China’s Ukraine Issues
Xi Jinping’s China has a problem in Russia’s past recognition of Ukrainian independence and sovereignty under the Yeltsin Administration, and in Russia’s Putin-era abrogation of the Budapest Memorandum. It was the Yeltsin Administration foreign policy that initially joined Russia to the core treaty of the Shanghai Five in 1996, later renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization…
The “Pravitel” Prerogative
Putin’s chosen prerogative as the presumed “pravitel” (правитель) over Russia trends in extinguishing the lives of generations of young and middle aged Russian and Ukrainian men on the outdated delusion that the prize of expansive imperial buffer territory is worth all the lives he can spend. I have heard arguments from academics and Russian friends that all…