🇨🇦⚜️ polisci prof @mcgillu, Director Jean Monnet Centre Montreal; Rule of law, anticorruption, democracy; Book on Ru-Ukraine War: https://xitter.cf/t.co/8ZtQUyWPFG
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Joined May 2013
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Our book isn't straightforwardly about "war and peace", but about the regime and identity divergence between Ru and Ukraine, which Ru refuses to accept. We'll take the "hot new releases" label, though! Thanks, Amazon. @OxanaShevel @politybooks
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
NATO accepts, on the condition that Russia push back to its 1462 borders and clear out troops and equipment from countries along NATO’s borders.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
What a pathetic weasel. The French should be ashamed of this idiot who's just cowed by the Mercator projection again.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
To remind you, Putin could have opted for negotiations, but he ultimately chose war
So here comes an interesting part! Putin himself was presented a (still inconclusive) draft treaty on 15 April 2022. Quoting the Russian sources, Reuters argues, however, that Putin rejected the agreement and pressed ahead with military campaign
reuters.com/world/asia-pacif…
Repeat after me: Russia has no legitimate security concerns; only its neighbours do. Russia has been the only one invading others.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
This only confirms that Russia has not changed its ultimate strategic objective: the destruction of NATO.
🚨 Putin plans to use Ukraine peace talks to push NATO back to its 1997 military posture
According to The Telegraph, the Kremlin wants to force NATO to scale back its military presence in Europe to levels seen before Eastern European countries joined the Alliance.
This could mean demanding the withdrawal of NATO forces from Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland.
That is why Moscow is pushing for European countries to participate in negotiations over Ukraine. Diplomatic sources cited by The Telegraph say Putin wants to turn talks about ending the war into negotiations over the entire European security architecture.
The issue may also have been discussed during Putin's three-hour meeting with Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in St. Petersburg.
However, European countries have previously rejected the Kremlin's demands to reduce NATO's military presence on its eastern flank.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Reality is finally crashing down on the Kremlin: Trump can't deliver the easy capitulation putin was banking on.
In a telling moment of backdoor realisation, putin’s top aide, Yuri Ushakov, just exposed Moscow's deep desperation. He admits that dealing strictly with Trump and his real estate “diplomats”, isn't working because Trump can't just bully Kyiv into submission. Instead, Russia is finally forced to accept a hard truth: they have to deal with a united Europe that stands firmly behind Ukraine. Desperate for progress, Moscow now wants Europe at the table—proving once and for all that Trump's 'magic wand' has completely failed.
Pavel Zarubin: “Is such an option possible, if Zelensky continues to behave insolently toward the American administration, that the American administration will simply dictate and force him to make the decisions that the American administration considers correct?”
Yuri Ushakov: “Well, you understand, even earlier there was an impression after Anchorage, too, that the American administration could dictate something like that and force Kyiv to fulfill it. But so far this hasn't quite worked out, because it's not enough to talk only with Kyiv; one needs to talk with the whole of Europe, which fully supports Kyiv, and perhaps Europe's position here is of a key character.”
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
I am preparing updated slides for a public talk about the war in Ukraine and made this infographic to illustrate the costly Russian conquests, and how much worse they have been faring over time. This explains a lot about why Putin needs Trump to ride to his rescue so badly and why the US government has renewed the push for Ukraine to cede the remainder of Donetsk without a fight. The Russians are simply incapable of conquering it without a massive new mobilization (which even in the threatening environment there the polls show 73% oppose).
Any talks/negotiations about a post-war security arrangement for Europe need to start from the indisputable fact that Russia’s neighbours have an acute need of protection from Russia whereas Russia has no demonstrable need for protection (and it already has nukes for that).
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Calls victims who fight because they don’t want to die helplessly "warmongers". How dare Ukraine refuse occupation and subjugation and disturb profitable deals with the genocidal Russian regime!
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Today, another Russian smear campaign is trying to pretend that Ukraine, or Zelenskyy personally, rejected a good "peace deal" in Istanbul in 2022.
The "peace plan" in question included strict limitations on the Ukrainian armed forces, rendering them harmless and defenseless. No alliances were allowed. It also included security guarantees, but with a funny kicker: Russia demanded that triggering these security guarantees required the unanimous agreement of all guarantor states, including Russia itself.
In other words, Ukraine was supposed to disarm almost completely, after which Russia could attack again and just block Ukraine from receiving any military aid. Comfy, right?
The "peace deal" proposed in Istanbul was, in fact, a "disarm and let Russia slaughter us" deal. The full details are public by now. Research it yourself and don't fall for the propaganda.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Today’s election in Serbia also shows that while it was right to call Aleksandar Vučić an autocrat (because that is what he has been in recent years), it was wrong to call him a dictator, as he was not one. Dictators don’t lose elections. And if they do, they don’t admit defeat.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Ukraine today is Britain in 1940, standing alone against aggression while others debate. The U.S. and Europe have a moral and practical obligation to stand with them. I joined @JessicaDean on @CNN.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
"Imagine if in 1943 President Franklin Roosevelt had abandoned Britain and switched to back the Third Reich; that is a bit like Trump’s seeming pivot from Ukraine to Russia."
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Ex-Ukrainian PM Yatsenyuk: There is a source to fund the war: $300 billion in Russian assets frozen in Belgium. We need to confiscate them for Ukraine
As a lawyer, I say it’s fully legal under international law, as a countermeasure under the UN Charter. 1/
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
I’ll take a shot at answering one of these good questions. These poor young people are not dying for "no reason". They’re dying because Vladimir Putin's Russia invaded Ukraine and Ukrainians don’t want to be murdered. I hope this helps.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
After a night of frolicking and disorder, this account will return to its mission: a free, prosperous, strong and united Europe for all Europeans. That means keeping Russian enslaving expansionism in check from without and fighting all agents of chaos from within. Our path is just, and we will prevail.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Weird thing to do if you only have legitimate security concerns about NATO expansion.
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has officially mandated the rebaptism of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians and banned them the use of the Ukrainian language in divine services.
On October 22, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church approved a document titled "Guidelines for the Reception of Individuals from Ukrainian Schismatic Structures Wishing to Join the Russian Orthodox Church." It applies to people in Russian-occupied territories who were previously affiliated with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), or the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
The document outlines three procedures for joining the ROC. Notably, it stipulates that individuals baptized within the OCU, UOC-KP, or UAOC must undergo the Sacrament of Baptism again to join the ROC. Different rules apply to those originally baptized within the ROC, the Roman Catholic Church, or a Protestant denomination.
Regarding the accession of entire congregations to the ROC, the document states that such a community may not demand a distinct liturgical order or a special administrative status. Furthermore, the use of any language other than Church Slavonic in divine services is prohibited—even though the ROC elsewhere permits the use of various other languages, ranging from English to Japanese.
🤣🤣
New: Sources from three countries confirm that the Trump Administration has advocated Viktor Orbán for UN Secretary-General.
The US has encouraged Orbán to enter the race, even bringing him the initial idea of a joint U.S.-Russia-China candidacy.
WSJ:
wsj.com/opinion/viktor-orban…
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Actually, when Ushakov says “Europe needs to be dealt with too,” he’s linking it to his previous point about the US forcing Kyiv to make certain decisions. In other words, he’s saying that Trump shouldn’t just bully Ukraine, he should bully Europe too.
Reality is finally crashing down on the Kremlin: Trump can't deliver the easy capitulation putin was banking on.
In a telling moment of backdoor realisation, putin’s top aide, Yuri Ushakov, just exposed Moscow's deep desperation. He admits that dealing strictly with Trump and his real estate “diplomats”, isn't working because Trump can't just bully Kyiv into submission. Instead, Russia is finally forced to accept a hard truth: they have to deal with a united Europe that stands firmly behind Ukraine. Desperate for progress, Moscow now wants Europe at the table—proving once and for all that Trump's 'magic wand' has completely failed.
Pavel Zarubin: “Is such an option possible, if Zelensky continues to behave insolently toward the American administration, that the American administration will simply dictate and force him to make the decisions that the American administration considers correct?”
Yuri Ushakov: “Well, you understand, even earlier there was an impression after Anchorage, too, that the American administration could dictate something like that and force Kyiv to fulfill it. But so far this hasn't quite worked out, because it's not enough to talk only with Kyiv; one needs to talk with the whole of Europe, which fully supports Kyiv, and perhaps Europe's position here is of a key character.”