Putin

ŽIŽEK: Mad World is basically 'Pandemic-3: The Aftermath'. Slavoj Žižek wrote many chronicles, commentaries and film reviews during the covid-19 pandemic. This is his third collection of texts.

RUSSIA: Mikhail Khodorkovsky discusses Russia's future after Putin and advocates revolution, democracy and fair distribution of resources. It is about achieving a new, open and fair country that can reclaim its place in the international community...

FRED: Linn Stalsberg identifies in his new book that accepting war as a human normal state is one of the great danger signals today. We have become accustomed to the idea that war is a necessity, and that war can be morally required on top of that. At the same time, religion is often used cynically as a tool to promote a warlike development – ​​this extends from Pope Urban to Putin and Netanyahu to Hamas.

RUSSIA: Anna Politkovskaya's daughter: "My greatest wish is to experience Russia as a flourishing, free and developed country, not desolate, poor and militarized."

RUSSOPHOBIA: Russophobia has cost hundreds of thousands of lives – not because you are afraid of the Russians, but because you need enemy images. Did the USA/NATO have a carefully planned and announced provocation intended to provoke reactions from Russia?

NATO ENLARGEMENT: The exclusion of Russia was a serious violation of international law. President Bush's promises to Gorbachev were nothing but deception – he appeared as a two-faced Janus, working closely with Gorbachev on a tactical level, while actually forcing the Soviet Union to retreat on a strategic level. We in the West claim that Russia must follow international law, but we ourselves can break it when it suits us.

MODERN TIMES CONVERSATIONS: We talk to the former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, the man who could have become Prime Minister of Great Britain, about current issues – such as military rearmament, Ukraine, Israel, climate justice and work, security, democracy, citizens' councils, and not least a hope for the future.

UNITED NATIONS: MODERN TIMES prints here Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's speech to the UN Security Council in New York on 20 September 2023. He emphasizes that the UN Charter is the cornerstone of today's international legislation – which has not been followed in terms of peace and security in Ukraine. Lavrov also points out that the Ukrainian constitution states that the state is obliged to respect the Russians and other ethnic minorities. In Lavrov's view, it is the Western countries that do not want to overcome the deep crisis that has arisen in international relations. Here you have the opportunity to (and with ORIENTERINGs several articles) to read and evaluate yourself.

THE OIL STATE: In this book, Alexander Etkind states that Russia is the least equal, the most militarized and the most carbonized of all the world's major countries.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: The experts say the danger of nuclear war has never been greater than right now. The danger of accidents, nuclear weapons going astray, cyber infiltration and misunderstandings has increased. Here comes a deep dialogue with the nuclear weapons philosophy, where intellectuals have tried to get a grip on the incomprehensible: the threat of the annihilation of the world. And what does Sergej A. Karaganov, foreign policy and military strategic adviser to Putin's government, say? Is the only thing we can do is to postpone the apocalypse, to avert it again and again?

GHOST? With the renewed threat of nuclear war, MODERN TIMES shines a spotlight on an earlier book. Are nuclear weapons suitable for blackmailing other countries – coercive diplomacy? No, according to these authors.

EQUIPMENT: That the rest of the world, apart from the West, does not stand on the side of Norway, the USA and NATO when it comes to Ukraine today, is not surprising when we know the centuries of looting and colonial times, followed by imperialist wars and Western-backed coups. It is still "war and weapons that create peace" that is the narrative. Stop the race to a possible world war!

ADVERTISING: Leaked classified intelligence documents from the White House revealed in April that Ukraine was soon facing a dramatic defeat – quite different from the propaganda we had all long heard. In this essay, our regular writer, John Y. Jones, looks at the many sides of propaganda – as we are today increasingly surrounded by fake news, unsubstantiated claims and politically biased information.

ADVERTISING:Learning the art of "lying masterfully" is important for all propagandists

RUSSIA: Mary Elise Sarotte demonstrates thorough knowledge of the Cold War – and today's horrific continuation of it.

SATIRE: MODERN TIMES has spoken to seven Ukrainian and one Russian cartoonist, all associated with the Libex network, about how they view their work in relation to the war in Ukraine.