Portside

The Russo-Ukrainian War and the rest of us.

Whose side are we on? That is the question that anyone professing a commitment to anti-imperialism should be asking, when a sovereign nation is invaded by a Great Power.

Are the people of the world condemned to live forever under the heels of the great powers?  Or is it still possible to take another step along the road to a peaceful, humane planet?

Teaching college classes about the geographies of Russia and East-Central Europe, it is becoming clear that Putin’s ultimate goal is to carve off a distinct Russian-speaking region from Ukraine. The partition of Ukraine is very much on the table.

War, for those who actually experienced it ... is hell. Those who saw combat do not return whole. Their dreams reek of death, of comrades torn apart, of foreign children shot by accident.