Too big a temptation of retrospective, selective, and decontextualized reading of Putin–Bush conversations. 1. If one reads from the start, it’s clear that the origins of the post-Soviet Russia–NATO conflict lie primarily not in Ukraine’s (or any other country’s) inclusion, but in Russia’s exclusion. For Russia to be included, either NATO or Russia should have been profoundly changed, including the political-economic reality and the powerful interests behind them. Either NATO should have become more balanced (and now we see what NATO is worth when the US cannot be relied on—not much). Or Russia’s nuclear arsenal (and natural resources) should have been run by a dependent comprador elite that the Western ruling class could rely on. The inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO (“Western civilization”) were steps towards this goal. Of course, military issues such as the nuclear deterrence balance have also clearly been part of the problem. 2. When Putin says about “relying on the anti-NATO forces in Ukraine”, he says this in the context when parties against NATO (Party of Regions and Communists) could win elections in Ukraine. Even Yulia Tymoshenko, leading the most popular nominally pro-Western party, was against NATO membership at that time (a side note: in retrospect, her failed project to establish a permanent “big coalition” with the Party of Regions—which nationalists and compradors feared so much, and which Yanukovych eventually abandoned—could be seen as an attempt to formally institutionalize the system of “oligarchic pluralism” and save the country). Support for NATO among the population was indeed floating around 20%. Even Putin himself was the most popular foreign politician among Ukrainians, and far more popular than any Ukrainian politicians (polling in February 2008, right on the eve of the Bucharest NATO summit). Putin had different ways to create “problems” for NATO enlargement by political means and, in fact, temporarily succeeded when Yanukovych abandoned the goal of NATO integration. Euromaidan changed the context.

Two recent podcasts: With @owenjonesjourno, we discussed the latest developments around negotiations and what led to them. With @yanisvaroufakis, we had a wide-ranging exchange on the bankruptcy of European centrist elites, the limits of military Keynesianism for the EU, and the global context for what may follow the war's end. Links to watch in the comments.

Very good new article about Ukrainian studies, the "voices", and academic freedom in research about Ukraine. By Anna Ivanova. Can Academia Speak about Ukraine? Bridging The War, Scholarly Knowledge Production, and Ukrainian Studies "The dominance of «Ukrainian voices» in academic discourse, voices that lean on their national identity to offer non-contestable, convenient, homogeneous narratives, is no accident. This condition is not evidence of a broad consensus of Ukrainian and Ukraine-focused academics but rather a symptom of power dynamics within academia. By (self-)orientalizing Ukrainian society and romanticizing its struggle in the war, refusing to treat Ukraine seriously, — that is, as a society that, like any other, contains conflicts and contradictions — and reducing its diverse and multifaceted interests to an artificially imposed homogeneity, this approach stifles meaningful inquiry and marginalizes nuanced research on Ukraine. Moreover, scholars and public intellectuals who advance the idea that peace is an exception, while «poverty and war are the norm» (Федорин, Шевчук, Сировой 2024) shape the public agenda not by emphasizing the inadmissibility of war, but by normalizing it."