Breakthrough News has the video How Ukraine War Affects the World Order & the Global Power Balance, w/ Vijay Prashad & Rania Khalek.

The impacts of Russia’s war in Ukraine isn’t isolated to Europe. As the US and NATO pour weapons into a Ukrainian insurgency, the risk for confrontation between nuclear armed power is rising. Does this mark the end of unipolarity and the beginning of a multipolar world? If so, what does that mean? How will support for a Ukrainian insurgency feed into the rise of the global far right? What will be the impact of the war and sanctions on Russia, which are already causing wheat, fertilizer and gas prices to skyrocket? And what should be the anti-imperialist left’s position on these major developments?

To help us frame these events in a global context, Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and author of “Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations,” joines Dispatches with Rania Khalek.

This is an excellent opportunity to expand your knowledge and your thinking. You also get to watch Rania Khalek throughout the interview (Don’t forget to listen to her questions and the answers from Vijay Prashad.)

Jimmy Dore has the episode Ukraine Neo-Nazis Infiltrate EVERY LEVEL Of Military & Government.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting cries of “We are all Ukraine,” many have been eager to downplay the proliferation of neo-Nazis in Ukrainian paramilitary groups, the Ukrainian armed forces and even parts of the government.

As Jimmy and The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal discuss, reports of neo-Nazis in Ukraine are not at all exaggerated, and the Zelensky government is, in fact, largely beholden to these racist, xenophobic, anti-gay groups that brag of the “fun” they get from fighting and killing.

Lee Camp who has been taken off almost every medium in the USA has the video Former UN Inspector Scott Ritter on What The Hell Is Happening.

The embed does not seem to work, but the link above does work.

If you want to expand you ability to think about the Ukraine situation, listen to this interview. Perhaps Scott Ritter is totally wrong, but consider the possibility that he may be right as he was about WMD in Iraq.

If you think you know everything you need to know, then don’t bother with this video. If you are comfortable taking your cues from the USA Corporate Media and the CIA, then don’t watch this video. It may damage your comfort level.

Let’s see if John Lennon can explain this.

Is it better to talk or to refuse to talk with an adversary?

The Grayzone has the video Forever War in Ukraine or End of Unipolar World? I think the headline shoud have used “and” instead of “or”.

Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Moscow-based international affairs analyst, Mark Sleboda. Sleboda assesses Russia’s military maneuvers in the early days of the conflict in Ukraine and evaluates the possibility of a Syria-style dirty war erupting in the country. Sleboda also explains how the war has ushered in a “great decoupling” between Russia and the West and why he believes it represents the “end of the unipolar world.”

Mark Sleboda reveals that he has a Ukrainian heritage, East Ukrainian that is.

The Grayzone has the article How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with Russia.

While Western media deploys Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish heritage to refute accusations of Nazi influence in Ukraine, the president has ceded to neo-Nazi forces and now depends on them as front line fighters.

I just don’t know what to make of this article. I need someone to explain to me why this could happen. I suppose I could also use someone to tell me if this happened.

The question of who was Stepan Banderas is popping up in regard to the Ukraine/Russia war. This Facebook post rekindled my interest.

I took up the challenge to look him up. First I tried the Wikipedia article Stepan Bandera. This introductory paragraph confused me.

Bandera cultivated German military circles favorable to Ukrainian independence, and organized OUN expeditionary groups. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he prepared the 30 June 1941 Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood in Lviv, pledging to work with Nazi Germany. For his refusal to rescind the decree, Bandera was arrested by the Gestapo, which put him under house arrest on 5 July 1941,…

Without reading farther I found the History News Network article Who Was Stepan Bandera?. This is the paragraph that cleared up my confusion about the Wikipedia paragraph.

The Germans intended to keep Ukraine for themselves. They arrested Bandera for his intransigence on the issue of independence, but released him in 1944 when it appeared that his popularity with Ukrainians might help stem the Soviet advance. But whatever their disappointment with the Germans, the Banderists never disagreed with their Jewish policy in Ukraine, which eventually killed over 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews.

The story of Bandera has many complexities. If you are interested, you might want to read more of the articles in the links above.

Youtube has the video Dr. Fadhel Kaboub – Climate Change, Climate Reparations & MMT.

Great and powerful presentation. Fadhel Kaboub presentations are always good, but I think this one has outdone previous presentations.

Fadhel is sticking to his explanation of the 1970s inflation. There is nothing untrue about what he says, but I think he leaves out the important driver. The driver was the USA trying to wage the Vietnam war without changing the civilian economy to account for the resources necessary to support the war effort. This failure on the part of Lyndon Johnson is the opposite of what we did for WW II, so eloquently described by Fadhel Kaboub. Not contrasting the two behaviors is an opportunity missed when Fadhel focuses on the unrest in the Middle East. The unrest in the Middle East was partially caused by Lyndon Johnson’s inflation.

Break Through News has the episode How Russia’s War In Ukraine Is Playing Out Inside Russia, w/ Prof. Boris Kagarlitsky.

After weeks of sky-high tension, ambiguity and threats, the Russian military crossed into Ukraine and the country’s eight year civil war became a war between two post-soviet armies.

While the extent of Putin’s goals in the war are unclear, Western countries have been supplying the Ukrainian military with weapons, launched a brutal economic war on Russia, and will support a NATO-backed insurgency against the Russian military. Once war starts, forces are unleashed which can’t easily be contained, dynamics emerge which were unpredicted and the more outside players intervene the longer and bloodier the battles will be.

Why did Russia invade Ukraine? How is it impacting Russia domestically? And what comes next? To understand how we got here and what to expect, Rania Khalek spoke to Boris Kagarlitsky, a Marxist professor at the Moscow Higher School for Social and Economic Sciences, and the editor of YouTube channel and web journal Rabkor, which you can follow here:

Besides the kidding around, I think there are practical and realistic insights here.

The Empire Files has the video Ukraine: Questions for the US Anti-War Movement w/ Abby Martin & Brian Becker.

Abby Martin and Brian Becker discuss the Ukraine war and what it means for the anti-war movement.

The most comprehensive discussion about the Ukraine that I have seen so far.

This video is worth staying to the end where they discuss what to do next. I have slightly different words for describing what to do. I agree that this is a long-term battle of ideas. I think the emphasis should be on cooperation in society rather than on competition in society. Putting it this way avoids labels and identity politics. Quoting what one person thinks is a great person might cloudy a great idea that happens to have been said by people who are not thought of as great in the eyes of many other people. The upshot is that the solution in the USA is not a third party that has no foundational great ideas. A successful movement has to start from great ideas. Bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship if the foundational ideas are misguided, will not help this country in the long run.