It is not always obvious to casual observers why many Ukrainians don’t want to talk with the Russians who are in opposition to Putin and claim to support Ukraine or see them receiving publicity in the Western media and appearing at cultural events alongside Ukrainians. There are two root causes…

A novel by the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko (1856–1916) offers instructive parallels to modern events, presented from the point of view of the author’s left-wing views. — A barbaric horde of murderers, robbers and rapists advances from the east, like a swarm of locusts, razing to the ground everything on its way, craving to conquer Europe and turn the Westerners into its slaves and vassals. …

A while ago, Ukrainian social media were rocked by a controversy after the Ukrainian writer Yurii Andrukhovych had held a public discussion with the Russian writer Mikhail Shishkin during the Bjørnson Festival, an annual literary event in Norway. Although Shishkin has been living in Switzerland for more than 25 years…

An introduction to Ahatanhel Krymskyi, an inspiring Ukrainian author and scholar who deserves more attention and translations — As the world follows the developments around the war in Ukraine, many became interested in Ukrainian history and culture. Therefore it is not surprising that the number of translations of Ukrainian books has spiked in 2022. Few, however, expected that Ukrainian literature would be translated into Belarusian this year. Yet…

On October 10, 2022, Putin waited when people in Ukraine — and Russia — would wake up after the weekend and start leaving for work, and then launched his missile terror show. …

So, Elon Musk just decided to play a smartass and on October 3, 2022, tweeted a Ukraine-Russia “peace deal” proposal where he suggested that Crimea should be “part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake)”. Why does he think that Khrushchev’s order was a “mistake”, but…

Despite the war, the political life in Ukraine doesn’t stop. Even if the majority of the population is undoubtedly pro-Ukrainian, with the pro-Russian minority keeping low profile, there are different shades of opinions in the media and society that I have broken down into the nine groups below. …

In a previous article, I’ve compared Putin to Hitler. But some say he rather follows in Stalin’s footsteps. That’s partly true. In fact, I believe both tyrants are his role models and inspirations. Putin’s ideology is right-wing, conservative, traditionalist, nationalist, fascist, that is, rather Hitler-style. But geopolitically, being the ruler…

Russian propaganda has long and subtle tentacles penetrating and spoiling the brains of not only its direct consumers, but also, through various toxic narratives, intellectuals and laypersons alike from the far right to the far left, often including those who claim to be neutral when it comes to the current war in Ukraine, and even some of those who say they support Ukraine. — There are certain markers that strongly signal that a person or a media outlet is infected by the Kremlin virus. They always put me on the alert and suggest that whoever pours them forth doesn’t deserve my attention and should rather be ignored.