Russia

Putin's historical narrative is, in fact, an apotheosis of the Stalinist-Soviet story of World War II, ignoring ethnic purges, murders of Polish officers, NKVD barrage troops shooting at anyone who would just think of taking a step back. There is no looting, no mass robbery or rapes of women, no liquidation of the opposition. The purpose of this narrative is one: to purge the Soviet Union and its state leadership — headed by Stalin — of the charges of collaborating with Hitler and of jointly provoking a global conflict.

On February 24, 2022, Russian troops entered Ukraine. The war which, according to intelligence analysts from the USA, Germany and France, was to last 4-5 days and end with the occupation of Ukraine and the complete subordination of Ukraine by Russia, and perhaps even the erasure of the name Ukraine from the map of Europe, began.

Children of dictators and their education is the subject of interesting studies and books showing the hypocrisy and cynicism of dictators, various world warlords, and their close associates who, criticizing the West, invest in their children, providing them with education, security and a prosperous life in the West.

We have become a NATO frontier that is directly threatened by war. It is us, who risk the lives of our citizens, surrounded — on the one hand — by the Kaliningrad Fortress, on the other — Belarus, and maybe even pro-Russian Ukraine in the future, if it collapses, due to it not having been helped enough.

The Ukraine has fallen victim to Russia's great geopolitical game, which has posed an open challenge to the United States. Putin decided that Americans, who he thought were economically weak, at odds and divided, who had just fled Afghanistan in disgrace, whose attention was distracted by the confrontation with China, would not be able to effectively respond to his aggression towards the Ukraine.

We all in the West are playing a dangerous game with Russia. It doesn't matter that they are wrong on so many things, up to and including the current war (for which they cannot alone be blamed). What matters is where we are all going. We, in the West, seem to think that isolating Russia will work towards some goal that ultimately benefits us. It won't. Russia has a very long history of self-isolation, longer than any country other than China. It's even longer than that of Japan.

Putin recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics by breaking international law once again, and the European elite and its diplomacy still believe in the project of cooperation with Russia from Vladivostok to Lisbon. What will happen to Europe next? Will Germany stop feeding us pro-Russian demagogy and cynicism?

At the moment, a danger is approaching the Polish borders and our families there on the Vistula River. So it is time for joint, coordinated action on this issue.

The book of prof. Ewa Thompson goes beyond the boundaries of previous research on the phenomenon of yuródivy (юродивый). The researcher confronts the portrait of the saint madman preserved by literature and hagiography with the social and political context of their activities in pre-revolutionary Russia. Thompson argues with the view that the phenomenon of God's madness, booming in Rus and later in Russia until the time of the October Revolution, grew unequivocally out of Christianity.

On Tuesday, April 6, 2021, the first President of independent Ukraine (1991-1994) Leonid Kravchuk suggested that the talks about the future of Ukrainian-Russian war should be moved from Belarus to Poland. Because of recent actions by both Presidents Lukashenka and Putin, Minsk cannot be regarded as an objective peace broker between Ukraine and Russia.

Recent tensions between Biden and Putin reflect a long-term confrontation between the US and Russia. Let us approach this continuous threat from a broader geopolitical perspective. The United States needs tools to continue securing peace in Europe while focusing on China.