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Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine one year ago today hoping to capture it in a few days — then spent the last year turning its southeast into a bloodbath. Even if the current military stalemate is broken, the divides created by the war won’t heal soon.
States at war generally adopt interventionist economic policies to mobilize resources and manpower. Ukraine hasn’t followed suit, instead pursuing dogmatic free-marketeer measures that suit Western creditors more than its own population.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has produced a moment of unity in the West — and helped Washington reassert its leadership in NATO. With no peace in sight, the war has provided the opportunity to rebuild America’s tattered “informal empire.”
Use of the US’s unprecedented weapons supply to Ukraine has not been properly tracked by the Department of Defense — and the country has a history of alleged misuse, loss, or selling of munitions.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the EU granted asylum to millions of Ukrainian refugees. However, international students and other non-Ukrainians caught in the conflict have struggled to receive similar protection.
Donald Trump is demanding $500 billion in mineral riches from Ukraine in exchange for supporting its war effort. The bid to loot Ukraine’s resources makes a mockery of calls to defend its national sovereignty.
Although Ukraine is hobbled by the debt it owes its international creditors, Canada’s support for the country does not include any debt relief. It does, however, include guns and even more loans.
The Minsk Agreements were meant to ease conflict in the Donbas, only to be torn to shreds by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A diplomat involved in the Minsk process tells Jacobin why it failed, and what chance diplomacy has of de-escalating the war.
Throughout the Russo-Ukrainian war, each side has cast its enemy as heirs to the Nazis of World War II. In Ukraine, this has fueled comfortable myths about the nationalists of the 1940s, whose role in the Holocaust is routinely ignored.
The borders of Ukraine are no more arbitrary than those of Poland, Greece, Italy, or Germany.
The only clear beneficiaries of the current proposal for military aid to Ukraine are US weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon — and both parties seem intent on passing it.
Even before Russia rained terror on its cities, Ukraine was a poor country with limited economic sovereignty. Today, Ukraine’s creditors should free it of its debts, allowing it to rebuild on the basis of self-sufficiency and democratic choice.
It’s impossible to say for certain what could have stopped Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it is possible to situate the war in recent historical context and game out its geopolitical and economic consequences, including the effects of heavy sanctions.
The latest escalation in the Ukraine crisis requires us to hold two ideas at the same time: that Vladimir Putin bears much responsibility for the immediate crisis, and that the long-standing US refusal to accept limits to NATO expansion helped bring it about.
For the last few years, enthusiasts have documented Ukraine’s Soviet buildings online. Since February, they’ve been bombed and shelled. What happens next?
On Thursday, European leaders released another €50 billion in funding for Ukraine. The funds are a lifeline for the Ukrainian military — but waning US support and the stalemate on the front line are chipping away at Europe’s commitment to Kyiv.
The Ukraine crisis is extremely complex and little understood. Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko explains the crisis’s origins, the fictions that surround it, and why war is still far from inevitable.
Ukraine's politics are dominated by oligarchs. Its streets are more and more run by the far right.
The same Western media that once documented and decried Ukraine’s far right is now playing it down and even rehabilitating its leaders — including actual Nazis. Such apologetics aren’t doing any favors for Ukrainians or their fight against Russia’s aggression.
Ukraine owes billions of dollars in foreign debt, most of it to international finance institutions, banks, and hedge funds. If Western governments were serious about helping Ukrainians amid a devastating war, they would push for those debts to be canceled.