Tag Archives: ukraine

Exit Orbàn

Toby Abse raises two cheers for the fall of Hungary’s autocrat VICTOR Orbàn’s defeat in the Hungarian general election in mid-April was an event of international, not just purely Hungarian, significance. Orbàn had started his political career as an anti-Communist Liberal, favouring conventional neo-liberal economic policies, and his first stint as prime minister in 1998-2000Continue reading “Exit Orbàn”

Battle fatigue in Ukraine

By Hugh Barnes ON Truth Social, his alt-right media platform, and in any number of rambling speeches, the wannabe Nobel peace laureate Donald Trump likes to claim that he’s on the verge of brokering a ceasefire in Ukraine. But that’s not the way it looks to tens of thousands of war-weary Ukrainian soldiers braving aContinue reading “Battle fatigue in Ukraine”

Reply of the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks

By Hugh Barnes The village of Robotyne stands on the high Zaporizhzhian steppe, a remote area that Ukrainians call the ‘wild fields’. Its wildness has only increased since the Russian invasion in February 2022. On the frontline in the war against Russia, halfway between Crimea and Donetsk, 150 miles in either direction, this battlefield withContinue reading “Reply of the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks”

In Bakhmut

Hugh Barnes watches a funeral on TV It was a Monday in September and all eyes were glued to a televised funeral. But the ceremony was taking place a thousand miles away from Westminster Abbey, at the National Opera House in Kyiv, mourning the loss of a 47-year-old Ukrainian ballet dancer. Oleksandr Shapoval, its principalContinue reading “In Bakhmut”

Germany in crisis

TOBY ABSE warns of the shadow of the Far Right looming over the country’s forthcoming general election LAST autumn’s elections in three East German Lander had a significance that went far beyond the local, or even the national, causing shock waves all over Western Europe. Not only did they ultimately bring down Germany’s federal coalition,Continue reading “Germany in crisis”