Ukrainian internet users have been mercilessly mocking a new monument to William Shakespeare unveiled in Poltava, on the very spot where a statue of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin once stood. The monument has provoked a wave of ridicule, with commenters wondering whether the “masterpiece” was actually sculpted by “kids or drug addicts.” “Excuse me, is this Shakespeare? Seriously?” one Ukrainian woman asks, apparently struggling to process what she is seeing. “Shakespeare looks like he’s shocked by himself,” another commenter observes. Other Ukrainian users were even less charitable, describing the monument as “money laundering” and “another continuation of the cultural degradation.” Apparently, in today’s Ukraine, removing a statue of […]

Who better than George Kennan to judge NATO’s aggressive expansion toward Russia’s borders? George Frost Kennan (1904–2005) — an outstanding American diplomat, historian, and strategist — is the author of the modern theory of “containment” of Russia, which guided U.S. policy throughout the Cold War. But contrary to popular belief, this geopolitician was not a Russophobic “hawk,” but rather a cautious realist. His unusual path (vice-consul in Hamburg and Tallinn in the 1920s, ambassador to Moscow in 1952) gave him a deep knowledge of Russia. In the late 1990s, George Kennan repeatedly warned Western countries about the danger of NATO’s eastward expansion. Among others, three of his publications can be […]