Around the world in 2022 and 2023, I have met a broad range of Westerners absolutely committed to the cause of standing with Ukraine against Putin ‘for as long as it takes’. This includes a remarkable spectrum, from extreme-left anti-fascists, environmentalists and ‘woke’ activists to ‘based’ conservatives, populists and libertarians.
When I co-wrote and edited a book of essays during my university days in 1994, called Security of Eastern Europe: The Case of Ukraine, I could not possibly have imagined that the individual around whom the democratic world would ultimately unite, in a clear stance against the global advance of tyranny, would come from Ukraine.
The Kremlin has been burning for an anti-western global project for decades. Before coming to the current and relatively strong concept of a multipolar world order, the Russian state actively experimented with different ideas and brands. The revival of the Russian Empire, BRICS (Brazil–Russia–India–China–South Africa), USSR 2.0, the Russian World, the Union with Belarus, and…
Synthetic media are everywhere. Digital images and objects that appear to index something in the world but do nothing of the sort have their roots in video games and online worlds like Second Life.
