“
This world’s anguish is no different
from the love we insist on holding back.
”
”
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
“
Eastward and westward storms are breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I will not believe them inevitable.
”
”
W.E.B. Du Bois (The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois)
“
Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same... Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social dis-ease.
”
”
Aberjhani (The American Poet Who Went Home Again)
“
You cannot fell a hill
From force of will
Only time.
You cannot dissipate
Hate with righteous hate
Only love.
Only time, only love,
Only time and love.
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
Ukraine did not seek greatness. But Ukraine has become great.
”
”
Volodymyr Zelensky (A Message from Ukraine)
“
At the moment, don't buy my books, help the people of Ukraine instead.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
The Russian contribution to peace in Ukraine is not sufficient. [German Chancellor commenting on 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea]
”
”
Angela Merkel
“
Ask us for water, we won't let you go unfed, but do not mistake our gentleness as fear. If you so much as lay a finger on our home, we'll defend it with our blood, sweat 'n tears.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
My arms are always open for you. Come, come on in. I am peace and my surname is humanity.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya (Safa Tempo: Poems New & Selected)
“
How can you save face when you have disfigured so many in life?
”
”
Anthony T. Hincks
“
Defeat war with the language of love.
”
”
Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann (World Moving Love Quotations: 121 World Moving Love Quotations)
“
And the Sunflowers are an eternity in themselves. Let them embrace our dreams and invigorate our hope evermore.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya
“
Stop calling it war, for war implies faults on both sides. It's an invasion, where the state of Russia is the aggressor and the people of Ukraine are the victim. And stop saying that your prayers are with the Ukrainian people, for prayers may give you comfort, but it does nothing to alleviate their suffering. Shred all hypocritical advocacy of human rights and be involved in a meaningful way that actually helps the victims of Russian imperialism.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
Do you find it strange that the modern human is the only animal in history that has developed a system of international warfare?
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The only thing to come out of war was casualties.
”
”
Anthony T. Hincks
“
The cold, cruel war is raging wildly but I will sow seeds of peace again and again. Garden of hope I foresee and spring is always lovely.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya
“
He who has the heart for war, has no heart left for love.
”
”
Anthony T. Hincks
“
I pray and hope that those beloved Ukrainians may have the strength, courage, and faith to carry on.
”
”
Debasish Mridha
“
Yeah, the chances of the Vegas rising up from the dead and returning for their throne was as likely as the peace sign making a solid comeback.
”
”
Skye Warren (Nightingale: An Anthology for Ukraine)
“
No matter how you may try to justify it. You can never justify war. On the other hand, you don’t need to justify peace – it is always beautiful.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya
“
No outcome of the war is more valuable than the lives that are at stake.
”
”
Mohith Agadi
“
War appears to be as old as Mankind, but peace is a modern invention.
”
”
David H. Petraeus (Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine)
“
You can get arrested if you live in Russia, and you say that there is war in Ukraine. You can only say “special operation”. There is a popular joke in Russia: Tolstoy’s War and Peace should be now renamed Special Operation and Peace.
”
”
Boris Akunin
“
The war will end someday. The only question is: why can’t we end it immediately? Let’s end it right now. Let us live in peace and rebuild. We don’t need anything else. We have sunflower seeds in our hearts. We will blossom again and rejuvenate the world.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya
“
Did THEY also hear those notes he heard in memories, that soared and dived and trilled and sparkled in mesmeric intervals with the familiar, “lu, lu, lu, lu,” that had soothed and comforted him? It transported him to fields of gold and peaceful days, peaceful nights when the only sound was the twitching of birds in the hedgerows.
”
”
Suzy Davies (The Nightingale and The Sunflower)
“
But if Ukraine was no longer as important as when it had been the world’s third-largest nuclear power, in one aspect it still commanded presidential attention: tensions with Russia, particularly over the former Soviet fleet in Crimea.20 Clinton worried personally about this issue because, as he said to Kuchma on May 11, 1995, “we came to appreciate earlier than the Europeans the strategic importance of Ukraine to all of Europe in the 21st century.” He was convinced “that peace in a broad area depends on what happens to Ukraine and Turkey.
”
”
Mary Elise Sarotte (Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate)
“
Get Together"
(originally by The Kingston Trio)
Love is but a song we sing
Fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why
Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Some may come and some may go
He will surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moment's sunlight
Fading in the grass
Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command
Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
I said come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Right now
Right now
The Youngbloods, The Youngbloods (1967)
”
”
The Youngbloods
“
I Am Ukraine (The Sonnet)
Peace doesn't come through prayers,
Peace comes through responsible action.
When the invader stomps on innocent lives,
Not choosing a side is a consent to oppression.
Ask us for water, we won't let you go unfed,
But do not mistake our gentleness as fear.
If you so much as lay a finger on our home,
We'll defend it with our blood, sweat 'n tears.
We ain't no coward to selfishly seek security,
When our land is being ransacked by raccoons.
When the lives of our loved ones are at stake,
We'll break but never bend to oligarchical buffoons.
The love of our families is what keeps us breathing.
To preserve their smiles, we shall happily die fighting.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
The Ten Humanitarian Commandments
1. First you are human, then everything else.
2. No one is the authority of your life, but you.
3. Impose nobody on nobody.
4. Don't be rigid about anybody's ideas - expand on them.
5. Take a thinker as a mental companion if you need, but not the only companion.
6. Always have some healthy respect for fiction, and never glorify facts at the expense of humanity.
7. Booze, smoke and others, try all for experience if you desire, so long as they don't end up owning you.
8. Learn from everything and everyone, but pledge allegiance to no one.
9. No weapons, period - except in intensely exceptional circumstances like the Ukraine invasion.
10. Love is the supreme religion, love is the supreme law, love is the supreme science.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Sin Dios Sí Hay Divinidad: The Pastor Who Never Was)
“
The most important thing that is happening in the world right now is the emerging of the new man.
Since the monkeys, man has remained the same, but a great revolution is on it's way. When monkeys became man, it created the mind. With the new man, a great revolution will bring the soul in. Man will not just be a mind, a psychological being, he will be a spiritual being.
This new consciousness, this new being, is the most important thing, which is happening in the world today. But the old man will be against the emerging of the new man, the old man will be against this new consciousness.
The new man is a matter of life and death, it is a question of the survival of the whole earth. It is matter of survival of consciousness, of survival of life itself.
The old man has become utterly destructive. The old man is preparing for a global suicide right now. Rather than allowing the new man, the old man would rather destroy the whole earth, destroying life itself.
The old destructive man is preparing right now for a third world war. The global economical and political elite and the war industrial complex in the U.S, which runs the foreign policy of the U.S, is right now promoting for a third world war.
The U.S. has over thrown the democratically elected government in Ukraine in an secret operation by the CIA, the world's largest terrorist organization, and replaced it with a fascistic regime, a marionette for the U.S.
The war industrial complex is now desperately trying to promote the third war by demonizing, lying and blaming Russia. We see the same aggression and lies from the U.S. that we have seen before against Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Venezuela and Iran.
President Eisenhower warned against the war industrial complex, which he considered the largest threat to democracy. President John F. Kennedy also warned against a "secret conspiracy" against democracy. The war industrial complex consists of the international banks, oil companies, war industry, democratically elected politicians, conservative think tanks, international mainstream media and global companies, who make profits from human suffering and wars.
The European governments and the mainstream media also cooperate with the war industrial complex to bring the world into disaster.
But this time it will not work as the time for wars is over, and peace loving people and people who represent the new man are working against this kind of aggression.
”
”
Swami Dhyan Giten
“
We know that these clashes with Asia and Jewry are necessary for evolution. They give the cue for the European Continent to unite. These clashes are the only evolu-tionary possibility which will enable us one day, now that Fate has given us the Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, to create the Germanic Reich. They are the necessary condition, for our race, and our blood to create for itself and put under cultivation, in the years of peace, (during which we must live and work austerely, frugally and like Spartans), that settlement area in which new blood can breed, as in a botanical garden so to speak. Only by this means can the Continent become a Germanic Continent, capable of daring to embark, in one or two or three or five or ten generations, on the conflict with this Continent of Asia which spews out hordes of humanity. Perhaps we shall also have to hold in check other coloured peoples who will soon be in their certain prime, and thus preserve the world, which is the world of our blood, of our children and of our grandchildren. Now it is just this world we like the best, the Germanic world, the world of Nordic life. We know that this conflict with the advancing pressure from Asia, with the 200 million Russians, is necessary.
”
”
Heinrich Himmler (Speech by Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler to SS Commanders in Kharkov, Ukraine. April 24, 1943)
“
Statement on Hamas (October 10th, 2023)
When Israel strikes, it's "national security" - when Palestine strikes back, it's "terrorism". Just like over two hundred years ago when native americans resisted their homeland being stolen, it was called "Indian Attack". Or like over a hundred years ago when Indian soldiers in the British Army revolted against the empire, in defense of their homeland, it was called "Sepoy Mutiny".
The narrative never changes - when the colonizer terrorizes the world, it's given glorious sounding names like "exploration" and "conquest", but if the oppressed so much as utters a word in resistance, it is branded as attack, mutiny and terrorism - so that, the real terrorists can keep on colonizing as the self-appointed ruler of land, life and morality, without ever being held accountable for violating the rights of what they deem second rate lifeforms, such as the arabs, indians, latinos and so on.
After all this, some apes will still only be interested in one stupid question. Do I support Hamas? To which I say this. Until you've spent a lifetime under an oppressive regime, you are not qualified to ask that question. An ape can ask anything its puny brain fancies, but it's up to the human to decide whether the ape is worthy of a response. What do you think, by the way - colonizers can just keep coming as they please, to wipe their filthy feet on us like doormat, and we should do nothing - just stay quiet! For creatures who call themselves civilized, you guys have a weird sense of morality.
Yet all these might not get through your thick binary skull, so let me put it to you bluntly.
I don't stand with Hamas, I am Hamas, just like, I don't stand with Ukraine, I am Ukraine. Russia stops fighting, war ends - Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. Israel ends invasion, war ends - Palestine ends resistance, Palestine ends.
However, I do have one problem here. Why do civilians have to die, if that is indeed the case - which I have no way of confirming, because news reports are not like reputed scientific data, that a scientist can naively trust. During humankind's gravest conflicts news outlets have always peddled a narrative benefiting the occupier and demonizing the resistance, either consciously or subconsciously. So never go by news reports, particularly on exception circumstances like this.
No matter the cause, no civilian must die, that is my one unimpeachable law. But the hard and horrific fact of the matter is, only the occupier can put an end to the death and destruction peacefully - the resistance does not have that luxury.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch)
“
The Soviet collapse in 1989 was even more peaceful, despite the eruption of ethnic conflict in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Never before has such a mighty empire disappeared so swiftly and so quietly. The Soviet Empire of 1989 had suffered no military defeat except in Afghanistan, no external invasions, no rebellions, nor even large-scale Martin Luther King-style campaigns of civil disobedience. The Soviets still had millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of tanks and aeroplanes, and enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the whole of humankind several times over. The Red Army and the other Warsaw Pact armies remained loyal. Had the last Soviet ruler, Mikhail Gorbachev, given the order, the Red Army would have opened fire on the subjugated masses. Yet the Soviet elite, and the Communist regimes through most of eastern Europe (Romania and Serbia were the exceptions), chose not to use even a tiny fraction of this military power. When its members realised that Communism was bankrupt, they renounced force, admitted their failure, packed their suitcases and went home. Gorbachev and his colleagues gave up without a struggle not only the Soviet conquests of World War Two, but also the much older tsarist conquests in the Baltic, the Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is chilling to contemplate what might have happened if Gorbachev had behaved like the Serbian leadership – or like the French in Algeria.
”
”
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
“
the politics of inevitability, a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done. In the American capitalist version of this story, nature brought the market, which brought democracy, which brought happiness. In the European version, history brought the nation, which learned from war that peace was good, and hence chose integration and prosperity. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, communism had its own politics of inevitability: nature permits technology; technology brings social change; social change causes revolution; revolution enacts utopia. When this turned out not to be true, the European and American politicians of inevitability were triumphant. Europeans busied themselves completing the creation of the European Union in 1992. Americans reasoned that the failure of the communist story confirmed the truth of the capitalist one. Americans and Europeans kept telling themselves their tales of inevitability for a quarter century after the end of communism, and so raised a millennial generation without history. The American politics of inevitability, like all such stories, resisted facts. The fates of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus after 1991 showed well enough that the fall of one system did not create a blank slate on which nature generated markets and markets generated rights. Iraq in 2003 might have confirmed this lesson, had the initiators of America’s illegal war reflected upon its disastrous consequences. The financial crisis of 2008 and the deregulation of campaign contributions in the United States in 2010 magnified the influence of the wealthy and reduced that of voters. As economic inequality grew, time horizons shrank, and fewer Americans believed that the future held a better version of the present. Lacking a functional state that assured basic social goods taken for granted elsewhere—education, pensions, health care, transport, parental leave, vacations—Americans could be overwhelmed by each day, and lose a sense of the future. The collapse of the politics of inevitability ushers in another experience of time: the politics of eternity. Whereas inevitability promises a better future for everyone, eternity places one nation at the center of a cyclical story of victimhood. Time is no longer a line into the future, but a circle that endlessly returns the same threats from the past. Within inevitability, no one is responsible because we all know that the details will sort themselves out for the better; within eternity, no one is responsible because we all know that the enemy is coming no matter what we do. Eternity politicians spread the conviction that government cannot aid society as a whole, but can only guard against threats. Progress gives way to doom.
”
”
Timothy Snyder (The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America)
“
And now we were done. Our efforts had failed. I was not a Cold Warrior itching to get back into the arena with a Kremlin adversary; ever since my high school days debating Jackson-Vanik, I had held a different aspiration for our bilateral relationship. But Putin’s actions in Ukraine compelled the United States and Europe to pivot to a fundamentally different strategy for managing relations with Russia. We were not returning to a Cold War, but we were entering a new confrontational era, a hot peace. On March 23, 2014, I spelled out my proposed
”
”
Michael McFaul (From Cold War To Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia)
“
Being a borderland meant two things. First, Ukrainians inherited a legacy of violence. ‘Rebellion; Civil War; Pogroms; Famine; Purges; Holocaust’ a friend remarked, flipping through the box of file-cards I assembled while researching this book. ‘Where’s the section on Peace and Prosperity?’ Second, they were left with a tenuous, equivocal sense of national identity. Though they rebelled at every opportunity, the few occasions on which they did achieve a measure of self-rule – during the Cossack risings of the seventeenth century, the Civil War of 1918–20, and towards the end of Nazi occupation – were nasty, brutish, and above all short.
”
”
Anna Reid (Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine)
“
Sometime between the Obama-Medvedev summit in Prague in 2010 and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, public opinion in both countries also flipped: solid majorities in both Russia and the United States now perceived each other as enemies.
”
”
Michael McFaul (From Cold War To Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia)
“
Four months later, Yeltsin met with the leaders of Belarus and Ukraine to sign the Belovezhskaya Accord, which peacefully dissolved the Soviet Union.
”
”
Michael McFaul (From Cold War To Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia)
“
I am very sorry to deny the existence of a political Santa Claus, or a non-aggression Easter Bunny, but the Allies only won World War II because they finally created superior military forces with which to stop the Germans and Japanese. The United States and NATO, after decades of weakening, are acting toward Russia today as the Indians acted in Tibet. They are pushing on Russia, subverting Russia’s position in Ukraine, without giving sufficient weight to the fact that Russia has the most modern nuclear forces on the planet and Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas. That is to say, we are threatening Russia with an unloaded gun; and that is dangerous, because Russia’s gun is loaded. As the example of India in 1962 shows, those who play at war without serious preparations are headed for defeat. In practical terms, we should have bombers in the air as Russia does. We should be matching them division for division. But we cannot do this because we believed in the “peace dividend” which we have spent. And we had conservative politicians like Newt Gingrich, who famously said, “I am a hawk. But I am a cheap hawk.”
J.R.Nyquist
”
”
J.R. Nyquist
“
Our world is far more dangerous now than it was when President Obama took office. His Nobel Peace Prize notwithstanding, peace is receding today faster than it has in a generation. President Obama and Secretary Clinton projected weakness, and weakness has proven provocative. Today, Russian president Vladimir Putin is on the march in Ukraine and eyeing the Baltic states. China is making an aggressive effort to exert global power by intimidating U.S. allies and demanding new territorial concessions, from South Korea to Japan to the Philippines to Taiwan and Singapore. Cuba is exporting arms to North Korea.
”
”
Ted Cruz (A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America)
“
Желаю нашей стране мирного неба над головой, а тем, кто хочет этого нас лишить — мирной земли над головой.
”
”
Евгений Гендин
“
War leaves vacancies within the ranks of humanity.
”
”
Anthony T. Hincks
“
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, may your memory live on, live on in our hearts, through our lives, may your memory be an eternal reminder to the souls you have left behind on this earth, a reminder that God will be waiting for us… may your memory live eternally, may you find the peace that your soul has longed for.
”
”
Tetyana Denford (The Child of Ukraine)
“
We want to talk about war and peace in Ukraine in these matches. The need to end this madness and return to normal life and to rebuild the country,
”
”
Matt Riley (Kit and Caboodle: Football's Shirt Stories)
“
Sanctions haven't stopped the killings. They've only made the invaders more desperate to win.
”
”
Anthony T. Hincks
“
The world has a ridiculously short attention span. It cannot stick to any one cause for more than a few days. They forgot about Palestine, they forgot about Afghanistan, they forgot about Jallianwala Bagh, and they’ll soon forget about Ukraine as well. The world forgets, but the suffering of the people continues.
Don't be that world my friend, be a better world, a civilized and responsible world, only then we'll be able to prevent another Palestine crisis, another Afghanistan crisis, another Ukraine crisis, otherwise these events will keep recurring until everybody is six feet under.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
“
Like many post-Soviet countries, during its first years of independence Ukraine underwent a major political crisis caused by economic decline and social dislocation and focused on relations between the presidency and parliament, both institutions having been created in the political turmoil of the last years of the Soviet Union. Russia resolved the conflict in September 1993 when President Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire on the Russian parliament building and the Russian authorities arrested Russia’s vice president and the head of parliament, both accused of instigating a coup against the president. Yeltsin’s advisers rewrote the constitution to limit the power of parliament, turning it into something more of a rubber stamp than an active agent in the Russian political scene. Ukraine resolved the emerging conflict between the president and parliament with a compromise. President Kravchuk agreed to call early presidential elections, which he lost, and in the summer of 1994 he peacefully transferred power to his successor, Leonid Kuchma, the former prime minister and erstwhile rocket designer heading Europe’s largest missile factory. Throughout the tumultuous 1990s, Ukraine not only managed its first transfer of power between two rivals for the presidency but also maintained competitive politics and created legal foundations for a viable democracy. In 1996, President Kuchma rewrote the Soviet-era constitution, but he did so together with parliament, which secured a major role for itself in the Ukrainian political process. One of the main reasons for Ukraine’s success as a democracy was its regional diversity—a legacy of both distant and more recent history that translated into political, economic, and cultural differences articulated in parliament and settled by negotiation in the political arena. The industrialized east became a stronghold of the revived Communist Party.
”
”
Serhii Plokhy (The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine)
“
I hate war. Everything is bad about war. Pain, wounds, death, loss, tears and cruel memories for all life. But, once somebody told me, when everything is going negative, try to find out something positive there and this is life. Nowadays, everything is going badly in this world, but maybe after the Ukraine and Russia conflict one thing has been settled down. Maybe now no country will give their soil to illegitimate partners to use for terror against neighbouring countries.
”
”
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
“
Come, come and sit beside me and watch the Sun and Sunflowers toast each other and perceive that peace is just a drink away from the eternity.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya
“
The reasons I keep on hoping
outweigh the souls I pray for.
”
”
Laura Chouette
“
My Russia My Responsibility (The Sonnet)
Moya Rossiya, moya lyubov, I am sorry,
That the world has turned its back on us.
But can you really blame them when,
We accepted a terrorist as a leader of ours!
Awake, arise, my brave comrades,
Drink deep from the valor of Volga.
I say, enough with apathy, for it is high time,
To sanitize our land against all domestic virus.
We let a terrorist loose on our neighbors,
And all that bloodshed is on our hands.
Even now if we don't mend our horrific error,
One savage will turn our world into a wasteland.
Mnogo te obicham, for you are still my home.
To humanize our home is the duty of none but our own.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Ingan Impossible: Handbook of Hatebusting)
“
Every new day is a new reason not to give up. Because, having gone through so much, we have no right not to reach the end.
What is the end of the war for us? We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory
”
”
Zelenskyy
“
Some of my other judgements were sadly wrong. Russia has not yet lost its imperial itch. Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine has postponed for many decades the prospect that Russia will become the modern democratic state at peace with its neighbours, which so many courageous Russians had fought so hard to create. But no people should ever be written off beyond redemption. I hang on to the golden image of the firebird which fleets through the dark forests of the Russian folklore to symbolise the hope that Russia will see better days.
”
”
Rodric Braithwaite (Russia: Myths and Realities: The History of a Country with an Unpredictable Past)
“
But the glimmer of hope in Russia was not entirely extinguished by the atavism of the Putin years. The Japanese reinvented themselves in the 19th century and again after 1945, the Germans, the Spaniards and the Italians experimented with dictatorship and abandoned it. French, Spanish, German and Swedish armies terrorised Europe for centuries, then decided they preferred peace after all. The other Europeans gave up their empires and turned instead to liberal democracy. Only the most obstinate historical determinist would insist that Russians were uniquely incapable of shaking themselves free of the burden of history. By the 3rd decade of the 21st century Russian was already different from what it had been in Soviet times, it's huge size diminished by jet aircraft, modern communications and the internet. Its people by previous standards urban, educated, comparatively prosperous, free to travel, surprisingly well-informed, determined optimists might even hope that the shock of the Ukraine war would change the way Russians look at their past and perhaps make them more open to a different and more constructive future. One thing only was sure, Russia's future would be shaped by the Russian people themselves, regardless of the hopes, fears and wishful thinking of foreigners.
”
”
Rodric Braithwaite (Russia: Myths and Realities: The History of a Country with an Unpredictable Past)
“
Sukhomlinov was made governor-general of a larger area which includes much of today’s Ukraine. He restored law and order and put an end to the disgraceful and brutal treatment of the local
”
”
Margaret MacMillan (The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War)
“
Israeli caution toward Russia in 2022 was unsurprising because Israeli surveillance firm Cellebrite had sold Vladimir Putin phone-hacking technology that he used on dissidents and political opponents for years, deploying it tens of thousands of times. Israel didn’t sell the powerful NSO Group phone-hacking tool, Pegasus, to Ukraine despite the country having asked for it since 2019: it did not want to anger Moscow. Israel was thus complicit in Russia’s descent into autocracy. Within days of the Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the global share prices of defense contractors soared, including Israel’s biggest, Elbit Systems, whose stock climbed 70 percent higher than the year before. One of the most highly sought-after Israeli weapons is a missile interception system. US financial analysts from Citi argued that investment in weapons manufacturers was the ethical thing to do because “defending the values of liberal democracies and creating a deterrent … preserves peace and global stability.”19 Israeli cyber firms were in huge demand. Israel’s Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked said that Israel would benefit financially because European nations wanted Israeli armaments.20 She said the quiet part out loud, unashamed of seeing opportunity in a moment of crisis. “We have unprecedented opportunities, and the potential is crazy,” an Israeli defense industry source told Haaretz.21
”
”
Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World)
“
Ukraine, March 1929
Roman founded an organization called OWK. He and Ostap made leaflets with their own hands, with the help of thick pencils, and distributed them all over the city, nailing them to doors and walls. When one of Afros' OGPO men stopped him on the street and asked about his actions, Roman replied, "I serve the revolution, comrade. And what are you doing?" The brothers were brought before Afros and Zhuk in the house they had confiscated in the village square. Zhuk asked if Roman wanted to be taken to Murmansk. Roman said no. He explained that apparently there were no kulaks left in Ispes after the concentrated purge six weeks ago. Therefore, Roman And Ostap decided to form an organization that anyone can join, and they are holding the first assembly next week. The organization is called OWK, the acronym for 'Organization without Kulaks'. "I even used the abominable Russian word, out of national solidarity with you and your friends, Comrade Zhuk," Roman said. "It is an organization of non-wealthy farmers, a definition that applies to the entire population that remained in Ispas. It is difficult to continue to maintain in Ukraine the class war between the successful farmer and the less successful farmer, in part because the classification changes from harvest to harvest. Kulak Mouser is the bane of the current harvest. And because the harvest was so bad and despite your laudable efforts, of course, there don't seem to be any kulaks left in our village. So we don't know exactly how to conduct the class war about which you spoke so eloquently a few weeks ago." Her novel to Jouk has a friendly smile. "We are deeply committed to purging the last of the anti-communist elements. And therefore - OW-K. "If you're serious, you'll participate in collectivization," said Jock. "I understand your point about the inefficiency of the small-scale farm, comrade," Roman said. "I am attentive to her. But listen to me until the end. The land of the Lazar family is far from the other farms, and it is impossible to connect it to them easily and create the collectivization, savings and cooperation that you strive for. So this is my proposal: my family and I will agree to meet your quota without collectivization. Let's show you how we work - with your help, maybe lend us a steel plow that expresses our new understanding and partnership? I'm sure it will work much better than our old wooden plows, and we'll do the rest. We will plow our land now, we will plant your wheat in August. We will work tirelessly for the cause and bring you the grain you demand. We will not give and we will not bargain.” "And in return?" "Nothing," Roman said. "In return we will continue to fatten horses and cows in peace." "You intend to pay other people to work in your wheat fields, Comrade Lazar?" asked Zhuk in a smooth voice. "Of course not," said Roman. "I know that even if I only have three horses, and I only pay two people to work for me, it means that I am a fat and lazy kulak, lower than a human pig. Then, as a founding member of OWK, I will have to destroy myself. So the answer is no. I will not pay anyone to work for me. Every person who passes through the fields will work for free, and that is the duty of all Ukrainians, right? As you told us we have to do to be counted for true patriots.
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Paulina Simons
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Dear Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in his inauguration address. “After my election win, my six-year-old son said: ‘Dad, they say on TV that Zelensky is the president…. So, it means that I am the President too?!’ At the time, it sounded funny, but later I realized that it was true. Because each of us is the president. “From now on, each of us is responsible for the country that we leave to our children,” Zelensky said. “Each of us, in his place, can do everything for the prosperity of Ukraine.” He raised his first priority: a cease-fire in the Donbas where Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces had been fighting since Putin’s 2014 invasion. “I have been often asked: What price are you ready to pay for the cease-fire? It’s a strange question,” Zelensky said. “What price are you ready to pay for the lives of your loved ones? I can assure that I’m ready to pay any price to stop the deaths of our heroes. I’m definitely not afraid to make difficult decisions and I’m ready to lose my fame, my ratings, and if need be without any hesitation, my position to bring peace, as long as we do not give up our territories. “History is unfair,” Zelensky added. “We are not the ones who have started this war. But we are the ones who have to finish it. “I really do not want you to hang my portraits on your office walls. Because a president is not an icon and not an idol. A president is not a portrait. Hang pictures of your children. And before you make any decision, look into their eyes,” he said. “And finally,” Zelensky concluded, “all my life I tried to do all I could so that Ukrainians laughed. That was my mission. Now I will do all I can so that Ukrainians at least do not cry anymore.
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Bob Woodward (War)
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Principles are the first thing dictators attack. Various “Putins” around the world are undermining principles in their societies through propaganda and repression so that people cannot stand up for what they believe in. And then, when the dictatorship gains strength and resources, it tries to export its lack of principles, creating gray zones devoid of values.
Europe has had to face this many times. Now we are experiencing another defining moment. Russia is trying to convince nations that it is easy to compromise principles—that they can ignore international law and turn a blind eye to injustice if it will supposedly bring stability.
This is Moscow's main message - Putin invites everyone to forget about their principles, to show no resolve, to give up Ukrainian land and people, and then, he says, Russian bombing will stop. But throughout history, every time such agreements have been made, the threat has returned even stronger.
Today, we have a chance to win in Eastern Europe so that we don't have to fight on the northern or other eastern fronts—in the Baltic states and Poland, or in the south—in the Balkans, where it is easy to ignite a conflict, or in African countries, whose problems are much closer to European societies than it may seem.
We have to stand up for international law and the values on which our societies are built. We must be decisive. People matter. The law matters. State borders and the right of every nation to determine its own future matters. And while we know that Putin is threatening leaders and countries who can help us force Russia to peace, we must not give in.
I thank you for every package of defense assistance to Ukraine. Every weapon you have provided helps to defend normal life—the kind of life you live here in Iceland or in any of your other countries, a life that no longer exists in Russia, where basic human rights have been taken away.
We are now in the third year of a full-scale war, and our soldiers on the front lines need fresh strength. That is why we are working to equip our brigades. This is an urgent need. We are already cooperating with others—France has helped to equip one brigade, and we have an agreement on another. We invite you to join us in creating brigades, Scandinavian brigades, and demonstrate your continued commitment to the defense of Europe.
I am grateful to Denmark and other partners who invest in arms production in Ukraine. Artillery, shells, drones—everything that allows Ukraine to defend itself despite any logistical delays on the part of partners or changing political moods in world capitals.
We see that Putin is increasing weapons production, and rogue regimes like Pyongyang are helping him with this. Next year, Putin intends to catch up with the EU in munitions production. We can only prevent this now (...).
- Translated from Ukrainian
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Volodymyr Zelensky
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...In 2008, when the United States recognized Kosovo´s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, [Vladimir] Putin was furious; the UN had promised to respect Serbia´s sovereign integrity. Putin argued that the US decision oi disregard what Russia saw as Serbia´s threatened to ¨blow apart the whole system of international relations."The United States and other states opting to recognize Kosovar independence, should understand that their decision was ¨a two-sided stick,¨ warned Putin, ¨and the second end will come back and hit them in the face.¨
That particular two-sided stick has already been deployed by the Russians in the context of Ukraine and Crimea, where Putin greeted US protestations about the importance of respecting Ukrainian sovereignty with little more than a cynical smirk. In Syria too, Putin has highlighted inconsistencies in US actions and legal arguments: if the United States can use military force inside Syria without the consent of the Syrian government, why should Russia be condemned for using force inside Ukraine?
The legal precedents we are setting risk undermining the fragile norms of sovereignty and human rights that help keep our world stable. We should ask ourselves this: Do we want to live in a world in which every state considers itself to have a legal right to kill people in other states, secretly and with no public disclosure or due process, based on its own unilateral assertions of national security prerogatives?
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Rosa Brooks (How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon)
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The war in Ukraine probably will not be decided by fighting. And so far diplomacy and a cease-fire agreement have failed. The best hope is that the Ukrainian people will seek a solution. They have experienced nearly 5,000 casualties in the war with tens of thousands of people displaced. They may also tire of their churches blurring the line between the religious and secular spheres. Russians, too, may tire of the Orthodox Church being used for political purposes, especially as more Russian soldiers die in Ukraine. The front to watch in the war may not be on the battlefield or in the diplomatic offices of Europe. The people and their church leaders could finally set the conditions for peace. ========== The Christian Science Monitor (The Christian Science Monitor) - Clip This Article on Location 526 | Added on Thursday, February 5, 2015 5:43:08 PM
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Anonymous
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on 3 March 1918 the new Soviet republic signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, ending the war on the Eastern Front. It was a humiliation for Russia. The country lost one-quarter of the former Russian Empire’s population and industry, including 90 per cent of its coalmines. It renounced all territorial claims to Finland, Belarus and Ukraine, and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Poland became an independent state. The driving force behind the signing of the treaty was Lenin. Despite the enormous losses, he believed that only an immediate peace would allow the young Bolshevik government to consolidate power in Russia, against all its enemies.
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Mark O'Neill (From the Tsar's Railway to the Red Army: Penguin Specials)
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Just days from the second anniversary of Pastor Saeed’s incarceration, President Obama gave a major speech to the United Nations General Assembly. He focused on issues such as Ebola, ISIL militants in Iraq and the Russian invasion of Ukraine—all crises worthy of the attention of the American president and the United Nations. But entirely absent from his remarks was the grim threat posed to the United States and our allies by a nuclear-armed Iran. In the very few words he devoted to the subject of Iran, President Obama offered the Iranians the “opportunity” to resolve the nuclear issue by "assuring the world" that their program is "peaceful.” There was no mention of the many outright lies the Iranians have told about their program over the years. There
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Ted Cruz (TED CRUZ: FOR GOD AND COUNTRY: Ted Cruz on ISIS, ISIL, Terrorism, Immigration, Obamacare, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Republicans,)
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If the public has no idea about the substance of an issue, and will vote based on who they like rather than what they want, it is difficult to put too much blame on policymakers and their expert advisers for being confused themselves. How can a republic function if the people who have sent their representatives to decide questions of war and peace cannot tell the difference between Agrabah, Ukraine, or Syria?
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Thomas M. Nichols (The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters)
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There exists in this war a strange calculation, which obeys no clear logic, that devalues everyday life to the point of negation. In the eyes of those who order an attack on a peaceful city, life in this place has already ceased to exist long before the strike.
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Yevgenia Belorusets (War Diary)
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The Polish Army got as far as Kyiv in May 1920, and the Red Army reached the outskirts of Warsaw that August. In the end, the Poles were victorious but exhausted, and the peace treaty of 1921 did not create an independent Ukraine. It left Zhytomyr, where the Borowskis resided, on the Soviet side of a new Polish-Soviet border. The defeat of the Red Army ended Lenin’s dream of spreading revolution westward to Europe by force, and forced the Bolsheviks to found a state.
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Tadeusz Borowski (Here in Our Auschwitz and Other Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters))
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It should by now be clear to Americans that any Power, whether Napoleonic France or Hitlerian Germany or some other madly ambitious power of the future, which goes on the warpath in Europe and attempts to dominate that Continent, automatically endangers the peace and security of the rest of the world and is sure, sooner or later, to involve the United States in a horribly costly overseas conflict.
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Carlton J.H. Hayes (Wartime Mission In Spain 1942-1945)
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In the 21st century where is the justification for war?
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Anthony T. Hincks
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Imposing trade, economic, or other kinds of sanctions on an intransigent or authoritarian regime, whose head lives in an ivory tower, is not desirable as an effective weapon, because sanctions directly hit the common people, pushing more of them to the edge.
Dear leaders, we must stop warmongering and give peace plenty of chances. Killing fellow humans is disgusting.
Reach out to your so-called enemies and engage them in discourses to foster reconciliation. The world counts on your statesmanship. It is a well-established fact that a single leader can change the mood the world over. Leaders can make a mess, create, and fuel tension, or bring peace and order. The world does not need aggressive, combative leaders; it is starving for skilled diplomats and peacemakers.”
Excerpts from
Chapter 10, “War: A Senseless Option Versus Sensible Alternatives” of
AWAY FROM THE MADDING WORLD: A Thoughtful Analysis of the Causes of Human Woes, and Remedial Suggestions
If our political leaders had offered Vladimir Putin some concessions, instead of provoking, humiliating, and infuriating him, the current brutal Ukraine war could have been averted. End this conflict thru compromises. Everyone is suffering – physically, emotionally, or economically.
Let us not forget several of the players in this suicidal game are nuclear powers, and Putin’s nuclear threats must be taken seriously.
I’m afraid another Hitler is in the making!
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Kuriakose T. Chacko
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A PRAYER FOR UKRAINE
Mighty God, I bow before your throne of grace, asking for your divine intervention in the Ukrainian soul in the mighty name of Jesus. I am calling for every prayer warrior to arise and pray for divine protection and peace in Ukraine.
There is nothing impossible for you Lord Jesus, your power has no end and there is nothing you can’t put stop to it, there is no mountain you can’t move. I ask you Heavenly Father to bring your illuminating light to the nation of Ukraine in their darkest days of terror and hide them under your wings in the mighty name of Jesus. We ask you Wonderful Counsellor to grant wisdom to the world leaders and enable them to negotiate a resolution and establish a lasting peace in a wonderful name of Jesus.
I ask you Everlasting Father to do what we humans can’t accomplish, touch and soften the hearts are set on violence and lead them to repentance and we ask you Prince of Peace to let hope arise and let peace fill the entire world in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
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Euginia Herlihy
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Racism will continue to thrive until we see and threat ourselves as humans. Black people stuck in Ukraine are being subjected to racism even as they attempt to flee to safety in Poland during a time of war. Black people are treated with complete and utter contempt by white supremacists all over the world. We should all be condemning this barbaric act.
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Olawale Daniel
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If we do nothing, then democracy dies in vain.
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Anthony T. Hincks
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Every second I am dying inside, for Ukraine. I'm dying for Afghanistan, I'm dying for Palestine, I'm dying for Kashmir. Even my pen pours blood. And this bleeding won't stop till I put an end to the bloodshed of the innocents.
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Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
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The only people who can end Putin's reign of terror for good, are not the governments of the world, but the citizens of the world. Sisters and brothers of planet earth, if you stay silent now, the blood of countless innocents will be on your hands. Awake, arise, and treat the Putin pandemic, like you treated the Covid pandemic.
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Abhijit Naskar
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War may separate friends, but it can also unite enemies.
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Anthony T. Hincks
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What happens when our sanity leaves home?
WARS!
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Anthony T. Hincks
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When the war comes to where you are, you will have wished that you had stood up for peace in the first place.
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Anthony T. Hincks
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If World War hits this world right now in 2022. I don't know how much damage it will do to the world. But two things I can write on paper. These are damn sure.
Post war
1st, 60 to 70 percent of European countries on the new world map will disappear.
2nd, there will be an absolute new world order fully dominated by India, Russia and China.
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Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
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When a nation stays neutral, it's a sovereign country with free will, but when it joins a bloc like NATO, it becomes an army base of an over-ambitious superpower that wants to control world order.
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Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
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Atrocities are a way of life when you're human.
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Anthony T. Hincks
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Don't be like the nitwit Americans of January 6 who felt threatened by the equalization of the American people, instead, be like those brave Russians who have the guts to stand up for life, liberty and equality of their neighbors, even at the risk of being persecuted as traitor to their country.
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Abhijit Naskar (High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination)
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War is Expensive (The Sonnet)
War is expensive, peace is free,
Yet war is petty, peace is priceless.
War is childish, peace is for adults,
Yet war is complex, peace is child's play.
War is for fools, peace is for the sage,
Yet sages sustain war, deeming peace foolish.
War is strain on the brain, peace only needs love,
Yet intellectuals justify war, calling peace rubbish.
War is good for maintaining control over the people,
Hence imperialists peddle war in the name of justice.
But all imperialists are the fault of the civilians,
All wars are a failure of our civilized citizenship.
No war is tougher than the civilians of the world.
Exercise that potential to abolish all imperial gall.
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Abhijit Naskar (High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination)
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Awake, arise, and treat the Putin pandemic, like you treated the Covid pandemic.
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Abhijit Naskar
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Remember that not giving peace a chance to blossom is the biggest risk of all. There is nothing like the fecund beauty of peace.
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Bhuwan Thapaliya
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Heroes
Heroes kill their enemies
Theatre war
Usually
With the sword
With the rifle
With the bomb
With words
With bare hands
With hatred in their eyes
Dazzled
Inside
From hatred furrowed
As machines
Stereotype
Inside
Cold steel
Inside
True Heroes
Counter
Their enemies inside
Delete the flames
The delusions of
The unrestrained blaze
Without the sword
Without the gun
Without the bomb
Without words
Without using bare hands
To kill people
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Sir Kristian Goldmund Aumann
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It's when we stand back and watch that we have already chosen which side that we are on.
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Anthony T. Hincks
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Despite its imperial roots, the current war is being waged in a new international environment defined by the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the disintegration of the post–Cold War international order, and an unprecedented resurgence of populist nationalism, last seen in the 1930s, throughout the world. The war clearly indicates that Europe and the world have all but spent the peace dividend resulting from the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and are entering a new, as yet undetermined, era. A new world order, possibly replicating the bipolar world of the Cold War era, is being forged in the flames of the current war. At the time of writing that war is not over, and we do not yet know what its end will bring. But it is quite clear even today that the future of the world in which we and our children and grandchildren will be living depends greatly on its outcome.
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Serhii Plokhy (The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History)
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That’s why tomorrow I’m going to send to Congress an urgent budget request to fund America’s national security needs, to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine. It’s a smart investment that’s going pay dividends for American security for generations, help us keep American troops out of harm’s way, help us build a world that is safer, more peaceful and more prosperous for our children and grandchildren.
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Joe Biden
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A new spirit had taken hold of Eastern Europe by 1900. It might be most easily characterized as a violent disjuncture between the heart and the head. Materially, things had never been better. Europe was nearing the end of almost a half-century of (barely) interrupted peace. Most adults had never heard a shot fired in anger. That same half-century witnessed an unprecedented burst of economic growth and technical innovation. When steamships were dropping passengers off at Dereszewicze, citizens of Budapest were already riding the city's first underground metro line, which had opened in 1896. Cities, for the first time, were illuminated at night, something Eastern Europe took an unexpected lead in: Lviv was the first city to use modern kerosene lamps, and Timişoara, in present-day Romania, was the first city in Europe to be lilt by electricity.
Railways now crisscrossed the continent, reaching even Janina's home in the forgotten Lithuanian hamlet of Bieniakonie. Grain from Ukraine flooded the American market, while wood from the remotest forests of Lithuania could be shipped all the way to Liverpool and beyond. Buoyed by these new connections, landowners grew suddenly and unexpectedly rich. . . .
But however prosperous things might have seemed, spiritually there was a feeling of mounting crisis. Everywhere people put their trust in progress and scientific discovery, to the detriment of older faiths. In politics, nationalism still held sway -- indeed its influence had never been greater -- but in the arts, its primacy had begun to wane. The great national bards were still being celebrated, ut more as icons of struggle than as writers to be read. Young people especially craved something new.
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Jacob Mikanowski (Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land)
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Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel’s Office was a “backdoor” way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump’s assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort’s strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.
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Department of Justice (The Mueller Report)
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Putin summoned Yanukovych to his home and ordered him to sign a backdated letter asking Russia to invade Ukraine. On March 18, he walked into the Kremlin and announced to thundering applause that Crimea was reunified with Russia. Putin had broken the rules, treaties, and understandings about the sovereignty of nations and the inviolability of borders that had kept the peace in Europe since World War II. No nation on earth had taken another’s land like this since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. And the Russians hadn’t fired a shot. Cyberwarfare, media manipulation, and psyops had done the trick. It was twenty-first-century political warfare at its most potent.
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Tim Weiner (The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020)