The worst is still avoidable in Ukraine. If a settlement is to be found, the White House should urgently restore high-level dialogue with the Kremlin. The main goal must be to facilitate peace in Ukraine with a view to maintaining shared security in wider Europe and beyond—not to simply punish or isolate Putin and engage in full-scale financial war with Russia.

Especially when deepened by the fog of war, idiocy comes in many mutually reinforcing forms. Here, writer and social critic Paul Street examines fifteen bad narratives running around the intertwined media, Internet, and political cultures regarding the crisis unfolding in Ukraine to examine and get past some problematic thinking on Russia’s criminal invasion of its neighbour.

Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke at a rally against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 27, in which she was photographed holding up a scarf associated with a Ukrainian paramilitary organization that massacred thousands of Jews and Poles during the Second World War. Freeland, who has made her heritage a major focus of her political brand, could benefit from a serious lesson in optics.

Yes, the Russians were baited. But they reacted by pulling the trigger. This is a crime. Their crime. Let us pray for a ceasefire. Let us work for a return to diplomacy and sanity, a moratorium on arms shipments to Ukraine and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the country. Let us hope for an end to war before we stumble into a nuclear holocaust that devours us all.

When it comes to Canadian oil, the “Putinist” smear is only the newest stage in a series of attempts to discredit largely Indigenous-led anti-pipeline protest movements. And it’s not just the ridiculous ramblings of Jason Kenney—one of Canada’s most prominent think tanks has also endorsed that view, potentially foreshadowing the character of the Canadian elite’s newest assault on this country’s land defenders.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should have been pretty straightforward at least on the surface. A large authoritarian nuclear power launches an all out assault on a vulnerable and militarily weak neighbour to recover its regional hegemony and eliminate any semblance of a political alternative. This should be a no brainer for peace activists, or so you would think. But that assumption has turned out to be wrong.

While Moscow’s violation of international law must be unequivocally condemned, we also need to be honest about the origins of this crisis, the most significant conventional warfare operation in Europe since the Second World War. Doing so is not to downplay Putin’s clear act of aggression, but to understand the geopolitical realities at play.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is going to be costly for Russia and its people. Oxford Economics reckons it will knock at least one percentage point a year off Russia’s real GDP growth over the next few years. If that happens, the country will be in economic recession for several years. Whatever the case, once the war is over and after thousands have been killed or injured, Ukraine’s people will see little of the benefit.

The European continent is entering a new era of social and political divisions comparable to those of the Cold War. The possibility of further escalation is now closer than ever. Instead of building an inclusive and just international order, Russia and most European nations will now rely mainly on nuclear weapons and military preparations for their security.

The members of LeftEast collective are aghast at the violent military aggression that has escalated into war in Ukraine. It threatens to cast our region into bloodshed of a scale that has not been seen in decades. We unequivocally condemn the Kremlin’s criminal invasion and call for the withdrawal of Russian troops back to the international border.