It’s a truism that the first casualty in war is the truth. But a close second is rational thought. We face this now where partisanship, wishful thinking and disinformation dominate what we read about the Ukraine-Russia war in our media.

So, it is refreshing to come across an informed and reasoned discussion of the situation. In this video, Aaron Maté interviews Richar Saska about the current situation, the lead up to the war, the resulting repression in Russia and Ukraine and the prospects for a final resolution of the war. He makes Interesting comments on Ukrainian President Zelensky – impressive as a comedian and actor but an absolute disaster as a statesman.

Aaron Maté’s podcasts, videos and articles are always informed and interesting. This is no exception and once again he is interviewing a real expert on this subject.

Professor Richard Sakwa is a specialist on Russian and European politics at the University of Kent, He has written extensively on Ukraine and its problems and the nature of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. I can highly recommend his book Frontline Ukraine, which was written soon after the 2014 coup which overthrew the democratically elected government in Kiev.

I note that Richard Sakwa has a new book out Deception: Russiagate and the New Cold War which looks very interesting. Like a lot of academic books, it is expensive so I will keep an eye on its availability at local libraries.

Russiagate created so much confusion and there are very few proper analyses of what happened during that period. What motivated it and what the real aims of the media hysteria were.

I look forward to tracking this book down and reading it.