Rania Khalek Dispatches

Many experts on Russia and Ukraine are calling for de-escalation and genuine diplomacy but are being drowned out by a unanimous chorus led by the media and a cacophony of hawkish frauds demanding more war. To break through the war fervor, Rania Khalek spoke to Anatol Lieven, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and author of “Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry.” TIME CODES0:00 Intro5:38 The West could have prevented this war13:00 US policy is prolonging the war 18:01 What are Putin’s motives?23:06 Risk of the far right in Ukraine?28:38 Global dangers of flooding Ukraine w/ weapons32:07 Significance of Chechen fighters in Ukraine34:31 US role in 2014 coup39:07 Peace settlement 46:12 Sanctions on Russia51:39 Most of the world is NOT siding w/ the US56:08 An emboldened NATO59:16 Negative consequences for the West1:03:34 Think tank & media war fervor

The fighting in Ukraine might be a European war but its consequences are global, and it may even cause changes in geopolitical balances, relations and multipolarity. How can we understand this war as anti-imperialists? What will its global economic consequences be? And what will be the result of the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia?To help make sense of it all, Rania Khalek was joined by Marxist economist Prahbat Patnaik, professor emeritus at JNU and author of “A Theory of Imperialism” and the more recent “Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present,” both co-authored with Utsa Patnaik.Articles by Prabhat Patnaik that are discussed in the video:How Countries Are Escaping Sanctions Under Neo-Liberalism: https://www.newsclick.in/How-Countries-Escaping-Sanctions-under-Neo-Liberalism How IMF Is Closely Linked With the Ukraine Crisis:https://www.newsclick.in/how-imf-closely-linked-ukraine-crisis 

Mainstream media coverage of the war in Ukraine has sought to erase the U.S. and NATO role in setting the stage for the conflict, the Western history of attacking Russia, and Europe’s violent and racist past and present. Joseph Massad, Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, joins Dispatches with Rania Khalek to remind us of the hypocrisy and history the West has attempted to erase as it escalates the war against Russia in Ukraine.

The impacts of Russia’s war in Ukraine isn’t isolated to Europe. As the US and NATO pour weapons into a Ukrainian insurgency, the risk for confrontation between nuclear-armed power is rising. Does this mark the end of unipolarity and the beginning of a multipolar world? If so, what does that mean? How will support for a Ukrainian insurgency feed into the rise of the global far right? What will be the impact of the war and sanctions on Russia, which are already causing wheat, fertilizer and gas prices to skyrocket? And what should be the anti-imperialist left’s position on these major developments?To help us frame these events in a global context, Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and author of “Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations,” joins Dispatches with Rania Khalek. Listen to every episode of Dispatches anywhere you get podcasts.Apple: https://apple.co/3zeYpeW Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3za9DRK

BreakThrough coverage has emphasized the US and NATO role in instigating the violence in Ukraine, which is precisely what the Western media has tried to obscure in recent weeks. We've also hosted many voices from different segments of the left about the war. One of those voices joining Rania Khalek from the Russian left is Alexey Sakhnin, an anti-war activist, journalist and academic of the Soviet era.

It’s not for nothing that the US has been called the “United States of Amnesia.” The same leaders who invaded Iraq and killed a million people, who are starving Yemenis and Afghans, who label Palestinians "terrorists" for throwing rocks, and who took every opportunity to escalate rather than de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine since 2014, have suddenly dusted off their international law books with regard to Russia and are celebrating and promising to arm the Ukranian resistance.To discuss the government and media hypocrisy and dangerous escalation by the West and Russia, Rania Khalek is joined by Ali Abunimah, director of The Electronic Intifada and author of the Battle for Justice In Palestine.

After weeks of sky-high tension, ambiguity and threats, the Russian military crossed into Ukraine and the country's eight year civil war became a war between two post-soviet armies.  While the extent of Putin's goals in the war are unclear, Western countries have been supplying the Ukrainian military with weapons, launched a brutal economic war on Russia, and will support a NATO-backed insurgency against the Russian military. Once war starts, forces are unleashed which can’t easily be contained, dynamics emerge which were unpredicted and the more outside players intervene the longer and bloodier the battles will be. Why did Russia invade Ukraine? How is it impacting Russia domestically? And what comes next? To understand how we got here and what to expect, Rania Khalek spoke to Boris Kagarlitsky, a Marxist professor at the Moscow Higher School for Social and Economic Sciences, and the editor of YouTube channel and web journal Rabkor.

BT’s Rania Khalek paid a visit to the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, also known as ELAM. Cuba’s socialist government foots the bill for students, who come from all over the world to study medicine for free. Tuition, accommodation and board are free, and they even throw in a government stipend for students to live on. The one condition? Graduates have to return to serve in low-income communities.A testament to Cuba's commitment to internationalism, ELAM is one of - if not the largest - medical schools in the world, with tens of thousands of students enrolling in a given year from over 100 countries.During her visit to the campus, Rania had the chance to catch up with current 2nd year medical students from the U.S., and asked them about their experiences studying in Cuba.

Breakthrough News was on the ground in Havana, Cuba where Rania Khalek spoke with Johana Tablada, General Deputy Director of US affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry. They discussed the US blockade hampering the country’s development, how socialism makes Cuba’s survival possible, why Cuba has such a strong anti-imperialist foreign policy, how Cuba sees the recent left victories across Latin America, Cuba’s vaccine leadership, “Havana Syndrome,” how Cuba’s medical brigades connect to an internationalist foreign policy, its growing relationships with Iran & China, and more. 

All things having to do with Russia are seen in the West through a renewed Cold War prism, with simplistic portrayals more befitting a Hollywood villain. Western media has been in a panic about an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine, while they celebrated a countrywide uprising in Kazakhstan that after a few days was put down. So what's really happening? Is it all right-wing color revolutions provoked by the West? Local anger manipulated by elites? Perhaps a bit of both? What are the local dynamics at play? To discuss, Rania Khalek was joined by Volodymyr Ishchenko, a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies at Free University Berlin.