INSANE: 13 | Vintage Vibes

Explainer-Russia and North Korea forge closer ties amid shared isolation

The United States said this week it has information indicating North Korea is covertly supplying Russia with a "significant" number of artillery shells, in what would be a further sign of deepening ties between the two pariah states.

Reuters · Nov 4, 2022

Ukraine says it has downed double the number of warplanes Moscow lost in Afghanistan

Ukrainian forces have destroyed 278 Russian aircraft during eight months of fighting, more than twice as many as the Soviet Union lost in its 1979-89 military intervention in Afghanistan, Ukraine's commander-in-chief said on Thursday.

Reuters · Nov 3, 2022

The West needs an energy alliance

The old line that "history does not repeat itself, but often rhymes", is an apt description of the evolving relationship between the West and its rivals. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was a global superpower, owing to its military prowess. Today, Russia's armed forces appear to be in…

Bangkok Post · Nov 2, 2022

What's a cold war? A historian explains how rivals US and Soviet Union competed off the battlefield

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected].

The Conversation · Oct 24, 2022

Ukraine urges global ban of Russia's RT over presenter's call to drown children

Ukraine branded the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT as an inciter of genocide on Sunday after a presenter said Ukrainian children who saw Russians as occupiers under the Soviet Union should have been drowned.

Reuters · Oct 23, 2022

General Who Led Syrian Bombing Is New Face of Russian War

The general carrying out President Vladimir Putin's new military strategy in Ukraine has a reputation for brutality — for bombing civilians in Russia's campaign in Syria. He also played a role in the deaths of three protesters in Moscow during the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that hastened…

Asharq Al-Awsat · Oct 21, 2022

The Ukrainian filmmaker fighting on the cultural front line

For Sergiy Kulybyshev, making films in a time of war is critical to defending his country’s cultural identity.

Al Jazeera · Oct 18, 2022

Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone review – ingenious, essential viewing from Adam Curtis

Showing everyone from reindeer herders to scientists wrapping themselves in sticky tape to head into Chernobyl, this fine series traces the latterday Russian revolution that brought in a kleptocracy and paved the way for Putin

The Guardian - UK · Oct 13, 2022

A Primo Anniversary: 47 Years Since Our Family's Arrival in the United States

Forty-seven years ago today, my mother Anne, my father Vladimir, my brother Sasha, and I arrived in the United States from what was then the Soviet Union (by way of Austria and Italy, where we waited for our visas to come through). Many, many thanks, America! Why note this on…

Reason · Oct 8, 2022

Is Zaporizhzhya the next Chernobyl?

In 1986, a nuclear calamity that helped bring down the Soviet empire began in Ukraine. Could it happen again?

Salon · Oct 7, 2022