#churchill in moscow

[jessieren]

Looks like Roger has started working on Churchill in Moscow at the Orange Tree

[too-antigonish]

Churchill in Moscow: Tickets for OT On Screen

Below is the link to buy tickets for streaming on-demand from the Orange Tree Theatre.

FYI: Assuming that everything works the same way it did for Here In America this past October...

It doesn't matter which "day" you choose to purchase. You will be able to stream the performance from 11 March to 14 March regardless of the day for which your ticket is purchased.

The price point you choose for your ticket does not matter (£39.00 or £29.00 or £15.00). You will receive the same access at any of these price points. A larger amount simply means that more of you money goes to support Orange Tree.

[carbone14]

Winston Churchill et Joseph Staline partagent une blague au Kremlin – Moscou – 1942

©Imperial War Museums - (MOI) FLM 1117

[majorhortonisonleaveinlondon]

An updated (January 9, 2025 9:04pm pst) list of WW2 movies and TV shows in chronological order

thought out WW2 -(Imitation Game 2014) -(The Book Thief 2013) -(The Zookeeper’s Wife 2017) -(The Pianist 2002)

1937

October 26, 1937 Defence of Sihang Warehouse (The Eight Hundred 2020)

December 13, 1937 Nanjing Massacre - (John Rabe 2009) - (The Flowers of War 2011)

1938

Fall of 1938 (Munich – The Edge of War 2022)

1939

Summer 1939 (Six Minutes to Midnight 2020)

September 3, 1939 King George VI first wartime speech (King’s Speech 2010)

September 17, 1939, Soviet Union Invitation of Poland (The Way Back 2010)

November 30, 1939 Soviet Union invades Finland (The Winter War 1989)

1940

April 9, 1940 Operation Weserübung -(April 9th [movie] 2015) -(King’s Choice 2016) -(Narvik 2022) -(War Sailors 2023)

April 27, 1940 (Into the White 2011)

June 4, 1940 -Churchill gives “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech (Darkest Hour 2017) -Dunkirk Evaluation (Dunkirk 2017)

July 10-October 31, 1940 Battle of Britain (Battle of Britain 1969)

1941

May 1941 (Call to Spy 2019)

June 22, 1941 Operation Barbarossa -(Fortress of War [The Brest Fortres 2010) -(Defiance 2008)

September 8, 1941, Siege of Leningrad begins. -(Battle of Leningrad [Saving Leningrad] 2019) -(Leningrad 2009)

October 1941 Battle of Moscow (The Last Frontier [The Final Stand] 2020)

October 1941 Battle of Sevastopol (Battle for Sevastopol 2015)

December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacks Pearl Harbor (Tora! Tora! Tora! 1970)

December 8, 1941 Japan invades Shanghai International Settlement (Empire of the Sun 1987)

1942

January 20, 1942, Wannsee Conference (Conspiracy 2001)

February 1942 Battle of the Atlantic (Greyhound 2020)

February 1942 (The Railway Man 2013)

February 19, 1942, Bombing of Darwin (Australia 2008)

Spring 1942 (U-571 2000)

April 18, 1942 The Doolittle Raid (In Harm’s Way 2018)

June 4, 1942 Battle of Midway (Midway 2019)

1942 Summer Occupation of Jersey Island (Another Mother’s Son 2017 Prime)

July, 10 1942 Easy Company Trains in Camp Tocca (Band of Brothers 01x10 Currahee 2001)

July 21, 1942, Kokoda Track Campaign (Kokoda: 39th Battalion 2006)

August 7, 1942, 1st Marine Division land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 1 Guadalcanal/Leckie 2010)

August 19, 1942, Dieppe Raid (Dieppe 1993)

August 23, 1942 Battle of Stalingrad begins (Stalingrad 1993)

September 1942 Formation of Troop 30 (Age of Heroes 2011)

September 18, 1942, 7th Marines Land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 2 Basilone 2010)

Autumn of 1942 Battle of the Atlantic (Das Boot 1981)

October 18, 1942, Operation Grouse (Heavy Water War Ep. 2 2015)

November 8, 1942, Operation Torch (The Big Red One 1980)

November 10-17 1942 Vasily Zaytsev kills 225 German Soldiers during the Battle of Stalingrad (Enemy at the Gates 2001)

December 1942 The 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal is relieved (The Pacific Ep. 3 Melbourne 2010)

December 15, 1942, Battle of Mount Austen (Thin Red Line 1998)

1943

March 13-14 1943, liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto -(Schindler’s List 1993)

April 17, 1943 Operation Mincemeat (Operation Mincemeat 2021)

April 19, 1943, beginning of the Warsaw Uprising (Uprising 2001)

May 4, 1943, Final Mission of The Memphis Bell (Memphis Bell 1990)

May 15, 1943, Salamo Arouch and his family arrive in Auschwitz Concentration Camp (Triumph of the Spirit 1989)

May 27, 1943 Louis Zamperini plane crashes on a search and rescue mission (Unbroken 2014)

May 30, 1943 first All-American Girls Professional Baseball League game played (A League of Their Own 1992)

June 25, 1943, 100th Bomb Group flew its first 8th Air Force combat mission (Master of the Air: Part One 2024)

July 1943 -(The Tuskegee Airmen 1995) -(The Liberator Ep. 1 2020) -(Heavy Water War Ep. 5 2015)

July 16, 1943, The 100th Bomb Group bombed U-Boats in Tronbhdim (Masters of the Air: Part Two 2024)

August 17, 1943 the 4th Bomb Wing of the 100th Bomb Group bombed Regenberg (Masters of the Air: Part Three 2024)

September 16, 1943, William Quinn and Charles Bailey leave Belgium (Masters of the Air: Part Four 2024)

September 18, 1943 John ‘Bucky’ Egan returns from leave to join the mission to bomb Munster (Master of the Air: Part Five 2024

October 14, 1943, John ‘Bucky’ Egan interrogated at Dulag Lut, Frankfurt Germany (Masters of the Air: Part Six 2024)

December 26, 1943, 1st Marine Division lands on Cape Gloucester (The Pacific Ep. 4 Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika 2010)

1944

January 22, 1944, Battle of Anzio -(The Liberator Ep. 2 2020) -(Red Tails 2012) -(Anzio 1968)

February 20, 1944, Hydro Ferry bombing (Heavy Water War Ep. 6 2015)

March 7, 1944, Stalag Luft III Sagan, Germany, Germans find the concealed radio Bucky was using to learn news of the War (Master of the Air: Part Seven 2024)

March 24/25, 1944 Allied Mass Escape of Stalag Luft III (The Great Escape 1963)

June 1944 (Cross of Iron 1977)

June 6, 1944, 00:48 & 01:40 First airborne troops begin to land on Normandy (Band of Brothers 02x10 Day of Days 2001)

June 6, 1944, 06:30 D-Day landings -(Storming Juno 2010)

-(Saving Private Ryan 1998)

June 10, 1944, Easy Company Takes Carentan (Band of Brothers 03x10 Carentan 2001)

June 15-July 9, 1944 Battle of Saipan

-(Windtalkers 2002)

-(Oba: The Last Samurai 2011)

July, 1944 The Monuments Men land in Normandy (The Monuments Men 2014)

July 20, 1944 Operation Valkyrie (Valkyrie 2008)

August 12, 1944, The 332nd Fighter Group attack Radar stations in Southern France (Masters of the Air: Part Eight 2024)

September 15, 1944, U.S. Marines landed on Peleliu at 08:32 (the Pacific Ep. 5 2010)

September 16, 1944, U.S Marines take Peleliu Airfield (the Pacific Ep. 5 2010)

September 17, 1944, Operation Market Garden

-(Band of Brothers 04x10 Replacements 2001)

-(A Bridge Too Far 1977)

October 2, 1944 Battle of Scheldt (Forgotten Battle 2021)

October 12, 1944, Battle of Peleliu, Assault on Bloody Nose Ridge (the Pacific Ep. 7 Peleliu Hills 2010)

October 13, 1944, Rovaniemi public buildings were destroyed (Sisu 2022)

October 14, 1944, Erwin Rommel is arrested (Rommel 2012 Prime)

October 22/23, 1944, 2100 – 0200 Operation Pegasus (Band of Brothers 05x10 Crossroads 2001)

November 1944 middle of the Battle of Hürtgen Forest (When Trumpets Fade 1998)

December 16, 1944, Battle of the Bulge (Band of Brothers 06x10 Bastogne 2001)

December 1944 (Hart’s War 2002)

1945

January 2, 1945 (The Liberator Ep 3 2020)

January 10, 1945 (Attack Force Z)

January 13, 1945, Battle of Foy (Band of Brothers 07x10 The Breaking Point 2001)

January 30, 1945 The Raid at Cabanatuan (The Great Raid 2002)

February 14, 1945, David Webb rejoins the 506th in Haguenau (Band of Brothers 08x10 The Last Patrol 2001)

February 19, 1945, Battle of Iwo Jima starts. - (Letters from Iwo Jima 2006) - (The Pacific Ep. 8 Iwo Jima 2010) - (Flags of our Fathers 2006)

February 15, 1945, 6888 Battalion was inspected and marched in review before Major General John C. H. Lee (Six Triple Eight 2024)

March 7, 1945, Battle of Remagen (The Bridge at Remagen 1969)

March 21, 1945, Operation Carthage (The Bombardment 2021)

April, 1945 (Fury 2014)

April 5, 1945, 506th Finds abandoned Concentration Camp (Band of Brothers 09x10 Why We Fight 2001)

April 17, 1945 Lee Miller arrives at Concentration Camp Buchenwald (Lee 2023)

April 26, 1945, near the end of the war in Europe (A Woman in Berlin 2008)

April 29, 1945, 45th Infantry Division liberated Dachau Concentration camp (The Liberator Ep. 4 2020)

May 2, 1945, Fall of Berlin -(Downfall 2004) -(Jojo Rabbit 2019)

May 1945 Battle of Okinawa -(Hacksaw Ridge 2016) -(The Pacific Ep. 9 Okinawa 2010)

May 7, 1945, Germany Surrenders V-E Day - (Master of the Air: Part Nine 2024) - (Band of Brothers 10x10 Points 2001)

July 30, 1945, USS Indianapolis sank. (USS Indianapolis 2016)

August 15, 1945, The Empire of Japan surrenders end of the War. -(Oppenheimer 2023) -(The Pacific Part Ten: Home 2010)

September 11, 1945 US Military search and Arrest Japanese Leaders for war crimes (Emperor 2012)

1946 April 29, 1946 Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (Tokyo Trial 2016)

[jadelotusflower]

2024 Roundup - books read

Fiction

Stone Blind: Medusa's Story - Natalie Haynes

Atonement - Ian McKeown (re-read)

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands - Heather Fawcett

Coraline - Neil Gaiman

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum (re-read)

The Marvelous Land of Oz - L. Frank Baum

Ozma of Oz - L. Frank Baum

Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum

The Road to Oz - L. Frank Baum

The Emerald City of Oz - L. Frank Baum

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West - Gregory Maguire (re-read)

Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

Orlando: A biography- Virginia Woolf

Sappo: Poems & Fragments - Sappo (translated by Josephine Balmer)

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne (translated by Henry Frith)

The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne (translated by Jordan Stump)

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude)

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley (re-read)

The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy (re-read)

Sir Percy Leads the Band - Baroness Emmuska Orczy

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy

The Elusive Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy (re-read)

A Court of Thorns and Roses - Sarah J Mass

Best Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Andersen (translated by Jean Hersholt)

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (re-read)

Non-Fiction

A year in the life of Ancient Egypt and the real lives of the people who lived there - Donald P Ryan

Persians: The Age of the Great Kings - Lloyd LLewellyn-Jones

American Prometheus: The Tragedy and Triumph of J Robert Oppenheimer- Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin

Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth - Natalie Haynes

The Splendid and the Vile: Churchill, Family, and Defiance during the bombing of London - Erik Larson

The History of the World: From the Dawn of Humanity to the Modern Age - Frank Welsh

Pagan Britain - Ronald Hutton

Unruly: A History of England’s Kings and Queens - David Mitchell

Burn it Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood - Maureen Ryan

Montaigne: A Very Short Introduction - William H Hamlin

Essays: A Selection - Michel de Montaigne (translated and edited by M.A. Screech)

Hey Honey, I’m Homo: Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture - Matt Baume

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent - Judi Dench (with Brendan O’Hea)

What I Ate in One Year (and related thoughts) - Stanley Tucci

What I liked

I enjoyed most of what I read this year, including revisiting some older books with new eyes, finally getting around to some classics from my TBR list (with a few detours), and general mix of history and biography/memoir.

My favourite book of the year, and now up there with my favourite books of all time, is Piranesi, something that has been on the list a while and yet something I have successfully avoided spoilers for. I went in completely blind and so glad I did because the way this story washed over me is one of those very rare things and I loved loved loved reading this book.

I also really enjoyed A Gentleman in Moscow (the tv adaptation was sadly a bit of a disappointment). There’s a fine line between whimsical and twee and while that line likely differs for everyone, for me it successfully kept just on the side of whimsy - or maybe I just love a literary reference and this was full of them. It also inspired me to check out the works of Montaigne which I found interesting in context.

On the non-fiction front, American Prometheus is a good companion to the Oppenheimer film, and Burn it Down was an excellent but rage-inducing peak behind the Hollywood curtain, but The Man Who Pays the Rent was my other favourite read this year. Rather than ghostwritten, this takes the format of question and answer between Judi Dench and actor/director Brendan O’Hea, each chapter focussing on a different Shakespeare play and the characters Dench performed. It’s a beautiful insight into the acting process, theatre history, and Shakespeare’s female characters. Dench is so compelling and charming and the format allows her voice to leap off the page (more memoirs should take this approach tbh). I love Shakespeare but hardly consider myself an expert, so her perspective on the works and the characters was insightful - one of those books you look forward to returning to at the end of the day.

What I didn’t

When I tell people I’m writing a fantasy novel they often ask if I’ve read A Court of Thorns and Roses and I’m kind of sick of seeming uninformed about this faeriecore juggernaut, so finally gave it a go. It’s…not for me, really, despite it being generally keyed into my interests. I just found it…kind of boring? Feyre is dumb as rocks difficult to care about, and Tamlin, despite the cute nod with the name, is stock beast archetype with no other discernible personality.

Most of the book was an absolute slog until it finally got semi-interesting 3/4 in, but we’re stuck in Feyre’s pov and therefore unable to explore anything approaching compelling or nuanced. I’ve been told it actually gets good in the second book (and have been spoiled about the whole Rhysand thing), but I’m not really inspired to give it any more effort.

I also had mixed feelings about Emily Wilde - while of better quality than ACOTAR and I really loved the worldbuilding and some of the fae characters (Poe my beloved!) the central romance fell completely flat for me (maybe I’m just immune to the charms of faerie lords?) and I find the narrative is limited by the epistolary style. However I enjoy the fae plotline enough that I will likely get around to the third book at some stage.

On the point of mixed feelings, it’s interesting how much I enjoy Natalie Haynes’ non-fiction work on Greek myth while finding that her fiction completely misses the mark. Essentially a collection of essays, Divine Might is engaging and thought-provoking on the various depictions of Greek goddesses and their place within the mythos both then and now. On the other side of the coin, Stone Blind is ostensibly Medusa’s story, but mostly told through other perspectives and (much like with her previous effort A Thousand Ships) Haynes is preoccupied with recreating the whole of the myth which ultimately subsumes women, and therefore fails in its premise to showcase the female perspective. It’s just so odd that she can’t bring any of her insights from her compelling analysis to an actual narrative.

[sircolinmorgan]

i've got tickets to see Roger Allam in Churchill In Moscow next year!

shout out to the orange tree theatre for letting me see the endeavour cast on stage one by one.

[scotianostra]

On 15th June 1996 Sir Fitzroy MacLean, the Scottish soldier, diplomat, politician and author, died.

Fitzroy Maclean was a British diplomat who was one of the first Westerners to explore Soviet Russia. He was a founder member of the SAS, and later liaised on behalf of the allies with the Partisans in Yugoslavia.

Before World War II Fitzroy Maclean served as a diplomat at the British embassy in Moscow, from where he made several notable journeys to Siberia, the Caucasus and Soviet Central Asia.

During the war he served in the SAS and was also involved with the Free French forces in Iran. In 1943 he was dropped by parachute into German-occupied Yugoslavia as Winston Churchill's personal envoy and Commander of the British Military Mission to Tito and the partisans. He recorded some of these experiences in 'Eastern Approaches', a classic memoir, which has sold more than a million copies.

McLean wrote many other best-selling books and in addition to serving as Under Secretary for War in the post-war Churchill and Eden governments. Diplomat, soldier, statesman, traveller, writer - a true modern hero - Sir Fitzroy was often put forward as the model for his friend Ian Fleming's 'James Bond', a distinction he neither accepted nor denied.

Fitzroy Maclean died while he was visiting friends in the English village of Hertford having just completed a swim at the age of 85!!!, he was stricken by a heart attack and died instantly, I think he would rather have gone that way rather than faded away. . He was returned to the location of the family home in the village of Strachur, Argyll County and was interred in the cemetery of historic Parish Church.

There’s a great article about the man here https://warisboring.com/fitzroy-maclean-fought-the-nazis-blew-up-forts-and-met-a-king/

[justforbooks]

In 1941 a secret British radio station called on Germans to rise up against Hitler. Run by German exiles, it was explicitly left wing. The station’s target audience was “the Good German”. Its broadcasts were serious and idealistic: a ray of light amid totalitarian darkness. They were also a complete flop. With Nazi propaganda rampant, and Hitler’s armies seemingly invincible and on the march across Europe, few bothered to listen in.

It was at this point that Britain’s wartime intelligence services tried a more radical approach. That summer, a talented journalist called Sefton Delmer was given the job of beating the Nazis at their own information game. Delmer spent his childhood in Berlin and spoke fluent German. In the early 1930s he chronicled Hitler’s rise to power – flying in the Führer’s plane and attending his mass rallies – as a correspondent for the Daily Express.

Working from an English country house, Delmer launched an experimental radio station. He called it Gustaf Siegfried Eins, or GS1. Instead of invoking lofty precepts, or Marxism, Delmer targeted what he called the “inner pig-dog”. The answer to Goebbels, Delmer concluded, was more Goebbels. His radio show became a grotesque cabaret aimed at the worst and most Schwein-like aspects of human nature.

As Peter Pomerantsev writes in his compelling new study How to Win an Information War, Delmer was a “nearly forgotten genius of propaganda”. GS1 backed Hitler and was staunchly anti-Bolshevik. Its mysterious leader, dubbed der Chef, ridiculed Churchill using foul Berlin slang. At the same time the station lambasted the Nazi elite as a group of decadent crooks. They stole and whored, it said, as British planes bombed and decent Germans suffered.

Delmer’s goal was to undermine nazism from within, by turning ordinary citizens against their aloof party bosses. A cast of Jewish refugees and former cabaret artists played the role of Nazis. Recordings took place in a billiards room, located inside the Woburn Abbey estate in Bedfordshire, a centre of wartime operations. Some of the content was real. Other elements were made up, including titillating accounts of SS orgies at a Bavarian monastery.

The station was a sensation. Large numbers of Germans tuned in. The US embassy in Berlin – America had yet to enter the war – thought it to be the work of German nationalists or disgruntled army officers. The Nazis fretted about its influence. One unimpressed person was Stafford Cripps, the future chancellor of the exchequer, who complained to Anthony Eden, the then minister for foreign affairs, about the station’s use of “filthy pornography”.

By 1943, Delmer’s counter-propaganda operation had grown. He and his now expanded team ran a live news bulletin aimed at German soldiers, the Soldatensender Calais, as well as a series of clandestine radio programmes in a variety of languages. Delmer’s artist wife Isabel joined in. She drew explicit pictures showing a blonde woman having sex with a dark-skinned foreigner. Partisans sent the pamphlets to homesick German troops stationed in Crete.

Others who made a contribution to Delmer’s productions included Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, and the 26-year-old future novelist Muriel Spark. Fleming worked for naval intelligence. He brought titbits of information that made the show feel genuine, including the latest results from U-boat football leagues. Many Germans guessed the station was British. But they listened anyway, feeling it represented “them”.

Pomerantsev is an expert on propaganda and the author of two previous books on the subject, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible and This Is Not Propaganda. The son of political dissidents in Kyiv, he was born in Ukraine and grew up in London. During the 00s he lived in Moscow and worked there as a TV producer. Since Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion he has been part of a project that documents Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Like Delmer, Pomeranstev has personal experience of two rival cultures: one authoritarian, the other liberal and democratic. He draws parallels between the fascist 1930s and our own populist age. The same “underlying mindset” can be seen in dictators such as Putin and Xi Jinping, and wannabe strongmen and bullies such as Donald Trump. “Propagandists across the world and across the ages play on the same emotional notes like well-worn scales,” he observes.

In Pomerantsev’s view, propaganda works not because it convinces, or even confuses. Its real power lies in its ability to convey a sense of belonging, he argues. Those left behind feel themselves emboldened and part of a special community. It is a world of grievance, victimhood and enemies, where facts are meaningless. What matters are feelings and the illusion propaganda lends of “individual agency”. Its practitioners bend reality. And – as with Putin’s fictions about Ukraine – make murder possible.

The book offers a few ideas as to how we might fight back. When horrors were uncovered in Bucha, the town near Kyiv where Russian soldiers executed civilians, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, appealed to the Russian people. This didn’t cut through. Most preferred to believe the version shown on state TV: that Moscow was waging a defensive fight against “neo-Nazis”. It was a comforting lie that absolved Russians of personal responsibility.

Ukrainian activists hit a similar wall when they cold-called Russians and told them about the destruction caused by Kremlin bombing. Many called relatives in St Petersburg and other Russian cities to explain they were under attack. Typically, their family members did not believe them. “They really brainwashed you over there,” one said.

The activists had more success when they mentioned taxes or travel restrictions – issues that spoke to the self-interested “pig-dog”. Pomerantsev suggests that Delmer’s approach worked because he allowed people to care about the truth again, nudging them towards independent thought, while avoiding the pitfall of obvious disloyalty. He brought wit and creativity to his anti-propaganda efforts as well, turning his radio shows into bravura transmissions.

Pomerantsev makes an intriguing comparison between der Chef and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch who in summer 2023 staged a short-lived rebellion against Putin. Two months later, Prigozhin died in a plane crash. The oligarch was a charismatic figure who roasted Russia’s generals for their incompetent handling of the war. He used earthy prison slang. It was this ability to communicate in plain language that made him popular – and a rival.

The book muses on whether Delmer was ultimately good or bad. Are tricks and subterfuge justified in pursuit of noble goals? It concludes that the journalist’s greatest insight was his understanding of his own ordinariness, and how this might be exploited by unscrupulous governments and rabble-rousing individuals. “He was vulnerable to propaganda for the same reasons we all are – through the need to fit in and conform,” Pomerantsev notes.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[darkmaga-returns]

By James George Jatras The Ron Paul Institute

December 20, 2024

“I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.” – Winston Churchill, 1942

Many Americans, even a lot who never much cared for Donald Trump, voted for him in part because they believed – or at least hoped – that he would be, relatively speaking, a peace candidate compared to the hideous Biden-Harris record. To his credit, Trump’s first term was the only US presidency since Jimmy Carter’s not to get us embroiled in a new conflict, though he failed to extricate us from Afghanistan or Syria.

Such hopes need to be balanced against other aspects of Trump’s earlier tenure in office. Notably, on Ukraine, he oversaw provision of lethal aid to Kiev that had been denied by Barack Obama. Put another way, it was under Trump that Ukraine built up a NATO army in all but name, setting the stage for the February 2022 escalation of the conflict that had been brewing since the 2014 coup midwifed by Victoria Nuland.

Trump has said he would end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours, indeed, even before he takes office. While never unveiling anything resembling an actual plan, he has indicated that his “art of the deal” trademark bluster and threats would be applied to both Ukraine (terminate all aid if Kiev refuses to negotiate!) and Russia (vastly increase aid to Ukraine if Moscow refuses to negotiate!). The supposedly “transactional” President-elect is seemingly unflustered by little details like how, if both Russia and Ukraine balk at talks, he could simultaneously increase and cut off US assistance. Five-dimensional chess indeed!

[dertaglichedan]

Putin Signals Willingness to Talk... With Trump. Not Biden.

Has Tsar Vladimir the First noted the writing on the wall? Has he noticed that this writing loudly proclaims "TRUMP?"

It's an interesting question, especially since Tovarisch Putin is now signaling a willingness to sit down and talk with the incoming American President. Why is it interesting? Because the Russian dictator wasn't especially interested in talking to the outgoing American president.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was ready to meet U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in search of compromise in potential talks to end the war in Ukraine almost three years after ordering the full-scale invasion of Moscow’s neighbor. Speaking at his annual phone-in with journalists in Moscow, which lasted more than four hours, Putin claimed he hadn’t spoken to Trump in more than four years but that he was “ready” to discuss the war with the incoming U.S. leader “at any time.” “If a meeting takes place at some point with the newly elected president, Mr. Trump, I am sure we will have plenty to talk about,” he said.

They certainly would. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, in such affairs "jaw, jaw jaw" is better than "war, war, war," but both sides have to see it that way. President-elect Trump has long been an advocate of talking to people, presumably on the theory that you can't reach any kind of agreement or understanding with anyone unless you're talking to them. But does Tsar Vladimir have a return to the status quo ante in mind? 

That's doubtful. There's always a catch, and that may be found in Putin's continued remarks, with a bit of judicious reading between the lines:

Putin, who sounded bullish on Russia’s military gains in Ukraine during his marathon press conference, said Moscow has “always said that we are ready for compromises and negotiations,” but that “the other side needs to be ready” as well. The longtime Russian leader said Moscow does not want a long-term cease-fire agreement but rather a “durable peace secured with guarantees for the Russian Federation and its citizens.”

[kevcool777]

Success is Not Final

Success is not final, failure is not final: it is the courage to go on that counts.  Winston Churchill

It sounds so easy, you work hard and build your life, you go to school and establish a career, you meet your partner, buy your home and create a family.  Right?  Easy-peasy.  But then what, if you do all these things, is the rest of life just coasting?  What do you do over all those years?  Yes, you raise your kids, but that’s twenty years and then they’re off. 

It turns out that those early tasks are your training ground.  You are making habits that will serve you for your lifetime, habits of working to goals and making them happen.

It sounds so easy but things happen.  Companies get sold or they change their plans and let people go – not because the people weren’t good but because they were no longer part of the plan.  Sometimes we discover that we don’t even like our chosen career.  Or, marriages can fall apart.  Illness can happen.

Suddenly what seemed like a good life, one easily thought of as a successful life, can turn around. It can feel as if you’re veering of the road but you are not.  The thing that is so interesting about life is that it is not a straight line to nirvana.  There will likely be bumps but never, no never, think of them as failure.  It’s simply a time to reassess, roll up your sleeves and get to it.  It takes courage and it takes willingness to turn it around.

Another favorite quote comes from Amor Towles’ novel A Gentleman in Moscow, “If one does not master one’s circumstances, then she is bound to be mastered by them.”  When things go bump, it’s time to break out the courage and get on with it.

On the other hand, life doesn’t always take off at the beginning.  That’s terrible because it isn’t building your confidence in your success.  Still, it is not a lifelong sentence, frustration is not forever.  Remember to seek out a few people you admire and with them, develop a plan. Check in with them on your progress, make yourself accountable to the plan.  It’s mastering your circumstance and finding your success, your everyday success

[servants-hall]

ACGAS S4 Press Release & Article Round Up

PBS: All Creatures Great and Small Season 4 New and Returning Cast

Radio Times: All Creatures Great and Small casts Shetland and Doctor Who star for season 4

TV Line: All Creatures Great and Small Season 4 Cast: Who’s Returning? Who’s Not? And Who’s New at Skeldale?

What to Watch: All Creatures drops huge hint major character isn't in new series

Deadline: ‘All Creatures Great And Small’ On Masterpiece Announces Return, New & Returning Cast Members

Yorkshire Post: All Creatures Great and Small Series 4: Star cast returns without Tristan actor Callum Woodhouse - but new vet Richard Carmody joins the team

Primetimer: All Creatures Great and Small Season 4: Everything We Know So Far

PBS’s press release is copied below:

PBS: All Creatures Great and Small Season 4 New and Returning Cast

Boston, MA; June 27, 2023: MASTERPIECE on PBS, Channel 5, and BAFTA and Golden Globe®-winning production company Playground (Howards End, Wolf Hall) today announce the casting of the much-loved drama All Creatures Great and Small as it gears up for its fourth season.

Based on the cherished collection of stories by best-selling author James Herriot, the critically acclaimed adaptation returns to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales for a fourth season of timeless and heart-warming stories, picking up in 1940 as Churchill takes office and Europe is under serious threat. The seven new episodes (including a Christmas Special) will air on MASTERPIECE on PBS in early 2024 and Channel 5 this autumn with All3Media International as the global partner.

MASTERPIECE Executive Producer Susanne Simpson adds, “I can’t wait for our MASTERPIECE audience to see this new season of All Creatures Great and Small. It continues to be full of the warmth and humor that has made it one of our most successful series ever.” MASTERPIECE is presented on PBS by GBH Boston.

Sir Colin Callender CBE, Executive Producer and CEO of Playground said: “We are thrilled to be back in the glorious Yorkshire Dales for a fourth season of family, community and, of course, animal hijinks. Our wonderful cast and crew are all delighted to be returning to adapt more of James Herriot’s joyful and life-affirming stories.”

Season 4 sees Nicholas Ralph reprise his role as young country vet James Herriot, now happily married to Helen Herriot, played by Rachel Shenton (White Gold, For Her Sins). Samuel West (Slow Horses, Small Axe) returns as James’ capricious and erratic mentor Siegfried Farnon while Anna Madeley (Time, Patrick Melrose) continues as Mrs. Hall, matriarch of Skeldale House. Patricia Hodge (Miranda, A Very English Scandal) also reprises her role as the wonderfully eccentric Mrs. Pumphrey, and Derek as her adored and pampered Pekingese Tricki.

With Tristan away serving in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, Siegfried and James bring in some extra hands to help around the practice. Neve McIntosh (Shetland) joins the cast as highly efficient bookkeeper Miss Harbottle, alongside James Anthony-Rose (Slow Horses, Pennyworth) as studious undergraduate vet student Richard Carmody who arrives at Skeldale as part of his placement under the guidance of James.

A colorful ensemble of farmers, animals and townsfolk living in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1940s will also star, including Tony Pitts and Imogen Clawson as Helen’s father and sister, Richard and Jenny Alderson, Paul Copley as Ned Clough, Cleo Sylvestre MBE as Anne Chapman, James Bolam MBE as Mr. Dakin and Will Thorp as Gerald Hammond and Sam Retford as FO Woodham.

Louise Pedersen, CEO of All3Media International, commented: “Over three seasons All Creatures Great and Small has offered heartwarming, escapist viewing that has connected with audiences and become a firm fan favorite all around the world, and as Playground’s wonderful series enters its fourth season I am delighted to continue to build the brand globally.”

Returning for Season 4 is Executive Producer Ben Vanstone (A Gentleman in Moscow, The Last Kingdom) who will write the Christmas special. Writer Jamie Crichton (Three Pines, Grantchester) also returns, this time as lead writer and Executive Producer. Joining them for season four are writers Maxine Alderton (Emmerdale Farm, Doctor Who) and Helen Raynor (A Discovery of Witches, Call the Midwife).

Andy Hay (The Last Kingdom, Jamestown) is Lead Director and will direct episodes 1 and 2. Stewart Svaasand (Tin Star, Death in Paradise) will direct episodes 3, 4 and 6, while BAFTA winner Jordan Hogg (Ralph and Katie, Screw) will direct episode 5 and the Christmas Special.

All Creatures Great and Small is a timeless classic that continues to be much loved by generations. Never out of print, the books have sold 60 million copies internationally becoming a global cultural phenomenon with devoted fans around the world. With a sharp focus on community and its importance in our lives, Herriot’s world and spirit is a very much needed antidote to the challenges of modernity and reminds us all that belonging to a community makes us part of something greater than ourselves.

Season 4 is currently filming on location in Yorkshire.

All Creatures Great and Small is a Playground production for Channel 5 and MASTERPIECE in association with All3Media International. Executive Producers are: Colin Callender, Melissa Gallant, Jamie Crichton and Ben Vanstone for Playground, Susanne Simpson and Rebecca Eaton for MASTERPIECE, and Louise Pedersen and David Swetman for All3Media International.

[sgreffenius]

We have had three reasons why the United States should treat questions related to military aid for Ukraine with far more urgency than it has thus far:

They need it.

They deserve it.

The wolf is at the door.

Now we see that the wolves are at the door, and Iran beat the Russians to it. Israel left the door unlocked. Iran has no trouble equipping its allies - Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis - with the arms they need, for whatever missions these militias need to undertake. The United States' willingness to supply its allies with arms they need, when they need them, could not be more stark.

Why did it look like we sat back in the bleacher seats when Russia moved into Crimea in 2014? Because that's exactly the role we imagined for ourselves: spectators. Did anyone in the Obama White House imagine what we would do when Russia came back for seconds only a year later, where they attacked in eastern Ukraine in 2015? Did anyone in the Biden White House imagine what we ought to do in February 2022, when Russia came back for thirds after a two-month mobilization?

Apparently not. The best Washington could do was offer Ukraine's President Zelensky a flight out of Kyiv before the Russian army captured him. I wonder what Franklin Roosevelt would have thought if Winston Churchill had offered to ferry him out to London after Emperor Hirohito attacked Pearl Harbor? The United States had no strategy to help Ukraine win the war when it started in 1922, and it still does not.

The lack of a plan after two years - ten years if you count from 2014 - is still inexplicable to me. For every proposal that we gear our military aid to a strategy for victory, we utter the same response: we do not want to escalate. Yet Moscow escalates at will, with more and more strikes at civilian and military targets each month. Ukrainian leaders are at a loss to persuade its allies - and potential allies - that escalation, however you define it, is not an issue for them. It has the same goals that every other sovereign nation has: to live in peace within secure borders.

The United States has laid down many billions of dollars in aid at this point, with no plan to reach that goal. The only goal in sight appears to be the status quo: to maintain the current balance of military forces until both sides feel ready to negotiate based on -- the current balance of military forces. No wonder Ukraine wants to increase the capacities of its domestic armaments industries. No country among Ukraine's allies appears to want to help Ukraine win the war.

[too-antigonish]

Will definitely be buying a ticket to stream. I'm *so* greatful that more theaters and arts organizations are starting to do this.

For those unable to get to see it the Orange Tree are also streaming Roger's play

[thatscarletflycatcher]

This is one of the most smirk worthy moments of the first volume of Charles de Gaulle's war memoirs:

"... on October 7th [1941] I addressed a note to Mr. Churchill to update him on our wishes and means [to have the Free French engaged in the North African front]... At the same time, I wrote to general Auchinleck, commander in chief of the east, to remind him of how much we wanted our troops to fight in Libya... On October 9th I visited Mr. Margesson, War minister of Great Britain, and I begged him to intervene. Finally, on October 30th, I instructed general Catroux on the conditions in which it was convenient that our forces were employed, that is, in big units.

I did not receive any British response until November 27th. It was addressed by general Ismay and Mr. Churchill. Their letter was the equivalent to a rotund rejection, as polite as it was sharp. To explain their refusal, our allies appealed to "the dispersion of the French units across different spots in Syria", the fact that "they were not trained to act as divisions or brigades", and finally, "the insufficiency of their equipment". They expressed, however, the wish that, sometime in the future, the question could be re-evaluated.

The English command was evidently planning on achieving the conquest of Libya and ending Rommel without the French. It is true that they had there considerable land and air forces, and that they believed admiral Andrew Cunningham -magnificent chief and sailor- to be in a position to do more than miracles, by intercepting the communications between Italy and Tripolitania.

It is to be easily imagined the disappointment that the English answer produced in me. I could not allow our troops to remain inactive for time indefinite, while the fate of the world was being sorted in battle. I would rather risk a change of direction. And so, then, I called Mr. Bogomolov and I asked him to make his government know that the National Comittee wished for some French forces to participate directly in the allied operations on the Eastern Front, in case the North African theater was closed to them. I, naturally, made no secret in London of my negotiation.

Even before I received an answer from Moscow, the British intentions had already changed. On December 7th, Mr. Churchill wrote to me a warm letter to tell me that "he had just learned how much general Auchinleck wished to employ a Free French brigade in the Cirenaic operations". "I know", the Prime Minister added, "that this intention matches your own wishes. I am also aware the eagerness your men have of meeting the German face to face."...

At Cairo, Catroux arranged then, with general Auchinleck, the departure towards Libya of the first light division, while Koenig, in charge of negotiating the details, obtained from our allies, a useful bonus in anti-tank materials, anti-aerial guns, and means of transport...

But, if the first light division got an opportunity, nothing was being done for the second one, which languished in the East. And I was determined to see that one taking part as well in the operations. Precisely, on December 10th, Mr. Bogomolov had come to tell me that my project of sending French troops to Russia had been warmly received by his government, and that it was willing to facilitate to our forces on the spot all the necessary material. I began, then, to consider the expedition East, of not only the aviation group Normandie [which, according to De Gaulle, was the only element of the Western allies that fought on the Eastern Front], but of the second light division as well. This one, departing from Syria through Baghdad, would cross Persia in trucks and then, from Tabriz, would be transported by train to the Caucasus... On December 29th I wrote to general Ismay communicating to him my intentions, while at the same time giving the necessary instructions to general Catroux. The second light division was to depart on March 15th towards the Caucasus, unless it was admitted before that to Libya.

The British command opposed this project of moving this unit to Russia with all the possible objections. But in Moscow, on the contrary, the Soviets made a deal of it. Molotov speaking to Garreau, and Panfilov to Petit, asked us to put it in practice. Mr. Eden, once acquainted with this, entered the fray and wrote to me to support the point of view of the English military authorities. I could do nothing but defend my own, and it was the one that in the end was adopted by the end of February by the allied command. Ismay communicated it to me. Auchinleck asked Catroux to put at his disposition the second light division. This one left Syria and arrived at Libya the last days of March.

De Gaulle: you are sorry you think my divisions aren't good enough? That that is the reason why you cannot include them? No problem, I'm gonna ask Stalin if they are too poor for him as well. Well, well, well, would you look at that, apparently the Russians would be delighted and can provide what we are lacking. Oh, now they are good enough for the desert campaign all of a sudden? That's what I thought.

Iconic.

[mariacallous]

Despite a series of blunders, miscalculations, and battlefield reversals that would have surely seen him thrown out of office in most normal countries, President Vladimir Putin is still at the pinnacle of power in Russia. He continues to define the contours of his country’s war against Ukraine. He is micromanaging the invasion even as generals beneath him appear to be in charge of the battlefield. (This deputizing is done to protect him from blowback if something goes badly wrong in the war.) Putin and those immediately around him directly work to mobilize Russians on the home front and manipulate public views of the invasion abroad. He has in some ways succeeded in this information warfare.

The war has revealed the full extent of Putin’s personalized political system. After what is now 23 years at the helm of the Russian state, there are no obvious checks on his power. Institutions beyond the Kremlin count for little. “I would never have imagined that I would miss the Politburo,” said Rene Nyberg, the former Finnish ambassador to Moscow. “There is no political organization in Russia that has the power to hold the president and commander in chief accountable.” Diplomats, policymakers, and analysts are stuck in a doom loop—an endless back-and-forth argument among themselves—to figure out what Putin wants and how the West can shape his behavior.

Determining Putin’s actual objectives can be difficult; as an anti-Western autocrat, he has little to gain by publicly disclosing his intentions. But the last year has made some answers clear enough. Since February 2022, the world has learned that Putin wants to create a new version of the Russian empire based on his Soviet-era preoccupations and his interpretations of history. The launching of the invasion itself has shown that his views of past events can provoke him to cause massive human suffering. It has become clear that there is little other states and actors can do to deter Putin from prosecuting a war if he is determined to do so and that the Russian president will adapt old narratives as well as adopt new ones to suit his purposes.

But the events of 2022 and early 2023 have demonstrated that there are ways to constrain Putin, especially if a broad enough coalition of states gets involved. They have also underscored that the West will need to redouble its efforts at strengthening such a diplomatic and military coalition. Because even now, after a year of carnage, Putin is still convinced he can prevail.

BACK IN THE USSR

One year in, the war in Ukraine has shown that Putin and his cohort’s beliefs are still rooted in Soviet frames and narratives, overlaid with a thick glaze of Russian imperialism. Soviet-era concepts of geopolitics, spheres of influence, East versus West, and us versus them shape the Kremlin’s mindset. To Putin, this war is in effect a struggle with Washington akin to the Korean War and other Cold War–era conflicts. The United States remains Russia’s principal opponent, not Ukraine. Putin wants to negotiate directly with Washington to “deliver” Ukraine, with the end goal of getting the U.S. president to sign away the future of the country. He has no desire to meet directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. His goal remains the kind of settlement achieved in 1945 at Yalta, when U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sat across the table from the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and accepted Moscow’s post–World War II dominance of Eastern Europe without consulting the countries affected by these decisions.

For Russia, World War II—the Great Fatherland War, as Russians call it—is the touchstone and central theme of the conflict in Ukraine. Putin’s emphasis a year ago on ridding Ukraine of Nazis has faded somewhat into the background. This year, the victorious outcome in 1945 is his primary focus. Putin’s message to Ukrainians, Russians, and the world is that victory will be Russia’s and that Moscow always wins, no matter how high the costs. Indeed, beginning with comments ahead of his 2023 New Year’s speech, Putin has cast off the depiction of the war in Ukraine as just a special military operation. According to him, Russia is locked in an existential battle for its survival against the West. He is once more digging deep into old Soviet tactics and practices from the 1940s to rally the Russian economy, political class, and society in support of the invasion.

Putin is capable of learning from setbacks and adapting his tactics in ways that are also reminiscent of Stalin’s approach in World War II, when the Soviet Union pushed back Nazi Germany in the epochal battle of Stalingrad. In September 2022, as Russia was clearly losing on the battlefield, Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 extra troops. He then declared that Russia had annexed four of Ukraine’s most fiercely fought-over territories: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, transforming the military and political picture on the ground and creating an artificial redline. Putin has repeatedly made changes in Russia’s military leadership at critical junctures, and he has worked fiercely to ensure his country has enough weapons for the war effort. When Russian forces began to run out of armaments, Putin purchased drones from Iran and ammunition from North Korea.

Putin has also shifted his narrative about the war several times to keep his opponents guessing about how far he might still go. He and other Russian officials, including his spokesman and foreign minister, have openly stated that the invasion of Ukraine is an imperial war and that Russia’s borders are expanding again. They have asserted that the four annexed Ukrainian territories are Russia’s “forever” but then suggested that some borders may still be negotiated with Ukraine. According to newspaper reports, they have pushed for the full conquest of Donetsk and Luhansk by March but also indicated that another assault on Kyiv could be in the offing. At this stage of the conflict, Russia’s actual war goals remain unclear.

What is clear is this: after more than two decades in power, Putin is practiced at playing people, groups, and countries against one another and using their weaknesses to his advantage. He understands the weak points of European and international institutions as well as the vulnerabilities of individual leaders. He knows how to exploit NATO’s debates and splits over military spending and procurement. He has taken advantage of European and American partisan divides (including the fact that only one third of Republicans think the United States should support Ukraine) to spread disinformation and manipulate public opinion.

At home in Russia, Putin has proved willing to allow some hawkish dissent and debate about the war, including the grumbling of pro-war commentators and bloggers who used to serve in the military. He seeks to use these debates to mobilize support for his policies. But although Putin is adept at managing quarrels, he cannot always control the content and tone of these disputes, just as he cannot control the battlefield. Some of the domestic commentary on the war has become shrill and even threatening to Putin’s position. There is speculation that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner paramilitary group, whose forces have been doing some of the war’s bloodiest fighting, could even seize power at some point in the future. Russia’s wartime casualties appear to be approaching 200,000. As many as one million people are estimated to have left Russia in the past year in response to the war, either because they oppose the invasion or simply to avoid being drafted. In this regard, the world has learned that there are some limits to Putin’s coercive capabilities, even if this mass exodus of dissenters seems to leave behind a more quiescent majority.

DISSUADABLE, NOT DETERRABLE

Russian opponents of the war may have had no chance of stopping Putin from invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022. And none of the United States and Europe’s mechanisms and practices for keeping the peace after World War II and the Cold War had much, if any, effect on his decision-making. The West clearly failed to stop Putin from contemplating or starting the invasion. Nevertheless, the United States’ release of declassified intelligence before February 24 clarified Russian aims and mobilization and helped the pro-Ukraine Western coalition quickly come together once the war started. Furthermore, this past year has shown that even if he cannot be deterred, Putin can be dissuaded from taking certain actions in specific contexts.

Strategic partners of Russia, such as China and India, have criticized Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield. He allowed grain shipments from Ukraine through the Black Sea after complaints from the United Nations, Turkey, and African countries. Putin and the Kremlin remain committed to maintaining partner countries’ support, as was demonstrated during the G-20 meeting in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia. Russia still seems not to want a full-on fight with NATO. It has avoided expanding its military action outside Ukraine (at least so far), including by not shelling military supply convoys entering the country from Poland or Romania. But Moscow’s aggressive rhetoric has risen and ebbed throughout the war. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, once known as a moderate leader willing to engage with the West, now plays the role of Putin’s attack dog, periodically threatening a nuclear Armageddon.

The Kremlin is shameless in its rhetoric, and no one in Putin’s circle cares about narrative coherence. This brazenness is matched by domestic ruthlessness. Putin and his colleagues are willing to sacrifice Russian lives, not just Ukrainians’. They have no qualms about the methods Russia uses to enforce participation in the war, from murdering deserters with sledgehammers (and then releasing video footage of the killings) to assassinating recalcitrant businessmen who do not support the invasion. Putin is perfectly fine with imprisoning opposition figures while sweeping through prisons and the most impoverished Russian regions to collect people to use as cannon fodder on the frontlines.

The domestic ruthlessness is in turn exceeded by the brutality against Ukraine. Russia has declared total war on the country and its citizens, young and old. For a year, it has deliberately shelled Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and killed people in their kitchens, bedrooms, hospitals, schools, and shops. Russian forces have tortured, raped, and pillaged in the Ukrainian regions under their control.Putin and the Kremlin still believe they can pummel the country into submission while they wait out the United States and Europe.

The Kremlin is convinced that the West will eventually grow tired of supporting Ukraine. Putin believes, for example, that there will be political changes in the West that could be advantageous for Moscow. He hopes for the return of populists to power in these states who will back away from their countries’ support for Ukraine. Putin also remains confident that he can eventually restore Russia’s prewar relationship with Europe and that Russia can and will be part of Europe’s economic, energy, political, and security structures again if he holds out long enough (as Bashar al-Assad has in the Middle East by staying in power in Syria). This is why Russia is seemingly restrained in some policy arenas. For instance, it has vested interests in working with Norway and other Arctic countries in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and the Barents Sea, where Moscow has been careful to comply with international agreements and bilateral treaties. Russia does not want its misadventure in Ukraine to embroil and spoil its entire foreign policy.

Putin is convinced that he can compartmentalize Moscow’s interests because Russia is not isolated internationally, despite the West’s best efforts. Only 34 countries have imposed sanctions on Russia since the war started. Russia still has leverage in its immediate neighborhood with many of the states that were once part of the Soviet Union, even though these countries want to keep their distance from Moscow and the war. Russia continues to build ties in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. China, along with India and other key states in the global South, have abstained on votes in favor of Ukraine at the United Nations even as their leaders have expressed occasional consternation and displeasure with Moscow’s behavior. Trade between Russia and these countries has increased—in some cases quite dramatically—since the beginning of the conflict. Similarly, 87 countries still offer Russian citizens visa-free entry, including Argentina, Egypt, Israel, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. Russian narratives about the war have gained traction in the global South, where Putin often seems to have more influence than the West has—and certainly more than Ukraine has.

BLURRING THE LINES

One reason the West has had limited success in countering Russia’s messaging and influence operations outside Europe is that it has yet to formulate its own coherent narrative about the war—and about why the West is supporting Kyiv. American and European policymakers talk frequently of the risks of stepping over Russia’s redlines and provoking Putin, but Russia itself not only overturned the post–Cold War settlement in Europe but also stepped over the world’s post-1945 redlines when it invaded Ukraine and annexed territory, attempting to forcibly change global borders. The West failed to state this clearly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The tepid political response and the limited application of sanctions after that first Russian invasion convinced Moscow that its actions were not, in fact, a serious breach of post–World War II international norms. It made the Kremlin believe it could likely go further in taking Ukrainian territory. Western debates about the need to weaken Russia, the importance of overthrowing Putin to achieve peace, whether democracies should line up against autocracies, and whether other countries must choose sides have muddied what should be a clear message: Russia has violated the territorial integrity of an independent state that has been recognized by the entire international community, including Moscow, for more than 30 years. Russia has also violated the UN Charter and fundamental principles of international law. If it were to succeed in this invasion, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states, be they in the West or the global South, will be imperiled.

Yet the Western debate about the war has shifted little in a year. U.S. and European views still tend to be defined by how individual commentators see the United States and its global role rather than by Russian actions. Antiwar perspectives often reflect cynicism about the United States’ motivation and deep skepticism about Ukraine’s sovereign rights rather than a clear understanding or objective assessment of Russian actions toward Ukraine and what Putin wants in the neighboring region. When Russia was recognized as the only successor state to the Soviet Union after 1991, other former Soviet republics such as Belarus and Ukraine were left in a gray zone.

Some analysts posit that Russia’s security interests trump everyone else’s because of its size and historical status. They have argued that Moscow has a right to a recognized sphere of influence, just as the Soviet Union did after 1945. Using this framing, some commentators have suggested that NATO’s post–Cold War expansion and Ukraine’s reluctance to implement the Minsk agreements—accords brokered with Moscow after it annexed Crimea in 2014 that would have limited Ukraine’s sovereignty—are the war’s casus belli. They think that Ukraine is ultimately a former Russian region that should be forced to accept the loss of its territory.

In fact, the preoccupation of Russian leaders with bringing Ukraine back into the fold dates to the beginning of the 1990s, when Ukraine started to pull away from the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (a loose regional institution that had succeeded the Soviet Union). At that juncture, NATO’s enlargement was not even on the table for eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s affiliation with the European Union was an even more remote prospect. Since then, Europe has moved beyond the post-1945 concept of spheres of influence for East and West. Indeed, for most Europeans, Ukraine is clearly an independent state, one that is fighting a war for its survival after an unprovoked attack on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The war is about more than Ukraine. Kyiv is also fighting to protect other countries. Indeed, for states such as Finland, which was attacked by the Soviet Union in 1939 after securing its independence from the Russian empire 20 years earlier, this invasion seems like a rerun of history. (In the so-called Winter War of 1939–40, Finland fought the Soviets without external support and lost nine percent of its territory.) The Ukrainians and countries supporting them understand that if Russia were to prevail in this bloody conflict, Putin’s appetite for expansion would not stop at the Ukrainian border. The Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and many other countries that were once part of Russia’s empire could be at risk of attack or subversion. Others could see challenges to their sovereignty in the future.

Western governments need to hone this narrative to counter the Kremlin’s. They must focus on bolstering Europe’s and NATO’s resilience alongside Ukraine’s to limit Putin’s coercive power. They must step up the West’s international diplomatic efforts, including at the UN, to dissuade Putin from taking specific actions such as the use of nuclear weapons, attacks on convoys to Ukraine, continued escalation on the battlefield to seize more territory, or a renewed assault on Kyiv. The West needs to make clear that Russia’s relations with Europe will soon be irreparable. There will be no return to prior relations if Putin presses ahead. The world cannot always contain Putin, but clear communications and stronger diplomatic measures may help push him to curtail some of his aggression and eventually agree to negotiations.

The events of the last year should also steer everyone away from making big predictions. Few people outside Ukraine, for example, expected the war or believed that Russia would perform so poorly in its invasion. No one knows exactly what 2023 has in store.

That includes Putin. He appears to be in control for now, but the Kremlin could be in for a surprise. Events often unfold in a dramatic fashion. As the war in Ukraine has shown, many things don’t go according to plan.