure (installed into power by the US-led “Rose Revolution”) who found himself losing it upon realization that he was over his head and the US cavalry were not coming to liberate him … Ukraine’s comedian-president Zelensky seems to be careening down that same path.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has announced plans to host the first International Anti-Fascist Congress, escalating Moscow’s push to fight Nazism amid the Ukraine crisis. Shoigu told reporters about the new event on Tuesday, saying it will be held in August, in conjunction with the “Army-22” international military technology forum near Moscow. The initiative is meant to “unite the efforts of the international community in the fight against the ideology of Nazism, neo-Nazism in any form of its manifestation in the modern world,” he said. Russia is calling attention to its anti-fascism agenda at a time when it’s fighting a conflict in Ukraine partly to “denazify” the former Soviet republic … Modern-day Ukraine has embraced a number of WWII Nazi collaborators – including Stepan Bandera – as national heroes.

On January 22, 2010 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko honored Stepan Bandera by posthumously bestowing on him the state honor, “Hero of Ukraine.” The Soviet KGB assassinated Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist-in-exile, in 1959 … To this day, many Ukrainians view Bandera as a martyred freedom fighter. As an uncompromising leader of the militant, terrorist branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Bandera became a Nazi collaborator … By working with the Nazis, Bandera hoped to free Ukraine from Soviet rule and establish his own government there. An independent Ukraine, Bandera promised, would remain friendly to Germany.

Contemporary film report on a mass rally in Lviv (Lemberg), Ukraine, July 18, 1943, for the newly formed SS Division “Galicia.” Ukrainian-language narration. Runtime: 2:27 mins. Ceremonies begin with an outdoor religious service. Ukrainians greet the German Governor, Otto Wächter, who then addresses the large, joyful crowd. Taking part in the parade are many young men who have volunteered for service in the new military formation, as well as young women in traditional dress. Many carry the symbol of the “Galicia” Division, a yellow stylized lion on a blue background – the Ukrainian national colors.

… Dubbed “Putin’s list,” the names represent top political figures and so-called oligarchs who have amassed wealth and influence under Putin’s administration of the Kremlin. They are seen as potential targets for sanctions that would prevent them from participating in global commerce, in hopes of pressuring Putin to end the invasion of Ukraine. At least 18 of the figures on “Putin’s list” are oligarchs with Jewish backgrounds, many of whom, as with the men behind the Genesis Philanthropy Group, have ramped up donations to Jewish charities around the world in recent years. Their giving has shaped efforts to commemorate the Holocaust, inculcate Jewish identity and fight antisemitism … The potential for new sanctions targeting oligarchs brings attention to the flow of money from Russia’s Jewish billionaires to Jewish nonprofits.

The US cable provider Optimum said Thursday it was removing Russian state media from its services after a Holocaust survivors support organization released an open letter asking that it do so. A spokesperson for Altice USA, which owns and operates Optimum, told The Times of Israel that it has removed Channel 1 Russia, and was in the process of removing RTR Planeta and NTV America. It does not carry NTV Russia. The Blue Card, a Holocaust survivors support organization in New York, released a letter Wednesday calling for Optimum to remove the “Russian propaganda” from its services.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored the warnings that the Kremlin has made for years that any attempt to give Kyiv membership in NATO or use Ukraine as a military asset would cross a dangerous red line … Washington led Zelensky down the primrose path with a cornucopia of US weapons and security funding, the prestige of Ukraine’s participation in joint military exercises with US and NATO forces, and the illusory prospect of NATO membership. Ukraine is now paying a bloody price for succumbing to such blandishments. Ukrainian leaders need to look to their own country’s best interests and strike the most favorable deal they can with Russia. The West is not coming to rescue Ukraine, and Ukrainians must face that bitter, disillusioning reality. The Finland option may be their only way out of a horrible situation.

On March 1, Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union Address. The first several minutes were dedicated to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In those few minutes, Biden made three key assertions. One of them was true; two of them were not … Biden declared Russia’s attack on Ukraine to be “unprovoked.” He offered no explanation nor evidence. That claim is false … As he has since the beginning of his administration, Biden described the world in Manichean terms of light and dark, freedom and tyranny and democracy and autocracy. This battle, he said, is “the battle between democracy and autocracy.” That claim is false … So, the Russian invasion is a brutal violation of international law, but it is not unprovoked and it is not a global Manichean [struggle] between democracy and autocracy.

… Though a nation of 44 million and almost as large as Texas, Ukraine is neither a vital U.S. interest nor a member of NATO … Today, by our refusal to intervene militarily in Ukraine, to slow or halt this Russian invasion, we are sending a message to the world. That message? Ukraine’s independence is not vital to the United States. While a desirable goal, it is not worth our fighting a war with Russia to preserve. Moreover, the independence of Ukraine is not worth the risk of using U.S. planes to establish a no-fly zone for Russian planes in the skies over Ukraine. Indeed, had we given Putin assurances that NATO was closed to Kyiv, we might have prevented what has happened, because that was the first and most insistent of Putin’s demands.

… Well, what is wrong with a ceasefire followed by support for a treaty “guaranteeing neutrality for Ukraine, similar to the enforced neutrality for Austria since the Cold War’s early years,” as Nation publisher and Russia specialist Katrina vanden Heuvel urged … Biden has inherited and accepted the U.S. Empire’s ambitions in many other nation’s backyards. Events have polarized this conflict over Ukraine, which is not a security interest for the U.S., into two dominant egos – Putin and Biden – neither of whom want to appear weak or to back down. This is a dangerous recipe for an out-of-control escalation, much as it was in the lead-up to World War I. Neither the people nor the parliaments mattered then, as seems to be the case today.

… Russia had hitherto made only limited use of its heavy artillery and air force to eliminate centres of resistance in the cities, a tactic that is the usual method by which the Russian military, along with other modern armies, seek to capture besieged cities, with low casualties among their own forces. Some 660,000 Ukrainians have already become refugees outside the country, but this number is soon likely to exceed several millions as the Russian army prepares a full-scale military assault on the Ukrainian capital … The Ukrainian army may have fought heroically, but President Vladimir Putin cannot afford to let his “special military operation” be regarded as a fiasco. He still has many military resources since between a quarter and a third of the 190,000 Russian soldiers surrounding Ukraine may still not have crossed the frontier.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial and museum, is embroiled in controversy after attempting to intervene in planned sanctions against Israeli Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, owner of the Chelsea Premier League soccer team and a longtime supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a letter to U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides, Yad Vashem, together with the country’s chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau and Sheba Medical Center Director Yitshak Kreiss, asked that the United States not sanction Abramovich, a major donor to the memorial and other Jewish causes. They said that sanctioning him would cause harm to Jewish institutions that rely on him for donations, said Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan …

Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center on Sunday said it “deplores” Russia’s invasion of its neighbor Ukraine and condemned the Nazi-related rhetoric being used on both sides of the conflict … In its statement, Yad Vashem also condemned against both sides of the conflict for using “propagandist discourse” that it said was “saturated with irresponsible statements and completely inaccurate comparisons with Nazi ideology and actions before and during the Holocaust.” This referred both to claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country was launching the invasion in order to “denazify” Ukraine, a country that has a democratically elected Jewish president, and to explicit comparisons made by Kyiv of Putin to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler …

A new study suggests that Stonehenge once served as a solar calendar. Research showed the stones were added about 2500BC and remained in the same formation, indicating they worked as a single unit such as a calendar. Professor Timothy Darvill said the Wiltshire stone circle’s layout served as a physical representation of the year. He said the research indicated “the site was a calendar based on a tropical solar year of 365.25 days”. Although the origins of the site remain a mystery, in a paper published in the journal Antiquity, Prof Darvill deduced that the stones are displayed to represent a solar year of 365.25 days and were once used to help people keep track of time. His analysis also includes new finds about the site’s history, along with analysis of other ancient calendar systems.

For convenient viewing, this recently refurbished webpage presents videos of stimulating, well-informed talks, lectures and interviews on a range of topics, including major historical issues and important trends of our age.

When the Bush Administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea. Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO made no sense. NATO itself made no sense … Unfortunately, as we have seen this past week, my fears have come true. One does not need to approve of Russia’s military actions to analyze its stated motivation: NATO membership for Ukraine was a red line it was not willing to see crossed. As we find ourselves at risk of a terrible escalation, we should remind ourselves that it didn’t have to happen this way. There was no advantage to the United States to expand and threaten to expand NATO to Russia’s doorstep. There is no way to argue that we are any safer for it.

Mark Weber joins host James Edwards in this 50-minute session to offset the one-sided and highly emotive mainstream media coverage of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Weber provides informed perspective on the clash, and looks at how it can be resolved. Even-handed and far-sighted diplomacy by American leaders could have prevented this war, he says. For years US leaders have ignored Russia’s legitimate security concerns. Instead, he adds, US politicians and the mainstream media have promoted an arrogant, simplistic and insultingly hostile view of Russia and its President. The US has been more hostile to Putin and today’s Russia than they were toward Stalin and the Soviet Union, Weber notes.

… What should U.S. policy be? Avoid a widening of the war by preventing any escalation to nuclear weapons. Secure the independence of Ukraine. Effect the removal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. If this requires that Ukraine give up any ambition to become a NATO nation, Putin’s declared purpose in launching the war, so be it. We might have avoided this war had we done so before it was begun. This is not where we appear to be headed.

An outstanding specialist of international relations looks at the origins of the Ukraine-Russia war. This interview was recorded on Feb. 15, shortly before Russian forces invaded. John J. Mearsheimer is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970, and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He is the author of several influential books on international relations. Runtime: one hour, 21 mins. This is a production of King’s Politics, the student politics society at King’s College, Cambridge (England).

… Americans must ask themselves: Is this worth it? The United States withdrew from Afghanistan last year because its presence there no longer served its interests. Neither does staying in Iraq … Two decades of a failed and costly strategy in Afghanistan made the decision to leave an obvious one. But the case for leaving Iraq is even stronger. Many elected leaders in the Iraqi political system that Washington helped spawn want U.S. troops to depart the country. The fact that their presence has not been a subject of intense domestic debate shows how inured we’ve become to a long military presence abroad … But the truth is that the U.S. presence has helped fuel insurgencies in Iraq.

The West spent eight years ignoring the “sea of blood” in Donbass while arming Ukraine, and now claims Moscow is the aggressor when it stepped in to end the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RT on Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday, claiming it was necessary to “demilitarize and de-nazify” the neighbor … In announcing the operation, Putin said the “main objective is to stop the escalation of the war that’s been going on for eight years, and to stop the war,” Zakharova told RT … “This did not start yesterday. There’s a sea of blood that’s appeared over the past eight years,” she added, referring to the conflict in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which Russia on Monday recognized as independent states.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday called on the Ukrainian army to overthrow the government whose leaders he described as “terrorists” and “a gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.” Putin also accused “Ukrainian nationalists” of deploying heavy weapons in residential areas of major cities to provoke the Russian military, a claim that could fuel fears Moscow is creating pretexts for justifying civilian casualties. In a televised address, he urged the Ukrainian military to “take power in your own hands.” “It seems like it will be easier for us to agree with you than this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” he said, referring to the leadership in Kyiv under President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish.

Russia on Friday summoned Israel’s Ambassador to Moscow Alexander Ben Zvi to clarify Israel’s position regarding the Ukraine invasion. According to reports on Channel 12 and Ynet, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov asked Ben Zvi why Israel was expressing support for the “Nazis” in Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly made the questionable claim its invasion of its neighbor seeks to “de-Nazify” the country, whose president Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish … Bogdanov also spoke of the “importance of preserving the historical truth about the Second World War.”

Russia denounced Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, hours before it launched its invasion of Ukraine. “We are concerned over Tel Aviv’s announced plans for expanding settlement activity in the occupied Golan Heights, which directly contradicts the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention,” said Russia’s United Nations envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy in a statement. “Russia doesn’t recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights that are part of Syria.” … Addressing the U.N. Security Council’s monthly briefing on the Middle East on Wednesday, Polyanskiy said, “Russia’s unchanging position, according to which we do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights that are an inalienable part of Syria.”