While Biden is not directly responsible for Johnson's delaying tactics on Ukraine aid, he is indirectly responsible for creating the conditions that Johnson (and behind him Trump) are exploiting. Biden's own policies of limiting aid and drawing out the war have brought us here.1/

https://twitter.com/EHunterChristie/status/1776157151511126440

Since February 2022, advised by Jake Sullivan, Biden has kept Ukraine afloat while taking steps that prevented its decisive victory. Whether this reflects "escalation management" or the wish to reintegrate Russia, or both, is immaterial; he has delayed Ukrainian victory. 2/

A thread: The distressing Morozov case raises questions about Russian intelligence targeting of professional academics and related professionals in western countries. 1/

https://twitter.com/KuldkeppMart/status/1747179489493209305

I know Morozov only very minimally and by correspondence and will not comment on his possible guilt or innocence. He should have his day in court and will have it. Estonia is a rule-of-law state with credible courts and judges, and I trust that the case will be handled fairly. 2/

On the Makhachkala airport pogrom: I have traveled in the Caucasus, although not Dagestan. Both the northern (Russian) and southern (independent) regions feature ancient Jewish communities that have generally lived in peace with their neighbours. This episode shocked me.1/ Georgia's Jewish community has faced almost no antisemitism from the majority. Jews in Muslim Azerbaijan are well integrated, belying the idea that Muslims and Jews are fated to enmity. Jewish communities in the North Caucasus are small but also have mainly fared well. 2/

Katz is a perceptive observer, but I differ with his analysis that the killing of Prigozhin signals the Russian state's degeneration into a mafia. Rather it shows how the regime interprets and thus punishes different categories of its enemies. 1/

Comparing Prigozhin with, say, Navalny, an obvious difference is that the latter was subjected to a judicial proceeding and punishment, no matter how farcical. Navalny was punished (formally) like any other criminal because the regime treats (or depicts) him as a legal subject.2/

I recently had a revealing conversation with two diplomats from Western European Nato countries who had attended the Vilnius summit that pointed to a gap in perceptions between the inner circle of Nato policymakers and outside observers regarding the success of the summit. 1/ The two diplomats pointed to recent achievements such as Sweden's now-clear path to Nato accession, the Nato Ukraine Council, new weapons shipments to Ukraine, and rising defence spending in Europe as evidence that Nato had been reinvigorated and this summit was a success. 2/

Maria @PopovaProf makes a limited but important point regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC) in relation to the current invasion of Ukraine. The proximate cause of the CMC was specifically the USSR placing nuclear missiles in Cuba, not Cuba's pro-Soviet alignment. 1/

https://twitter.com/PopovaProf/status/1661596836329668608

Castro's revolution and friendship with the USSR was a necessary but not sufficient condition for the CMC: they enabled the US's main adversary to place missiles in Cuba. But the nuclear confrontation was triggered specifically by the missiles, not by US hostility to Castro. 2/

Recent events are focusing attention on Russia's Belgorod oblast, a region with a strong connection to Ukraine that I visited for doctoral dissertation research in 2005 and 2006. A few thoughts on Belgorod and another Russian region with links to Ukraine, Krasnodarskii Krai. 1/ Belgorod has an interesting past on the margins between the Muscovite state and historically Ukrainian regions. Its population has a mixed Russian and Ukrainian background. When I visited, I met a few people from rural backgrounds who spoke a Ukrainian dialect. 2/

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a necolonial war: two examples. 1) Russia's systematic looting of Ukraine's artistic heritage in the regions it occupies is both an act of plunder worthy of King Leopold and a malignant attempt to erase Ukraine's cultural heritage and identity. 1/

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1638886412681461760

2) Russia's abduction of Ukrainian children and their transfer to Russian institutions and individuals both violates the laws of war and conventions against human trafficking, and seeks to annihilate Ukraine as a distinct nation. 2/

https://twitter.com/markiank/status/1638847387174141953?s=202/

The ever insightful and lucid @ruth_deyermond (and elsewhere Fiona Hill and @PowerVertical) nail it: there is no going back to the pre-2/24 world. By invading Ukraine, Russia intends to overturn the post-Cold War order in Europe and replace it with one more to its liking. 1/

https://twitter.com/ruth_deyermond/status/1608544581209182210

The principal victims of this project are obviously Ukrainians, whom Russia wishes to annihilate as as a community. But that's only the beginning of Putin's ambitions, which also include the subordination of all of Eastern Europe and co-governance of all of Europe. 2/

This is of course the key point. I would just add that both Macron and Scholz, who frequently talk about the need for negotiations to reintegrate Russia into Europe, seem to have forgotten a basic principle of negotiation: you don't negotiate with yourself. 1/

https://twitter.com/KuldkeppMart/status/1599160642782449664

Years ago in Tbilisi, a Georgian friend showed me how to haggle over a rug. Rule 1: never let the merchant see you are eager to buy, because you have nothing to gain from seeming desperate for a deal. Yet Macron and Scholz constantly telegraph that they very badly want one. 2/

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not an extension of World War II. It is much more closely related to the current Russian elite's desire to turn back the clock to the USSR, including the whitewashing of Stalin, exemplified in proposals to rename Volgograd in his honour. 1/n

https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/1595320715086946304

Others are more qualified to debate UPA, Bandera, and other aspects of Ukraine's World War II history. But it is clear the Putin regime is increasingly brazen in its attempts to rehabilitate the tyrant and mass-murderer Stalin, who also set the USSR on anti-Semitic course. 2/

Those calling for negotiations between Biden and Putin usually expect Russia to retain control of much of Ukraine, presumably assuming a stable territorial division is possible. Apart from its immorality, this premise is fatally flawed, because the invasion is not about land. 1/ There is no quantum of Ukrainian land that would satisfy Putin because, as numerous statements by him and other Russian officials indicate, he objects to the Ukraine's existence as an effectively independent state, i.e., he objects to Ukraine as constituted, not to its borders.2/

People on the left who hesitate to support Ukraine because it is allied with the West and the United States need to understand a key fact about Putin's Russia: it is a right-wing dictatorship that seeks to implant similar right-wing dictatorships in the areas that it conquers. 1/ In political terms, Russia is a regime dominated by top figures in the security sector and a partially overlapping economic elite of Putin cronies who exert oligopolistic control over the heights of the economy. 2/

In the explosion on the Kerch Bridge, several cars and trucks burst into flames and their occupants were presumably killed. You'd have to be a monster to take pleasure in these deaths, but they do not constitute a war crime or create any other kind of culpability by Ukraine. 1/ It's worth noting that (1) the occupation of Crimea is illegal under international law and the bridge was built against Ukraine's wishes and to promote that occupation (2) it's undeniably being used to transport military personnel and equipment. 2/

A Ukrainian friend with no connection to politics sent me this very concise and I think lucid statement of Ukraine's hopes for the defeat of the Russian invasion: "All we want is to be a developed European country that would contribute to the development of the world... 1/ I know for sure that after the war, educational institutions, industry and everything necessary for people to live normally will be destroyed, our seas and land will be mined, hundreds of thousands of soldiers will be morally broken and thousands will be wounded. 2/

This fallacious argument is widespread, particularly in the Global South, and thus requires a response, esp. as Ukraine contemplates military deoccupation of Crimea. As a strictly legal matter, the right of self-determination refers primarily to peoples under colonial rule. 1/

https://twitter.com/Alfreddezayas/status/1567470506860740616

There is no serious argument that Ukraine colonized Crimea, whose people before Russian occupation in 2014 enjoyed the same democratic rights as all Ukrainian citizens as well as a special autonomous statute, or that Ukraine engaged in genocide against the people of Crimea. 2/

A few thoughts on the visa ban issue. As others have noted, there is no human right to visit some country or countries for tourism. War is a reason to limit tourism. Also, a tourism ban would not necessarily prevent Russian citizens from entering the EU for other reasons. 1/

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1557053566799548416

The real question is the effects of the ban. The freedom to travel abroad was a major gain for Russians after the fall of the USSR. Denying Russians access to the EU could nake a strong impact as a signal that the invasion of Ukraine is denying them something of value. 2/