politics
Toward a Putin–Trump Pact?
Faced with the alliance of the forces of "peace", Russia and the United States, it is Europe which is now accused of being "fascist".
Is Putinism Fascist?
Classical fascism offers striking parallels with Putin's policies. For Ukrainians, Putin's fascism is obvious.
How money stained with Ukrainian blood feeds contemporary art in Venice
A new cultural institution is headed by the daughter of an oligarch directly participating in the genocidal war.
The Georgian Dream That Shattered the European Dream
In November 2003, the Rose Revolution took place in Georgia. Following disputed parliamentary elections, large demonstrations organized by the opposition spread across the country, ultimately leading to the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze, who was suspected of corruption. In the subsequent presidential election, pro-Europe opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili was...
Orbán’s “Peace Mission” and the EU
Viktor Orbán is clearly positioning himself as a European link between Putin and Trump, despite the EU's disapproval.
French Sovereignty and Western Solidarity in the Face of the Moscow-Tehran-Beijing Axis
The concrete exercise of sovereignty requires a certain number of conditions, including a clear awareness of the issues of the time.
Tomorrow: France Versus Ukraine? A Momentum Cut Short
While France has made remarkable conceptual progress in its support for Ukraine in recent months, a victory for the far right could call this into question at the worst possible moment.
Toward a Putinization of France?
This essay deals with both history and current events. The author demonstrates how Putin’s regime and its ideologues work to destroy French society from within and make it an ally of Moscow. Françoise Thom also recalls how the "popular fronts" in the Eastern countries freshly occupied by the USSR...
A Shared Democratic Struggle in Ukraine and France
In France, the announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly had the effect of a tsunami. In three weeks’ time, we risk seeing a cohabitation that would severely test French support for Ukraine and even the foundations of our democracy. However, even in these dark times, the struggle...
Subverting Elites and Manipulating the Masses: how Russian Interference Corrupts American Politics
Russian political culture has already permeated some American political circles. Fortunately, American opinion remains overwhelmingly pro-Kyiv, as does the Republican establishment.
Giorgi Gakharia: “This law Serves Russian Interests”
The former Prime Minister of Georgia explains in this interview what are the challenges of the law on foreign agents which has caused a real uproar within Georgian society.
Comrade Putin’s Sexennial Plan
Reading this 13-page document, it is difficult not to be reminded of the Soviet five-year plans inaugurated by Stalin in 1929.
The Quarrels of the Russian Opposition
A new documentary, produced by Alexeï Navalny's Anti-Corruption Fund and devoted to the Yeltsin period, has sparked contrasting reactions. This intense controversy reveals a lot about the state of mind of Russian society.
Where is the Will of the West?
In the confrontation between the West and Russia which started on February 24, 2022, the West and Ukraine had everything they needed to win: economic resources far superior to Russia's, a technological edge in military capabilities, and last but not least, the international law on their side. Despite this,...
Would Brussels Fall for Russia’s Trick of Obfuscated Political Reality in Georgia?
While Europeans saw the failure of the attempt to depose the Georgian president as "a victory for Georgia's European future", Jaba Devdariani shows, with facts to back it up, that it was in fact a maneuver by the Georgian government to conceal an otherwise serious affair of collusion by...
Russia: the end of Consensus
According to this French historian, the image of an almost monolithic Putinist system now turns out to be an illusion. Putin has prevailed because he promises two things: fabulous wealth for those who serve him, and the restoration of Russia as a great power. Today, however, he has wrecked...
The Russian Lobby in the United States
In this thorough investigation, historian Laurence Saint-Gilles sketches the contours of the Russian lobby in the United States and identifies its preferred themes, before examining the conditions that have enabled this lobby — whose members have sometimes been established on American soil for many years — to penetrate deeply...
The Toxic Spell of “Imperial Knowledge”
In this paper, the Ukrainian political scientist and thinker explains how the Russian imperial vision of Ukraine has penetrated deep into Western society, how its most toxic myths and clichés have been uncritically accepted and normalized, and how this has helped to spread the rhetoric of Russian propaganda around...
Russia: the Impossible “Union Sacrée”
Union sacrée: united patriotic front of all parties formed at the beginning of the first World War.
The historian Françoise Thom reminds us that the theme of the Union sacrée has already been exploited in Russian history. Today, the call of the regime's propagandists for a holy alliance against the...
Defeating the Russian Bearhemoth in the Historiverse
As an expert on the European far right, the author analyzes the importance of the German-Soviet pact of 1939, also known as the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact", the real trigger for WWII according to him. If one of the signatories — Nazi Germany — has lost the war, the other one...
Georgia: to be or not to Be
Russia's aggression against Ukraine is having a considerable impact in the former Soviet countries. In many of them, it is reflected in a political crisis, open in Georgia, latent in Central Asia. Public opinion may be mobilized in favor of Ukraine but governments are choosing to be cautious and...
In Europe, There can be no French Exceptionalism
The strategic ambiguities of France and Germany and the reiteration of Emmanuel Macron’s unfortunate words on the “humiliation” that the Allies should not inflict to Russia are leading more and more European countries to imagine an alternative path to the EU and NATO on security issues.
After the important conference...
Ukraine: let’s be Careful not to Divide Europe — and the Alliance
While the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance had shown a remarkable unity in their firmness towards the Russian regime and in their support for Ukraine, certain divisions, sometimes exaggerated, but also partly real, are beginning to appear again. Some perceive “nuances”, but it is to be feared that...
The Other Russian Offensive
Faced with the perilous situation that the West’s unanimous condemnation of the war in Ukraine represents, Russia has launched a new "special operation", this time inside Western countries. It has mobilized both its friendly media and its networks of agents of influence within the decision-makers.
A few days ago, the...
Sergei Lavrov and the Return of Soviet and Russian Anti-Semitism
After Sergei Lavrov's outrageous statements about Hitler's "Jewish blood", which caused an outcry in Israel and around the world, Vladimir Putin is reported to have apologized in a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But Boris Czerny, an expert on the Jewish heritage of Ukraine and Belarus,...
Reveling in Transgression
With Vladimir Putin, one always believes that the bottom of disgrace has been reached, that the Kremlin cannot do even worse. But since February 24, almost every day brings a new ignominy. Two recent episodes invite us to reflect on the Russian president's penchant for demonstratively trampling with relish...
Russian Ideologues Aim to Liquidate the Ukrainian Nation
The author examines the writings of the former Russian president and prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, who currently holds the post of vice-president of the Russian Security Council, and of one of the regime's rather discreet ideologues, Timofei Sergeytsev. Both advocate the destruction of Ukraine, whose name should not even...
Beyond the “negotiations”, a long war
Is the timid opening in the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on March 29 in Istanbul a "positive signal", as President Zelensky declared? If the Europeans give in to the illusion of a false peace and lift, or simply reduce, sanctions and military aid, it will be a tragedy,...
Istanbul Talks: What Does Russia Want?
The announcement of the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations has raised hopes in the West, and stock markets have rebounded. Is this enthusiasm justified? Is a compromise possible?
A careful reading of the statements of the Russian leaders and their representatives should be enough to dampen the hopes of the optimists. The current...
Joe Biden and the “Butcher”: Truth and Exit
President Joe Biden’s phrase calling Vladimir Putin a “butcher” and his exhortation, if not his prayer, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” have provoked many reactions. In fact, they only expressed the truth. While some hide behind the saying “not all truth is good truth,” few...
Natan Sharansky: Putin’s Two Major Mistakes About Ukraine and the West
In a video conference organized on March 22 by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy , Natan Sharansky explained how he sees Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. According to the former dissident, the President of the Russian Federation appears, quite paradoxically, as an...
Creating Frankenstein
Today’s Russia was largely prefigured by the red-brown coalition in the early 1990s, and Putin is just its embodiment, an epitome of the national (imperial) spirit, mentality and basic instincts. Without NATO expansion we would not have a "better" Russia today but we would certainly have many more countries...
The Medium Term Consequences of Attempts to Re-engage With the Russian Regime
In my previous paper for Desk Russie, I pointed out the fatal consequences of the lack of understanding of the nature of Putin’s regime by some Western leaders. I am trying to go further here: the attempts to re-engage with the Kremlin have also had long-term effects on the...
Prophecy and Anger: “Useless Knowledge”
In a 1988 book, La connaissance inutile (Useless Knowledge), the French philosopher Jean-François Revel analyzed a classic paradox: never have we, the decision-makers in particular, had so much information, but this information sometimes hardly fertilizes the public decision. Everything happens as if it were put aside and as if,...
With Putin’s Russia, the Impossible Status Quo
During his trip to Moscow and then to Kyiv, President Emmanuel Macron insisted that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity were non-negotiable. He also reaffirmed the principles of the 1990 Charter of Paris. In Kyiv, before President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he recalled the tragic price that the Ukrainian people had paid...
Putin: Flirting With Armageddon
After the Westerners' refusal to accept the Russian ultimatum of December 17, the West is slowly becoming aware that the risk of war with Russia may be real, that it is more than just Ukraine, that Putin, this "latent extremist", according to the political scientist Gleb Pavlovski, may not...
Kazakhstan: Voices of Russian Opponents
The Free Russia Forum was created in 2016 by a group of politicians, scholars, journalists, and cultural figures from the ex-USSR, in order to gather together Russian supporters of European democratic values, wherever they may live — in Russia or abroad. Its leading figure is Garry Kasparov, former World...
The West under the Gun: how to Deal with a Blackmailer
The video-meeting between Biden and Putin on December 7 has given rise to much speculation in the small world of experts. Biden having previously consulted with France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy, and having threatened Putin with drastic sanctions if he attacked Ukraine, one might have thought that the...
Turkey and Ukraine: Ins and Outs of Their Defense Partnership
Meeting in Riga (Latvia) on 1 December 2021, representatives of NATO member countries reaffirmed their support for Ukraine. Indeed, tensions are rising on the Russian-Ukrainian borders, with the increase in Russian military resources raising fears of a new tactical strike on a portion of Ukrainian territory, or even an...
Will There be a new War?
In the international community there is a growing talk of a new attack from Russia and Belarus on Ukraine. To date, at least 92 000 Russian troops are massed on Ukraine's borders. There are even rumors that it might happen in January or early February, when the Polesye marshes...
The Migration Crisis: the Other Side of the Hybrid war Against Europe
In May 2021, as Putin began to implement his strategy of strangling Europe with gas deprivation, the Belarusian dictator launched another time bomb. On May 26 he announced that Minsk would no longer detain illegal immigrants trying to reach the territory of the European Union via Belarus: "We were...
Strategy of the Absurd
A lot of recent information about Russia can be disconcerting for a reasonable reader. It is absurd. It is incomprehensible. The behavior of the authorities towards the society is so harsh and unmotivated that one is reminded of Vaclav Havel's words about Absurdistan. But the idea of triumphant absurdity...
Does Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Vote in Europe?
The question of a possible preference of the Russian regime for a certain potential French far-right candidate has fueled recent debates and could do so again in the coming weeks and months. I think it is important that these discussions, based on facts and arguments, remain free and open....
Zemmour or the Fascination for Putin
For several weeks, Eric Zemmour has been at the forefront of the media scene. When it comes to East-West relations and the fate of Europe, the former editorialist from Le Figaro systematically espouses the views of Mélenchon-Le Pen, to such an extent that Franz-Olivier Giesbert, , considers that "sovereignism...
How the Putin Regime Bets its Legitimacy at the Electoral Casino
In Russia, the election is a dirty game. The whole process is controlled by the bureaucracy, the information system, and intelligence services. Nothing is left to chance. During the legislative elections of 17-19 September 2021, no independent political figure was allowed to run. Only the Kremlin's party, United Russia,...
Special Operation “Elections” in Russia. User Guide
Thirty years after the failed putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev, and the victory of universal suffrage and people’s sovereignty, Vladimir Putin has launched a new SpetsOperatsia against parliamentarism and the right to free and fair vote. For Operation Elections on September 17-19, 2021, he has chosen to free himself from...
The Taliban Against Russia? Neither Alliance, nor Fight
The victory of the Taliban was carefully prepared by Moscow: for a long time already, the Kremlin had been maintaining communication channels with this group officially recognized by the Russian state as a terrorist organization. In the short term, Putin seems to have completed a form of safe-conduct for...
A Dr Strangelove in the Kremlin?
In his big election speech on March 1, 2018, to thunderous applause, Putin catalogs the new doomsday weapons Russia is working on. The Russian president makes it clear he is not bluffing. The West "has failed to contain Russia" and "will have to listen to it". Putin's speech was...
Russia’s Ukraine According to Putin: how This Propagandistic Narrative Risks Reaching the West
In a July 12, 2021 essay that caused a stir among security analysts, Vladimir Putin considered the Russian and Ukrainian peoples to be one. He almost explicitly denied Kyiv’s right to independence, thirty years after it had regained it. He has legitimized his aggression against Ukraine and, by the...
Putin-Biden: a Double-edged Summit
In Geneva on June 16, the American and Russian presidents, each in their own way, acknowledged that they had agreed on nothing, except that they should seek to get along better. The Geneva summit was indeed a meeting between two adversaries, not a conversation between two strategic partners.
Naturally, both...