But this mix of fear, powerlessness, and anxiety doesn’t just make people obedient. It makes many of them angry. And anger always needs a target. So when the regime hands them “enemies,” it’s a perfect outlet. They get to hold on to their belief system and vent their frustration at the same time.

On state TV, in Telegram channels, you hear bloodthirsty calls for violence, and it feels like the whole country is hungry for war. But the real hate-mongering comes from educated, well-off people—journalists, influencers, and celebrities—terrified they’ll be the next target.

A Bellingcat investigation has identified 23 multi-storey housing complexes — more than 50 buildings with at least 6,000 apartments – being built in the ashes of Mariupol and advertised for sale, with low interest rate loans, to Russian citizens. Construction of the first buildings has been completed; new residents have already moved in. Meanwhile, many of the original Ukrainian owners cannot return home.

Why don’t they protest? Because every Russian alive today descends from survivors who learned the same brutal lesson: if you resist, you die. Almost every family carries the scars of revolution, civil war, or Stalin’s purges. Many don’t know the details—because it was too dangerous to talk about—but the instinct remains. Survival means adapting. Or siding with the oppressor. That is why, even now, everything is considered “fine.”

Why don’t they protest? Because every Russian alive today descends from survivors who learned the same brutal lesson: if you resist, you die. Almost every family carries the scars of revolution, civil war, or Stalin’s purges. Many don’t know the details—because it was too dangerous to talk about—but the instinct remains. Survival means adapting. Or siding with the oppressor. That is why, even now, everything is considered “fine.”

A groundbreaking study released today by Economists for Ukraine reveals that the actual value of U.S. aid to Ukraine is significantly lower than widely reported. Contrary to the U.S. government's estimate of more than $60 billion in military assistance, the study finds that the real value amounts to approximately $18.3 billion. The full report is available at https://econ4ua.org/aid-value.

...

“Public narratives about aid to Ukraine often overlook the distinction between appropriations and actual delivered value,” said the Economists for Ukraine leadership team. “This study provides a comprehensive, data-driven assessment that clarifies how much Ukraine is truly receiving.”

For almost two and a half years, Ukraine’s partners have allowed themselves to be intimidated into denying Ukraine certain categories of weapons and restricting attacks inside Russia. This is usually done while piously citing the need to prevent the current conflict from spreading any further. Western policymakers apparently prefer to ignore the overwhelming evidence from the Battle of the Black Sea, which confirms that when confronted by resolute opposition, Putin is far more likely to back down than escalate.

By defining the invasion in explicitly spiritual terms, the Russian Orthodox Church hopes to whitewash the war crimes being committed in Ukraine and encourage more ordinary Russians to volunteer. Moscow’s recent declaration of a holy war also sends an unmistakable message to anyone in the West who still believes in the possibility of striking some kind of compromise with the Kremlin. While Putin initially sought to justify the invasion as a pragmatic response to the growth of NATO, it is now apparent that he views the war as a sacred mission and will not stop until Ukraine has been wiped off the map of Europe.

In recent years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has shown an impatient determination to resolve Taiwan’s status in a way his predecessors never did. He has ordered a meteoric military buildup, instructing Chinese forces to give him by 2027 a full range of options for unifying Taiwan. These signals are triggering debate in Washington and elsewhere about whether Taiwan is strategically and economically important enough to merit protection through the most challenging of contingencies. But make no mistake: whether one cares about the future of democracy in Asia or prefers to ponder only the cold math of realpolitik, Taiwan’s fate matters.

The United States has so far provided military aid to Ukraine that amounts to roughly a tenth of its total annual defense budget. In return, one of America’s most dangerous enemies has sacrificed almost all of its existing soldiers and the bulk of its armor. The courage of the Ukrainian people and the valor of their armed forces have accomplished all of this without a single American soldier being ordered into battle. And yet Republicans want to depict this astonishing achievement as a budgetary strain that makes America less safe.

Det går därför inte att generellt hävda att en förhandlingslösning alltid är att föredra framför fortsatt krig. Det går heller inte att påstå att varje fred är att föredra framför krig. Kostnaden för freden måste vägas mot kostnaden för fortsatt krig. Det finns många exempel på historiska fall där lidandet, också kostnaden i människoliv, varit större på grund av fiendens brutalitet efter att striderna upphört än under själva kriget. Den fred som uppkommer kan råda mycket länge, och effekten av sådant som förlorad demokrati och nedtrampade mänskliga rättigheter kan då komma att påverka många generationer, vilket gör att kostnaden med en dålig fred växer när det långa tidsperspektivet beaktas.