The global nuclear arsenal grew last year, SIPRI says
Stockholm, Sweden Reuters The number of operational nuclear weapons rose slightly in 2022 as countries implemented long-term force modernisation and expansion plans, a leading conflict thinktank said on Monday, warning that the world was entering a dangerous phase. A Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system drives in Red Square during a military parade on Victory […]
Essay: In Russia’s war against Ukraine, one of the battlegrounds is language itself
In an article first published on The Conversation, OLGA MAXWELL, a senior lecturer in the School of Languages and Linguistics at The University of Melbourne in Australia, looks at the “language question” in Ukraine and what role language is playing in the current conflict…
Russia orders wider evacuation of occupied southern Ukraine
Kyiv/Mykolaiv, Ukraine Reuters Russia told civilians on Tuesday to leave an area along the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in the Ukrainian province of Kherson, a major extension of an evacuation order that Kyiv says amounts to the forced depopulation of occupied territory. Russia had previously ordered civilians out of a pocket it controls […]
Life in Ukraine’s post-siege Mariupol: barter markets and Russian TV
Reuters People are slowly starting to return to the streets of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, pummeled by weeks of shelling from Russian forces and now fully under Russian control. On Monday, local residents charged electric devices from generators and exchanged food and clothes at impromptu street markets, while at an empty bus station […]
On Ukraine visit, Blinken, Austin pledge return of US diplomats, more security aid
Updated: 9:40am (AEST)Poland Reuters Washington’s top diplomat and its defense chief used the first official US visit to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February to announce a gradual return of US diplomats including a new ambassador and over $US300 million in new military aid to Kyiv. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense […]
Pope says “slaughters and atrocities” committed daily in Ukraine
Vatican CityReuters Pope Francis, continuing his implicit criticism of Russia, called the conflict in Ukraine an unjustified “senseless massacre” and urged leaders to stop “this repugnant war”. “The violent aggression against Ukraine is unfortunately not slowing down,” he told about 30,000 people in St Peter’s Square for his weekly Sunday address and blessing. “It is […]
Essay: The cost of war – how Russia’s economy will struggle to pay the price of invading Ukraine
Economics lecturer RENAUD FOUCART looks, in an article published on The Conversation, at the financial bill for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine…
Essay: War at Lent – how Ukraine could reshape how we think about Christian unity
JACOB LUPFER, in an article published on Religion News Service, says the message of Lent, no matter how or where it is celebrated, remains the same…
Updated: Putin oversees nuclear drills, US says Russian forces “poised to strike” Ukraine
Updated: 10.45 (AEDT)Moscow, RussiaReuters Russia’s strategic nuclear forces held exercises overseen by President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, and Washington accused Russian troops massed near Ukraine’s border of advancing and being “poised to strike”. With Western fears of war rising, the White House said US President Joe Biden’s national security team told him they still believed […]
Rebels evacuate residents from east Ukraine; West says Russia creates pretext for war
Moscow, Russia/Kyiv, Ukraine/Donetsk, UkraineReuters Russian-backed separatists packed civilians onto buses out of breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine on Friday, a shock turn in a conflict the West believes Moscow plans to use as justification for all-out invasion of its neighbour. Warning sirens blared in Donetsk after it and the other self-proclaimed region, Luhansk, announced an […]