🇨🇦⚜️ polisci prof @mcgillu, Director Jean Monnet Centre Montreal; Rule of law, anticorruption, democracy; Book on Ru-Ukraine War: https://xitter.cf/t.co/8ZtQUyWPFG
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Joined May 2013
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Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Vucic won his first election on an anti-corruption platform (Styrofoam Revolution).
As did the people before him (who he rightfully accused of corruption) when they overthrew Milosevic (Bulldozer Revolution).
Milosevic also ran on an anti-corruption campaign (Anti-bureaucratic Revolution).
See a pattern? "It's different this time". If you are a 20 year old student.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Anyone with even a basic understanding of Russia knows this is true. Those blaming Ukraine’s supporters for prolonging the war have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
If this comes as a surprise to you, I've told you this 20 times.
The rest of Donetsk is NOT the peace deal.
It's the starting point for russian demands. Those demands (accept or we go back to war) will include demands from the EU and NATO.
Plus russian immunity for war crimes.
🚨 Putin plans to use Ukraine peace talks to push NATO back to its 1997 military posture
According to The Telegraph, the Kremlin wants to force NATO to scale back its military presence in Europe to levels seen before Eastern European countries joined the Alliance.
This could mean demanding the withdrawal of NATO forces from Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland.
That is why Moscow is pushing for European countries to participate in negotiations over Ukraine. Diplomatic sources cited by The Telegraph say Putin wants to turn talks about ending the war into negotiations over the entire European security architecture.
The issue may also have been discussed during Putin's three-hour meeting with Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in St. Petersburg.
However, European countries have previously rejected the Kremlin's demands to reduce NATO's military presence on its eastern flank.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
If defending yourself is prolonging the war, then what is attacking you? A peace initiative?
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Absolutely. No one should mistake Moscow’s proposal to involve Europe for a sign that Russia has suddenly come to its senses. Quite the contrary.
What Ushakov is effectively referring to is Russia’s ultimatum to NATO in December 2021, demanding, among other things, a rollback of NATO’s military deployments in Europe to their 1997 levels.
In other words, Moscow wants Europe involved not to accommodate European interests, but to impose its own demands not only on Ukraine but on Europe as well.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Zelenskyy: Russia already has an army of around 2M. No country in Europe has an army ready for such a fight. I'm not talking about people, I'm talking about armies.
That is why Europe needs a strong Ukraine as part of NATO, on its eastern flank — Hudson Institute. 1/
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Zelenskyy: I offered the US three options if they want us to stop hitting Russian refineries:
1. Russia stops attacking our energy.
2. Open Starlink over Russian ballistic missile launch sites.
3. Give us Patriot missiles.
We got none. Instead, Starlink was restricted.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Why the War Was the West's Fault — and Why Mearsheimer Is 100% Wrong
I'm always puzzled by people who profess to be huge fans of Mearsheimer because of the supposed depth and strength of his theory of Realism, and who seem totally unaware that his own theory shows that his takes on the war in Ukraine are wrong.
Start with the word that frames his entire position. His 2014 essay in Foreign Affairs was titled "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault," and everything he has said since repeats that verdict: the West provoked Russia by expanding NATO, so the West is to blame for the war.
But fault is not a category in Realism. The theory is about incentives and constraints, not blame. If we translate "fault" into something the theory can work with, namely the key cause that made the war happen, then his own theory assigns it to the opposite of what he asserts.
The West didn't cause the war by threatening Russia. It caused it by failing to make aggression costly.
1/5
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
It’s a remarkable coincidence that SpaceX discovered and closed a “loophole” in a way that severely harmed Ukraine in the very same week that the White House had a dispute with Ukraine. Just astonishing luck that SpaceX lawyers got to the issue at the very same time by chance!
Correct.
Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be.
Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them.
Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week.
Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.
Starlink was also crucial to preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine in the early days of the war, as all other means of communication were destroyed or jammed by Russia.
SpaceX has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth BY FAR.
That said, I have nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict. May you burn in hell.
End of story.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
I’ll be honest: I’m scared tonight. The Russians have launched another round of ballistic missiles at Kyiv, where it’s increasingly clear this is the new frontline.
So I’m back to the shelter with my water bottle, passport and medication, just in case.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Wahnsinn wie viel militärisches Gerät diese "pro-russischen Separatisten" da im Juni 2014 im Donbas hatten. Wo kam das so plötzlich her, frage ich mich. Hat da irgendjemand eine Idee?🤔
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Amen.
Nuclear armed country with intercontinental ballistic missiles by very this fact is secured with no ground to promote spheres of influence under rubric of valid security concerns.
Overall without post-imperial transition in RU there would be no true peace in Europe.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
For a variety of reasons (which I have outlined elsewhere) I believe that if these talks have indeed been cancelled this should not be seen as bad news...👇
Zelenskyy said the planned visit would gather Ukraine, the US, EU and NATO in high-level talks on security guarantees and diplomatic efforts to end Russia's war against Ukraine.
➡️ l.euronews.com/3Bfv
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Przypominam, że oferta "pokojowa" z wiosny '22 (Stambuł) zakładała, iż rosyjska armia zostaje pod Kijowem, a ukraińska wraca do baz. Nie było mowy o wycofaniu się Rosjan
Dziś rosyjskie wojska są setki kilometrów od stolicy i na mocy żadnego porozumienia już nie wrócą pod Kijów
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Bolsonaros embrace of Trump hurt him at the polls.
Orban and Vucic also suffered from too close association with a very unpopular American president.
It’s becoming an international trend.
The Trump brand will fade even further once he becomes a lame duck.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Within Trump administration RU is having the most receptive audience to manipulations to weaken NATO and drive a wedge between Central and Eastern Europe and rest within alliance.
A Kremlin foreign policy aide said Europe should be included in the negotiations between Russian, Ukrainian and American officials because the Continent would be crucial to reaching an agreement.
But diplomatic sources told The Telegraph that Russia’s motive for including European nations was to use the next round of talks to win concessions over Nato expansion, which Vladimir Putin has called the “root cause” of the war ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
This. Putin was delusional in 2021, when he demanded NATO expells Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Baltic countries. In 2026, after five years of unsuccessful war with Ukraine, his demands are the same. And he still believes that he will get his demands, by some miracle. The war will not end until Putin is removed.
Vladimir Putin should have pursued a career as a self-esteem coach instead of becoming a dictator and war criminal.
For five years, he’s been unable to capture the village of Mala Tokmachka in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region. Ukraine is bombing his airfields and military factories from Voronezh to Omsk, oil depots in Moscow are burning, and so are the ports of St. Petersburg — yet he demands that NATO roll back to its 1997 borders and grant him an exclusive sphere of influence stretching from Helsinki to Prague, as if he were sitting at the helm of a new Warsaw Pact.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
People still talk about the foreign policy of the Trump administration as if (a) it's designed to advance US national interests, rather than private ones and (b) there's a reasonable expectation of competence and coherence. Neither of these things is correct.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
This is interesting. Key Putin 🇷🇺 aide Ushakov admits that the Anchorage plan of having Trump 🇺🇸 force Zelensky 🇺🇦 into agreeing to their demands hasn’t worked because of the role of Europe. That’s it: if Europe stays the course, 🇷🇺 can’t win.