Ukraine
Russia’s Atomic Wildfires
Massive wildfires are encroaching on Russia’s defunct nuclear sites, threatening to reignite radioactive compounds that have been dormant since the Cold War. But the country’s understaffed and underexperienced fire service is faltering in the wake of the Ukraine war, leaving populations across the vast interior vulnerable to a compound disaster.
The Fracture of Israel’s ‘Russians’
The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered significant shifts within Israel’s Russian-speaking community. Once viewed as culturally and linguistically monolithic, Russians and Ukrainians are now asserting their unique identities, which include political views notably more liberal than those of the generation who arrived as adults in the 1990s.
The Family Memoirs Uncovering a Different History of the 20th Century
The personal and political collide in three new books — Julia Ioffe’s “Motherland,” Lea Ypi’s “Indignity” and Olia Hercules’ “Strong Roots” — that use family memoir to illuminate the lives of women in 20th-century Eastern Europe.
Europe Rolls Up the Welcome Mat for Russian Nationals
Middle-class Russians are angry that the EU’s new visa restrictions punish them for a war they have no power to stop. But the inconveniences they face pale in comparison to Ukrainian suffering, which the new entry policy makes it more difficult for them to ignore.
How a Classic Russian Opera Became a Work of Protest
The opera “Boris Godunov” — first performed in St. Petersburg in 1874 — has, in recent years, become a lightning rod for clashing interpretations of Putin’s regime and, by extension, the question of Russians’ complicity in the bloodshed in Ukraine.
Putin’s Illegal Conquests Wouldn’t Be the First the White House Has Endorsed
The U.S. denounces Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian land, yet both Republican and Democratic administrations have tolerated illegal conquests by allies, such as Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara and Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and occupation of the West Bank. This double standard undermines the case against territorial concessions.
The Farther East One Goes in Europe, the More ‘West’ One Winds Up
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has led to many unintended consequences, but none so quick and profound as the consolidation of the Nordic and Baltic regions under the NATO umbrella following Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to the alliance in the past two years.