Doctors Without Borders has been working in Russia since 1992. For 32 years, the organization has been engaged in the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis and HIV, assistance to the homeless, and humanitarian aid in Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan.
It says a lot that the organization has had to work for years in Russia, a country that likes to present itself as a first-world nation that shouldn’t need this sort of help…
Anatol Lieven says that addressing the climate crisis demands detente with Russia.
It was all too miserably apparent that in the years-long run-up to the Ukraine war, no western government, security institution or indeed leading newspaper made the disastrous consequences of war for action against climate breakdown part of their calculations or saw this as a key reason to seek compromise with Russia.
He does not chastise Putin for failing to recognise that the climate crisis demands compromise with the West. However, he does seem to imply that we must throw Ukraine under the bus to preserve our own democracy and human rights.
To move to a different mindset, several recognitions are necessary. The first is that if we fail to adequately limit climate breakdown, then very few of the other causes that progressives care about will survive in the world that will result. In a world of starvation and societal collapse, there would be little chance of human rights, let alone gender rights.
An environmental activist asks for compromise with China’s gas station. It would be merely absurd if he didn’t start out his plea for appeasement by bolstering it with actual facts of the damage caused in no small part by Russia’s existential reliance on excavating and exporting fossil fuels. But pay no attention to that, let’s focus on the West (specifically the U.S., Canada, and Australia) as being the prime villains of the story.
Australia is considering sending decommissioned M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, in collaboration with the U.S., according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Ukraine has expressed interest in acquiring the 59 tanks, valued at $550M, which were never used in combat. Australia’s former army chief Peter Leahy supports the idea, questioning why they haven’t been offered to Ukraine yet. Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia confirmed they would gladly receive and use the tanks if provided directly or through the U.S.
(Article paywalled)
Reuters:
