Contributing Writers

We speak with acclaimed Filipino scholar and activist Walden Bello on the Global South’s response to the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. Bello says there’s hesitation from many world leaders to take an active role in the crisis, arguing that there is a lack of explicit national interests and a general suspicion the U.S. provoked the invasion to take advantage of the subsequent backlash against Russia.

We discuss President Biden’s first State of the Union address with Jacobin magazine’s Branko Marcetic, who says Biden should have focused more of his speech on laying out goals to reach renewable energy independence since the continued reliance by the U.S. on the oil and gas reserves of countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia gives those countries “relative freedom” to commit war crimes on the world stage.

The United Nations reports more than 800,000 people have fled Ukraine since Russia attacked last week, but many foreign nationals trying to escape have described racist discrimination and abuse, saying they were turned away from buses and at the border, while Ukrainians were welcomed with open arms. We speak with one of the African students who documented their experiences on Twitter with the hashtag #AfricansInUkraine.

As a massive Russian military convoy approaches Kyiv while Russia intensifies attacks on civilian infrastructure across Ukraine, we get an update from Andre Kamenshikov, Ukraine director for Nonviolence International in the southern Kyiv suburbs. He says “people are holding out, and I think there is growing confidence that the Russian forces will not be able to take the city.

We speak with climate author, journalist and movement leader Bill McKibben upon the release of the highly anticipated U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2022 report, which finds the impacts of the climate crisis are already worse than predicted, driving poverty, hunger, disease and species extinction. McKibben also speaks about how global dependency on oil and gas empowers autocrats like President Vladimir Putin and is helping fuel the Russian war in Ukraine.

President Biden on Friday nominated federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s pending vacancy. If confirmed, she would be the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, veteran journalist Andrew Cockburn and Yale historian Timothy Snyder discuss the history of the region and what role NATO’s expansion played in the current crisis. Cockburn says the United States and its allies broke promises made in the 1990s not to expand the military alliance into Eastern Europe, setting the stage for an eventual confrontation.

Russia has escalated attacks against Ukraine, launching a missile strike hitting a government building and shelling civilian areas in Kharkiv, reportedly targeting civilians with cluster and thermobaric bombs, and killing more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers at a military base in Okhtyrka. Meanwhile, the U.S. rejected Ukrainian President Zelensky’s demand for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying it could lead to a war between the U.S. and Russia.

We speak with climate author, journalist and movement leader Bill McKibben upon the release of the highly anticipated U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2022 report, which finds the impacts of the climate crisis are already worse than predicted, driving poverty, hunger, disease and species extinction. McKibben also speaks about how global dependency on oil and gas empowers autocrats like President Vladimir Putin and is helping fuel the Russian war in Ukraine.

President Biden on Friday nominated federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s pending vacancy. If confirmed, she would be the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice.

Following a wave of peace rallies held across the globe this weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to diplomatic talks with Russia. This comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert on Sunday, citing increasingly tightened international sanctions.

Ukraine is demanding an immediate ceasefire and for all Russian troops to leave the country as they report more than 350 Ukrainian civilians have so far been killed in President Putin’s invasion, which entered its fifth day Monday. The United Nations is also reporting more than 500,000 people have fled Ukraine and another 100,000 are internally displaced.

Russian military activity near Ukraine’s nuclear sites have raised alarm, as triggering any of the volatile reactors around the country could cause nuclear catastrophe for the entire European continent. Russian troops have seized the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and have reportedly taken staff hostage, raising fear that any disturbance could rerelease deadly radiation that has been sealed off for years.

The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel, who has reported on Russia for decades, says many observers were “shocked” that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, calling it an “indefensible” decision. President Biden ordered strong sanctions on Russia in response, but he has also heeded critics’ warnings not to send troops to Ukraine in order to avoid a world war.

As officials in Moscow threaten to replace the democratically elected Ukrainian government and Russian forces appear set to overpower Ukrainian defenses, is this the end of an independent Ukraine? We speak with Ukrainian peace activist Nina Potarska, who fled the country after Russian troops entered Ukraine on Thursday, even as her 11-year-old daughter with COVID-19 had to stay behind.

As the Russian army advances on Kyiv and threatens to topple the Ukrainian government, Ukrainian officials have banned men ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country to potentially be drafted into defense forces and have directed residents to use Molotov cocktails against the approaching Russian troops. We get an update from Ukrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk in Kyiv, who says Ukrainians are showing great resilience against a much greater force invading their country.