Tag: #Crimea

From Moldova to Crimea Lies an Uncertain Future for Russia

January 22, 2026

A changing situation exists along coastal Ukraine, Moldova, its neighbor to the west, and Crimea in the east. It threatens the unwitting Russian intruder more than the nations it has menaced.

Russia escalated its aerial assault upon Ukraine’s major coastal city and seaport, Odesa, beginning in December, 2025 and continuing into 2026. The city has considerable strategic value as Ukraine’s major throughway for foreign trade accounting for 65% of its imports and exports. Its rail connections, in turn, extend nationally to provide for both the efficient concentration of goods for export and quick distribution of imported needs. In its usual fashion, Russia has destroyed residential buildings, hospitals, electrical and heating substations, water supplies and bridges, resulting in more than 60 casualties thus far along with protracted power outages and exposure to the current winter’s extreme cold. … More From Moldova to Crimea Lies an Uncertain Future for Russia

Ukraine is Europe’s Hammer

October 12, 2025

It is in Europe’s interest to redirect Vladimir Putin’s attention away from his multifaceted hybrid warfare scheme designed to intimidate European nations for their support of Ukraine. That can be accomplished by manifestly threatening Russia’s hold on Ukrainian territories it has occupied, specifically Crimea. Ukraine has been in open conflict with Russia now for more than 3.5 years and has demonstrated its military capability to inflict massive injury upon the Russian invader. Europe therefore has its hammer to retaliate should it choose to use it to good effect. The means to this end rests in supplying Ukraine with the necessary munitions sufficient to isolate the Crimean peninsula and force the surrender of any remaining Russian forces no longer able to evacuate the territory. Russia’s loss of Crimea would be the first step in retaking the remaining territories and bringing about the collapse of Putin’s regime for its failure to accomplish its goal of subduing Ukraine while, in the process, neglecting the welfare of his own people. … More Ukraine is Europe’s Hammer

Putin’s ‘End of Days’

September 23, 2025

All the foreseeable advantages afforded Russia since its ill-fated 2022 invasion of Ukraine have been disappearing at an accelerative rate. The illusion of its military prowess with its limitless manpower and technological capabilities should have begun to raise doubts soon after the war began when it met the reality of Ukraine’s two counteroffensives in the latter part of 2022. More to say about the ongoing war immediately below but for Vladimir Putin, military failure is not his worst problem. It’s what awaits him in the last quarter of 2025. A fate reminiscent of the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 hangs in the balance before him now and may ultimately usher the despot and all his ugliness to an ignominious end. … More Putin’s ‘End of Days’

The Argument for a Reconstituted Ukraine as it was Before Putin

April 27, 2025

A nation’s viability as an autonomous, self-sustaining, and prospering entity depends upon the ongoing welfare of its people, its natural resources, a balanced governance, the ability to defend itself and its neighbors from foreign threat, a shared intelligence with its allies, and fair-minded reciprocal trade relations. For Ukraine, the road has been not just difficult but treacherous, the latter to do with Russia and, specifically, Vladimir Putin. Of all the justifications given for Russia’s invasion, none measure up for anyone but those who either perversely peddle Kremlin propaganda or who lack understanding of the historical background of the region and the detail of the events that actually transpired during the several years before the conflict. I would leave all these latter arguments that itemize the relevant issues to previously published material in order to focus on why Ukraine must remain whole rather than be disassembled by an ill-advised peace treaty. … More The Argument for a Reconstituted Ukraine as it was Before Putin

So, Who Wants to be Part of Russia?

February 27, 2025

Three years ago when Russia made its imperialist intentions clear with the invasion of Ukraine, it was with the belief that the Ukrainian people really had no country of their own. As it turned out, to Russia’s dismay, the Ukrainians thought otherwise, enough for them to have withstood over a thousand days of brutal warfare with the sort of national will that would challenge any nation to have done the same. In the process, they have inflicted heavy losses upon Russia’s military, enough so that it is now struggling to maintain an effective offensive while its war economy is threatened with collapse should it continue on its present course. … More So, Who Wants to be Part of Russia?

The Ongoing Underperformance of American Foreign Policy in Ukraine

January 31, 2025

Current indications from within the Trump administration show an intent to end a decade-long failure to adequately confront Russian aggression in Ukraine to what by now can be considered an impending capitulation to Vladimir Putin’s intransigence. This as he heaps praise on the U.S. President for his reelection. Putin has gone on to regard Donald Trump as a “clever and pragmatic man” and to suggest that “if his victory had not been stolen in 2020,” then there may not have been a crisis. In return, the latter remarkably has blamed Volodymyr Zelensky for the war when he chose not to surrender Ukraine in the face of the February, 2022 Russian invasion, suggesting a serious lack of understanding of the situation by an ill-informed president. The current state of ignorance follows several years of U.S. leadership that has not confronted the depth of Putin’s intentions in Eastern Europe and Ukraine in particular. … More The Ongoing Underperformance of American Foreign Policy in Ukraine

The Shrinking State of Putin’s World

December 14, 2024

The foregoing sentiment, ostensibly of biblical origin, fits well with recent events in Syria and the toppling of its tyrannical and generational Assad regime. The collapse occurred over what seemed only a matter of days for a regime dating back to 1971 when Hafez al-Assad gained the presidency of Syria in a coup, passing it on to his son Bashar in 2000. The latter continued Syria’s decades-long ties with Iran and its regional militant proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and went on to institute a reign of terror of outright killings and incarcerations, bringing on the condemnation of the West. It would all come to an end in a catastrophic dismantling of the regime and the abandonment of its leader. Thus far, it highlights Vladimir Putin’s questionable place in global opinion. … More The Shrinking State of Putin’s World

The Naysayer Pundits and the Future of Ukraine

November 14, 2024

It is common in a protracted conflict to witness approaches attempting to bring about what is thought to be a reasonable compromise. The intent is to forego further suffering but too often the conflict in question has been unjustifiably executed as part of an agenda by a clear aggressor. Some pundits will declare the inevitability of a particular outcome of a conflict based upon straightforward metrics having to do with population size, military reserve and production capacity. These typically argue in favor of the aggressor. In the process, they lay aside the consequences for the victim of the aggression and its future precarious state of affairs. They allow the world order to proceed without acknowledging that the root of the problem remains much as it was from the start. … More The Naysayer Pundits and the Future of Ukraine

The Global Russian Pox

August 28, 2024

Vladimir Putin’s malevolence spreads well beyond the borders of Ukraine. Russia’s immediate neighbors in the European Union (EU) can attest to the various means by which they are threatened – engineered mass migration that attempts to destabilize social order, cyberattacks upon financial and governmental institutions, disinformation campaigns focused upon societal grievances, sabotage, assassinations and other devices to be elaborated upon here. Territorial proximity, however, is not a prerequisite for Russian intrusion. Similar approaches have been applied to other nations throughout the world and particularly in the West which Putin regards as his archetypal enemy in the manner typical of his Soviet upbringing. … More The Global Russian Pox

The Time Has Come for Decisiveness in Ukraine

June 11, 2024

Since its inception and until recently, an asymmetric war has been underway in Ukraine. It has sparked remarkable innovation on the part of Ukraine but has also prevented its military from conducting their war effort with the same strategic options and advantages available to the Russian invader. Defensive weaponry was provided early in the course of the war and used with great effect to repel the Russians from much of their initial territorial gains.   … More The Time Has Come for Decisiveness in Ukraine