Snyder: We'e normalizing a world where one country tries to wipe out another nation. Americans have a hard time understanding that we're losing this war and are not in a position to tell Iranians what to do. No amount of targeting civilian infrastructure is going to change that. 1/
Snyder: Orban stood between Putin and Trump. Orban was the European who legitimated international networks of ideas, of personal contacts and of money. The American right, especially MAGA, is much more cosmopolitan and international than people realize. 2/
Snyder: Orban formula was the Trump formula. Be an oligarch, have oligarchs around you, divert tax money and EU money to you and your friends. Give people an enemy. If you make the connection between corruption at the top and the failure of the economy, then you can win huge. 3X
Hodges: Lavrov said Russia needs a security guarantee. It’s almost laughable. They were quite secure before they decided to attack Ukraine.
Unfortunately, I have not sensed a change where the U.S. administration would say we need to be on the side of Ukraine. 1/
Hodges: Russians have their hands full with Ukraine. I don't know that they would want to open up another front with NATO. They will continue to conduct gray zone operations with disinformation, criminal activity, disruption of infrastructure, violations of airspace. 2/
Hodges: The Russians will look for some other way to influence what goes on inside the EU and inside NATO. But that will be tough for them to replace Orban. 3X
Serhii Plokhy: Russia gets away with the history, territory, and crimes of empire because it was a land empire. Empire is still imagined as western.
But you do not become the world’s largest country by being a nation state. You get that territory only by being an empire. 1/
Plokhy: Russia weaponizes anti-Westernism and presents itself as anti-imperial, even as it remains imperial.
That distortion shaped the West too: during the Cold War, many treated the Soviet Union as simply Russia, then were shocked when 15 republics emerged. 2/
Plokhy: Ukraine’s fight in 1917-21 was not mainly about left versus right. It was about independence.
Even very leftist Ukrainian forces declared independence when Bolshevik troops moved on Kyiv. The key divide was whether Ukraine would exist as an independent state. 3/
Russia hinted it could strike drone factories inside Britain.
Moscow named 23 sites across the UK and Europe tied to drone production for Ukraine, including locations near RAF Mildenhall and addresses in west London, — The Times. 1/
Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council: "The list of European facilities which make drones and other equipment is a list of potential targets for the Russian armed forces. Sleep well, European partners." 2/
Russia tries to turn suppliers into co belligerents, then uses the label to justify intimidation, sabotage, or strikes. 3/