Eclipsed from the headlines by the war in the Middle East, Russia launches a new offensive in Ukraine with an unprecedented wave of drone and missile strikes across the country—even hitting an historic monastery in Lviv. Meanwhile, two young Russian poets, Artyom Kamardin and Yegor Shtovba, remain imprisoned on "state subversion" charges related to public readings of anti-war poetry. They join other imprisoned poetic anti-war activists, such as Daria Kozyreva, and numerous artists and activists imprisoned for opposing the new dictatorship of Vladimir Putin. The recently passed Russian rocker Nikolay Komyagin, frontman for the post-punk band Shortparis, was also an icon of artistic resistance. Long known for their defiant sound, after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine they released the music video "Apple Orchard," on an anti-war theme—resulting in them being blacklisted from major venues in Russia. In Episode 320 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg places these courageous voices in the context of a dissident tradition in Russia under the dictatorships of the czars, the Soviets, and now Putin—from Leo Tolstoy to Shortparis.

On the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Amnesty International called on the international community to maintain a steadfast commitment to hold Russia accountable under international law for its crimes and aggression.

Facing a manpower shortage in its war with Ukraine, Russia is increasingly turning to recruitment networks in the Global South—especially Africa—to help fill its ranks. Fast-track visas, the promise of good salaries as well as citizenship are the lures, in contrast to growing official immigration hostility in the rest of Europe. But the problem is surviving the front line. In a report released this week, the investigative collective INPACT obtained a single list of 1,417 Africans hired by Russia (Egypt, Cameroon, and Ghana provided the most recruits) and found a death rate of over 20%. Those killed lasted an average of just six months. There are also reports of racism and brutality. While many young men volunteer, others are duped, promised work or scholarships, but then forcibly enlisted. Kenya and South Africa are two countries that have complained. Nairobi wants a ban on the conscription of Kenyans, while South Africa said Moscow had agreed to the return of 17 men tricked into serving in Ukraine.

UN human rights experts on Feb. 4 decried Russia's conviction of nine International Criminal Court (ICC) officials, calling the ruling a "flagrant violation of international law."

After a trial held in absentia, the Moscow City Court on Dec. 12 sentenced Prosecutor Karim Khan and eight ICC judges under the Russian Criminal Code for "unlawfully prosecuting Russian citizens in The Hague," and subsequently placed them on an international wanted list. Prosecutor Khan received a 15‑year prison term, with the others receiving sentences of between three and 15 years.

Trump's Greenland annexation drive is only secondarily about the strategic minerals, but fundamentally driven by a geostrategic design to divide the planet with Putin. Even if his belated and equivocal disavowal of military force at the Davos summit is to be taken as real, the threat has likely achieved its intended effect—dividing and paralyzing NATO, so as to facilitate Putin's military ambitions in Europe, even beyond Ukraine Also at Davos, Trump officially inaugurated his "Board of Peace," seen as parallel body to the United Nations that can eventually displace it—dominated by Trump and Putin, in league with the world's other authoritarians. In the Greenland gambit, the territory itself is a mere pawn in the drive to establish a Fascist World Order. In Episode 314 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls for centering indigenous Inuit voices on the future of Greenland, and universal repudiation of annexationist designs.

UN Secretary General António Guterres issued a statement Jan. 9 strongly condemning Russian missile and drone attacks in Ukraine following Moscow’s firing of its medium-range nuclear-capable "Oreshnik" ballistic missile.

A close reading of the facts indicates that Putin and Trump worked out a global carve-up in which Russia gets Ukraine and the US gets Venezuela. This was implicitly acknowledged in the "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine enshrined in the National Security Strategy released by the White House weeks before the illegal Venezuela attack was launched. In this light, Russian protests of the US aggression at the UN Security Council seem strictly pro forma. Both dissident left voices in Venezuela and democratic socialists in Ukraine have made the point that to betray one country is to betray the other. In Episode 312 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg demonstrates how the global divide-and-rule racket that is campism has never made less sense.

On World Humanitarian Day in August, World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus released a statement calling attention to intensifying attacks on healthcare workers and facilities, which constitute war crimes under international humanitarian law. "We must stop this becoming the norm," he wrote. The events of the past two weeks suggest such attacks are now already the norm.