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☆ Opinion: Alexey Navalny, one man who stood up to a dictatorship
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-18 | by ( Richard Galant | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +18 min

We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. “In his courageous and too short life,” wrote Russia scholar Daniel Treisman, “Navalny became a symbol of hope for the younger generations of his compatriots. “He never gave up on the prospect of what he called ‘the beautiful Russia of the future,’” Treisman noted. “For a ‘beautiful Russia of the future’ to emerge in coming years, Putin must lose the war he started. Navalny understood this.”“Navalny’s death represents the extinguishing of all hope for Russia’s turnaround,” wrote Sasha Vasilyuk.

Persons: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Stalin “, “, ”, you’ve, Alexey Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s, Navalny, fearlessly, Putin, Daniel Treisman, “ Navalny, Navalny’s, ’ ” Treisman, Sasha Vasilyuk, Alexey Navalny’s, Peter Bergen, Andrei Sakharov, ” Putin, Bergen, Nick Anderson, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Trump, authoritarians, Bill Bramhall, James Mattis, ” Peter Bergen, Frida Ghitis, Fidel Castro’s playbook, Patrick Mahomes, Andy “, Amy Bass, New York Democrat Tom Suozzi, George Santos, ” Suozzi, CNN Suozzi didn’t, Biden, isn’t, Long, Max Burns, ” “, Alejandro Mayorkas, ” “ Suozzi, Burns, Robert Hur’s, Norm Eisen, Richard Painter, Joshua Kolb, Hur, ” Joel Pett, Lawrence C, Levy, Julian Zelizer, Dean Obeidallah, Mark Dent, Dent, Saw, Clay Jones, David Orentlicher, ” Orentlicher, Will Cooper, Fani, Willis, Nathan, Wade, ” “ Willis, Antony Blinken, Batniji, Blinken, Fatah, Hussein, Don’t, David Horsey, Agency Jill Filipovic, Lynda Gorov, Taylor Swift, Jim Parrott, Mark Zandi, Brigid Schulte, Yuliya, Kara Alaimo, Frankie de la, Jackie Robinson’s, Jon Stewart’s, Jon Stewart, Matt Wilson, Jon Stewart skewered Trump, Bill Carter, Stewart, ” “ Stewart Organizations: CNN, IK, Moscow Times, Kremlin, Twitter, Facebook, Soviet, Tribune, Agency, Republican, Senate, Agency Former US Defense, Trump, , Kansas City Chiefs, Chiefs, nab, New, New York Democrat, Democratic, GOP, Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, Super Bowl, Kansas, West Bank Locations: Soviet, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, New York, Washington, Georgia, ,, York, Glen Cove, Joel Osteen’s, Houston, Kansas City, America, ”, Kansas, Gaza, San Francisco, Israel, Iran

☆ Opinion: The real story behind Russia’s new ‘Stalin Centers’
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-20 | by ( Opinion Jade Mcglynn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

CNN —Last month, a new ‘Stalin Center’ was opened in Barnaul, Siberia. According to the independent Levada Center, Stalin has taken first place in their ‘who is the greatest figure of all times and all people’ survey since 2012. Students of a military-sponsored school attend the opening of a series of busts of Russian leaders, including Josef Stalin (center), in Moscow, on September 22, 2017. What the West gets wrong about Stalin and PutinMoreover, these comparisons divert attention from important differences between the Stalin and Putin regimes. That is abundantly not the case in Putin’s Russia, where the government instead encourages a ritualistic patriotism and political apathy.

Persons: Jade McGlynn, “, Read, ’, Jade McGlynn Jade McGlynn, Stalin, Vladimir Putin’s, Josef Stalin, Alexander Zemlianichenko, Memorial, Gorbachev, Yury, Putin, Vladimir Putin, Alexander Nemenov, demonize ’ Stalin, —, weren’t, Mikhail Bulgakov Organizations: Center for Strategic, International Studies, CNN, Communists, Kremlin Russian Communist Party, Levada Center, YouTube, Communist, Reuters, Kremlin, Putin Locations: Putin’s Russia, Barnaul, Siberia, Russian, Penza, Bor, Communist, Russia, Vladimir Putin’s United Russia, Moscow, Perm, Baltic, Laski, Ukraine, today’s Russia, Kyiv, Putin Russia

☆ Opinion | The Genocide Charge Against Israel Is a Moral Obscenity
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-16 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent decades, as many as three million people perished in a famine in North Korea that was mainly government-induced. But North Korea, Syria and China have never been charged with genocide at the International Court of Justice. It’s obscene because it politicizes our understanding of genocide, fatally eroding the moral power of the term. The war between Israel and Hamas is terrible — as is every war. But if this is genocide, what word do we have for the killing fields in Cambodia, Stalin’s Holodomor in Ukraine, the Holocaust itself?

Persons: Assad, Israel Organizations: International Court of Justice Locations: North Korea, China, gulag, Syria, Israel, Cambodia, Ukraine

☆ AI defined 2023. Bullets and ballots will shape 2024
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Simon Robinson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

In that spirit, I asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard – two of the most popular generative AI tools – to do the job for me. It missed the war between Hamas and Israel. In 2024, expect more progress and more news on regulators scrambling to keep up. Next year will also be defined by bullets and ballots. Like many newsrooms, Reuters is experimenting with how AI can help us package, produce and deliver our journalism.

Persons: OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Bard –, ChatGPT, “, ”, Bard, –, Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, machismo, Claudia Sheinbaum, Vladimir Putin, Joseph Stalin’s, What’s, Taylor, Edward Tobin Organizations: United Nations, Gaza Health Ministry, Brussels –, Ukraine –, Washington, U.S, Mexico City, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Ukrainian, Ukraine’s, Washington, Brussels, Moscow, Kyiv, Beijing, Taiwan, U.S, India, Mexico, United States

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — They were banned under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin but commonplace under later Kremlin leaders. Now, after less than a century, official attitudes about abortion in Russia are changing once again. Although abortion is still legal and widely available, new restrictions are being considered as President Vladimir Putin takes an increasingly socially conservative turn and seeks to reverse Russia's declining population. In 2012, the number of “social reasons” for allowing abortion between weeks 12 and 22 was cut to just in the case of rape. He also moved to restrict abortion pills, which are approved to be taken to end a pregnancy in the first 10 weeks.

Persons: —, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Putin, ”, Lina Zharin, we’re, Michele Rivkin, natalist ”, Rivkin, Fish, Mikhail Gorbachev's, Boris Yeltsin, Lyubov, ” Rivkin, Tatyana Golikova, Mikhail Murashko Organizations: Kremlin, Orthodox Church, University of North, Abortion, Conservative, Russian Association of Population, Health, Russian Association for Population, Development, Health Ministry Locations: TALLINN, Estonia, Russia, Kaliningrad, University of North Carolina, Chapel, —

☆ A Subtle Change for Biden
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( David Leonhardt | More About David Leonhardt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

These countries tend to be flawed democracies (like Brazil, India, Israel and Nigeria) or autocracies (like Saudi Arabia and Vietnam). If the U.S. suggests that only democracies are welcome in its alliance, that alliance will shrink. But, he added, Biden “has also been clear that in that larger effort, we need constructive relationships with countries of all different traditions and backgrounds.”The C.I.A. The U.S. strengthened its ties with Vietnam — which remains a one-party state — when Biden visited Hanoi this month. All of this may help explain the approach Biden took at the U.N. yesterday.

Persons: ” Walter Russell Mead, ” Mead, Biden, Peter Baker, Jake Sullivan, ” Sullivan, Biden “, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Narendra Modi, Justin Trudeau, Canada’s, India’s, Edward Wong, Mark Mazzetti, ” Organizations: Washington, Hudson Institute, White House, autocracies, Stalin’s, Vietnam, Saudi Locations: Beijing, Brazil, India, Israel, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, U.S, United States, Stalin’s Soviet, Kuwait, Europe, Japan, South Korea, China, British Columbia, Hanoi, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia

☆ Possible North Korea-Russia weapons deal could be big boost for Kim Jong Un, analysts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Brad Lendon | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Seoul, South Korea CNN —Russia’s failures on the battlefield in Ukraine could turn into a win for North Korea. It would also come after 17 years of UN sanctions aimed at hampering North Korea’s ability to build a fully functioning nuclear weapons and ballistic missile force. North Korea has attempted two satellite launches this year; both ended in failure. Russia’s “purchases will undermine the North Korea sanctions regime and help to generate revenue for the Kim regime. “North Korea makes good what I call heavy industrial weapons,” Schuster said.

Persons: South Korea CNN —, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, “, Sergei Shoigu, Kim, ”, Leif, Eric Easley, Kim Jong, Putin, Doo, Carl Schuster, ” Schuster, Daniel Salisbury, –, ” Salisbury, Schuster, ” Doo, Joseph Dempsey, Trent Telenko, ” Telenko Organizations: South Korea CNN, North, United Nations, US National Security Council, ”, Russian, Putin, Ewha Womans University, CNN, Foreign Relations, Korea Institute for Defense, Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, King’s College London, Russia, US Navy, UN Security Council, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Siberian Railway, US ’ Defense Contract Management Agency Locations: Seoul, South Korea, Ukraine, North Korea, Pyongyang, Russia, Moscow, West, Korea, Iran, Korean, “, Japan, Russian, Vladivostok

☆ Opinion: Russia’s uneasy neighbors
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-23 | by ( Opinion Frida Ghitis | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

“All of Russia’s neighbors are under threat,” he said, “if Ukraine does not prevail.” He will find few who disagree among those neighbors. It’s why Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, one of the most eloquent proponents of the need to support Ukraine, says Ukraine is Estonia’s own front line. Here, the exterior of Russia’s embassy has become a showcase for the contempt Estonians feel for their former master. As in Estonia, Russia’s 21st century assault on Ukraine brought echoes of Russia’s 20th century subjugation of Latvia. Genuine normalcy, a permanent sense of safety, Russia’s neighbors have discovered, will have to wait until peace returns to a secure Ukraine.

Persons: Frida Ghitis, Latvia CNN —, it’s, Lithuania —, Volodymyr Zelensky, ”, Vladimir, Putin, Raivis, “, It’s, Kaja Kallas, Michal Fludra, Ukraine —, ” Janis Melnikovs, Radio Maria, Melnikovs, there’s, Russia —, Toomas, Margit Raud, Margit, —, Galina Domenikovska, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Russia’s Organizations: CNN, Washington Post, Politics, Latvia CNN, Frida Ghitis CNN, Estonian, Russian Embassy, Ukraine Independence, NATO, Catholic, Radio, Ukraine, Kremlin, People Fleeing, Authorities, Soviet Army, Twitter Locations: Riga, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Moscow, Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark, Netherlands, Soviet Union, Tallinn, Estonian, Finland, Helsinki, People Fleeing Ukraine, Viru, Baltics, Russia’s, Baltic, Republic of Georgia, Crimean

☆ Opinion | ‘Oppenheimer’ and the Shadow of Stalin
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

So the point of reading McMeekin’s book is to give early Cold War anti-communism its due. Just this, “Stalin’s War” suggests: They saw Stalin clearly. Nor was Stalin any kind of naïve, unsuspecting victim of Hitler’s Barbarossa onslaught, as some historical clichés would have it. And these Soviet machinations benefited from the same mixture of philo-communism among New Deal liberals and outright Soviet espionage that shaped Oppenheimer’s milieu. As I said, McMeekin’s account is polemical, written as a corrective to other histories and open to counterarguments in turn.

Persons: Stalin, ”, Hitler, McMeekin, Hitler’s Barbarossa, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, It’s Organizations: Soviet, New Deal, Soviet Union Locations: Nazi Germany, Tokyo, Japan, United States, Eastern Europe, East Asia, Baltic States, America, Soviet

☆ ‘The Red Hotel’ Review: The Concierge Was a Communist
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Joshua Rubenstein | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Alamy Stock PhotoThe detention of Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by the Russian government is a reminder of how hazardous distant postings can be in the midst of war—how vulnerable reporters are to the whims of a foreign power. In “The Red Hotel,” Alan Philps takes us to Russia in the midst of World War II, when Stalin imposed extraordinary restrictions on dozens of Western journalists who had been dispatched to Moscow to cover, as he puts it, “the titanic struggle between the then undefeated divisions of Hitler’s Wehrmacht and Stalin’s largely peasant army whose officer class had been shredded in the purges of the 1930s.”

Persons: Evan Gershkovich, ” Alan Philps, Stalin, ” Organizations: Wehrmacht Locations: Russian, Russia, Moscow

☆ Opinion: What Putin must be dreading
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-24 | by ( Peter Bergen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a speech Saturday condemning the mutiny by the Wagner group, comparing the uprising to the events sparked by Russia’s 1917 revolution. Putin claimed that the Russians were stabbed “in the back” by nameless enemies towards the end of World War I, which he said is why the Russians lost that war and that in turn led to “a civil war” in Russia, Putin said. The Russians were not stabbed in the back during World War I, as Putin suggested during his remarks on Saturday. During the 1917 revolution, a Marxist party known as the Bolsheviks seized power. A year later, Nicholas II and other members of the ruling Romanov family ended up on the wrong end of a firing squad.

Persons: Peter Bergen, Peter Bergen ”, Vladimir Putin, Wagner, Putin, “, Nicholas II, Romanov, Josef Stalin’s, Mark Twain, Putin doesn’t Organizations: CNN, New, Arizona State University, Apple, Spotify, Peter Bergen CNN, Communist, Russo, Marxist, Communist Party, KGB, Soviet, Twitter, Facebook Military, Romanovs Locations: New America, Russian, Russia, Ukraine, Europe, Soviet Union, Dresden, East Germany, Afghanistan, Japanese, Soviet

The target was Aleksandr Poteyev, a former Russian intelligence officer who disclosed information that led to a yearslong F.B.I. investigation that in 2010 ensnared 11 spies living under deep cover in suburbs and cities along the East Coast. In keeping with an Obama administration effort to reset relations, a deal was reached that sought to ease tensions: Ten of the 11 spies were arrested and expelled to Russia. According to Mr. Walton’s book, a Kremlin official asserted that a hit man, or a Mercader, would almost certainly hunt down Mr. Poteyev. Based on interviews with two American intelligence officials, Mr. Walton concluded the operation was the beginning of “a modern-day Mercader” sent to assassinate Mr. Poteyev.

Persons: Aleksandr Poteyev, Obama, Sergei V, Mr, Poteyev, Brown, Calder Walton, Walton’s, Ramón, Joseph Stalin’s, Leon Trotsky’s, Walton, Mercader ”, Grigory Mairanovsky Organizations: Intelligence, Harvard, The New York Times, Kremlin Locations: Russian, East Coast, Russia, Moscow, Britain, Mexico City, S.V.R

☆ Opinion: The Ukraine dam disaster demands accountability
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Opinion Frida Ghitis | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Meanwhile, Kyiv and Moscow engaged in an intense round of finger pointing over responsibility for the unfolding environmental disaster. The dam’s collapse is not just devastating for those who reside in the immediate environs — it is a nationwide disaster for Ukraine that could reverberate across the globe. Stalin’s goal in the midst of World War II was to prevent Nazi armies from sweeping across Ukraine, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union. The dam collapsed as Ukraine stepped up operations in anticipation of a much-awaited counter-offensive. The broken walls of the Nova Kakhovka dam, and its destructive rushing waters, should strengthen the resolve of Ukraine’s backers.

Persons: Frida Ghitis, Joseph Stalin, Dmitry Peskov, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky’s, Andriy Yermak, Ursula Von der Leyen, “, Antonio Guterres Organizations: CNN, Washington Post, Politics, Frida Ghitis CNN, Soviet Union, EU, ”, UN, UN Security Council, United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights, Twitter, NATO, Kyiv Locations: Ukraine’s, Dnipro, Ukraine, Kyiv, Moscow, Soviet, Russia, “ Russia, Geneva, Ukrainian, Vilnius, Lithuania, Baltic, Nova

☆ Nova Kakhovka: Ukraine dam collapse serves neither side well as war enters next crucial phase
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Sam Kiley | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

They were to blow up the Zaporizhzhia hydroelectric dam that bisected the eponymous industrial city, which stands 200 kilometers (125 miles) upriver from today’s Nova Kakhovka barricade). Local residents stand on the Dnipro embankment after the Nova Kakhovka dam breach on June 6. Rescue workers evacuate an elderly woman and her husband from a flooded neighborhood in Kherson, Ukraine, on Wednesday, June 7. Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters Flooded streets are seen in Kherson on June 7 following the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam. Alina Smutko/Reuters In pictures: The collapse of Ukraine's Nova Kakhovka dam Prev NextUkraine’s armed forces have insisted that their counter-offensive included contingency planning for a disaster at the dam.

Persons: Ukraine CNN — Fish, ecocide ”, unawares, Ivan Antypenko, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, General’s, ”, Ukraine’s, It’s, who’ve, Vladimir Putin, Andrei Pidlisnyi, –, Evgeniy, Angelina Kopayeva, Alex Babenko, Vladyslav Musiienko, Muhammed Enes Yildirim, Tetiana, Alexey Konovalov, Felipe Dana, Musiienko, Nina Lyashonok, Oleksandra, Alina Smutko Organizations: Ukraine CNN —, Nazi, NKVD, Reuters, International, Criminal, Kherson City, Ukrainian, CNN, AP, Anadolu Agency, Planet Labs PBC, Reuters Red Cross, AP Local, Culture, Reuters Local Locations: Kyiv, Ukraine, Nova, Dnipro, Russia, Moscow, Russian, today’s, Reuters Ukrainian, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk City, Kharkiv, Kherson . Roman, Vladyslav, Nova Kakhovka, Libkos, Crimean, Crimea, Russia’s

☆ Opinion: A cerebral rock star is dead
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Opinion John Avlon | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

He is the author of “Lincoln and the Fight for Peace.” The views expressed in this essay are his own. These celebrated writers were the subject of long-form profiles and occasional tabloid scandals, treated as cerebral rock stars and voices of their generation. They were a post-punk crew that migrated from the UK to the US, including Hitchens, Tina Brown and Salman Rushdie. In his final book, “Inside Story,” part memoir and part novel, Amis returned to his friendship with Hitchens in the 1970s, prior to their becoming famous. It chronicles a doomed affair, flashing forward at times to the decline of their friend Saul Bellows from dementia, as well as Hitchens’ death.

☆ Is Putin’s Russia Worse Than the Soviet State? - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Serge Schmemann | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

That, in fact, may be one major reason many decent Russians feel that Mr. Putin’s Russia — their Russia — is worse than the Soviet state whose demise he laments. They had thought their nation free of the horrible tyranny of its past, and Mr. Putin is not only reviving that but also bringing shame and alienation to their nation. The Soviet Union that these Russians hark back to is the one in its final years, not Stalin’s hell. In their time, the 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet Union was still a repressive police state that maintained a jealous and iron control on information, art, enterprise and just about every other human endeavor. No old Soviet dissident would deny that the physical quality of life in Russia is far higher than it was in those Spartan times.

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