The end of Soviet Ukraine and the collapse of Soviet ideology created an identity vacuum. As Yasha Levine explains, the only alternative identity that was organized enough and developed enough to offer a solution in the midst of post-Soviet identity confusion and crisis was one that was was developed by Ukrainian nationalists.

The unwitting reception of a Ukrainian Nazi in Canada’s parliament has laid threadbare the moral bankruptcy of our leaders and their foreign policy. Canada’s most powerful politicians—Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland—should face serious consequences for their enthusiastic applause of a Ukrainian war vet who fought against the Russians in the Second World War.

The stereotype of Nazi-embracing Latin American dictatorships is a common one, but it distracts attention from the myriad ways in which the US and Canada welcomed thousands more Nazi veterans and allowed their ideology to fester, untouched, amongst many far-right diaspora groups. As Owen Schalk writes, it is past time we confront this dark history.

On September 22, Parliamentarians gave a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a former member of the the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the military wing of the Nazi Party, during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Ottawa. Before the end of the war, the unit was renamed the “First Ukrainian Division” in order to remove its association with the Waffen-SS.

There was very little to celebrate during this year’s Armenia Independence Day. Just one day earlier, authorities of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh capitulated to Azerbaijan following a brief offensive by the Azerbaijani military. The future of the region’s Armenian population remains uncertain and dreams of an Armenian Karabakh seem to be permanently shattered.

At this stage, argues Dimitri Lascaris, the humane and rational thing to do is to oppose the escalation of this war, and to advocate for mutual compromises to achieve peace. This is a war that Ukraine cannot win. The best that Ukraine can hope for is a bloody, horrific stalemate that will gradually sap the state’s remaining lifeblood.

Boris Kagarlitsky, an internationally renowned scholar and political activist, was arrested on July 25 by the Russian FSB. Despite his lifelong anti-terrorism stance, he is accused of “justifying terrorism” based on a blog post about the Russia-Ukraine war. He is being held until September 24 and may face a seven-year prison term upon trial.

The Kremlin has no doubt learnt its lesson, and it is unlikely that it will ever again allow an individual to build a private army that can seriously threaten it. In this respect, while fitting a wider pattern, Yevgeny Prigozhin will probably prove to be a unique figure, destined to fascinate historians for centuries to come.

Cracks in the US-EU alliance could mean political openings for the working classes living in the West as well as in Global South nations. In a world facing climate catastrophe, skyrocketing levels of inequality, the threat of more war and even a nuclear war, the costs of missing any such opportunity would be nothing short of tectonic.

David Mandel and I share much more in common than our given name. We’re both French-speaking Anglophones who live in Montréal. We both consider ourselves humanists who want to help build a kinder, more democratic and socialist world. But while reading Mandel’s August 2 piece in this publication, it became clear that we profoundly disagree on how to get there.