The Russian-Ukrainian conflict reaches back to the times when Ukraine emerged on the world map. In fact, it had started long before Russia established itself as a state. The nature of this conflict, though, has remained unchanged. Since...
Moscow’s falsification of the history of the Circassians and its disavowal of the imperial nature of Russian policy that led to the expulsion of most of the members of that nation not only shows that the Russian government is...
In a wide-ranging and even programmatic interview with the After Empire portal, Ukrainian commentator Vitaly Portnikov describes three often unacknowledged truths about Ukraine and Ukrainians that not only now play but will continue to...
The Church of Greece became the first after the Patriarchate of Constantinople to recognize the Ukrainian autocephaly. At first glance, this is not the most important recent news – especially against the background of what is...
On January 20 twenty-nine years ago, Soviet forces attacked the people of Baku, killing and wounding hundreds and illegally arresting many more. That date remembered in Azerbaijan to this day as Black January is less well-known to many now...
Many commentators have suggested that the grant of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is a great victory for Ukrainians but a defeat for Russians, but that is not the case, Andrey Illarionov says. It is a defeat for Vladimir...
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov says Moscow will not recognize the Donbas “republics” because to do so would be “to lose all the rest of Ukraine and leave it to the Nazis,” a clear indication from...
Russian leaders like Vladimir Putin routinely denounce others as Russophobes, but most of those they target do not hate or fear the Russian people, Sergey Kornyev says. In fact, the real Russophobes are those in the Kremlin itself who seek...
As the world’s attention shifts, many Russians and many in the West are telling themselves that Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has been a war like any other regardless of whether they support it or not. But in fact, as...
As the 100th anniversary of the 1917 revolution that led to a partial disintegration of the empire and the 25th anniversary of the 1991 events that led to the demise of the USSR approach, Russia appears to have entered “another...
In October 2022, a few weeks before the Ukrainian Army liberated Kherson, Russian soldiers parked several school buses next to the Regional Art Museum named after Oleksii Shovkunenko. Over four days, the invaders loaded their vehicles with...