158 academics have signed a letter calling for NATO to admit Ukraine. But they don't address the crucial question of when Ukraine should be admitted: now, or once the war is over. Neither option is straightforward.
The West "provoked" the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nigel Farage has said. The expansion of NATO and the European Union gave Putin "an excuse" to go to war.
It's becoming clear to everyone except our rulers that Ukraine is losing and can now never win if winning means expelling all Russian troops, says David Craig. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets for Ukraine.
In the latest Weekly Sceptic podcast – recorded live at the Hippodrome in Leicester Square – the talking points are Joe Biden's failing memory, Trump's radical NATO shake-up and Putin giving Tucker a history lesson.
Should Volodymyr Zelensky continue to fight endlessly in pursuit of a comprehensive defeat of Russia which may be unattainable – or should he consider cutting his losses and reaching a compromise?
In April 2022, M.L.R. Smith and Niall McCrae drew on their extensive Cold War knowledge to offer provisional analysis of the Russian war in Ukraine. Eighteen months later they look back at how their conclusions held up.
It was not NATO’s eastward expansion that provoked Russia into invading Ukraine, but Putin’s imperial ambitions, argues Wesley Smith.
A 2014 survey found that a sizeable share of Donbas residents favoured some form of separatism. However, this survey found almost no support for separatism in other regions – contrary to Russian claims at the time.
It has been claimed that NATO's operation in Afghanistan was "defensive". However, it is unclear how the 2007 bombing of Helmand province, which killed at least 45 Afghan civilians, was in any way "defensive".
If fears of NATO expansion don’t sound like a solid principle for Russia to stand on, then don’t worry, Russia has other ones – a myriad of factitious grievances tailored to the prejudices of any given audience.
