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Dear Progressive Reader,

Russia has invaded Ukraine. As I write this, Russian troops have been attacking the capital city of Kyiv and are engaged in street fighting ([link removed]) with Ukrainian defense forces.

In addition to fears for the lives of those being directly impacted by this week’s military attack come concerns of an expansion of the conflict into the rest of Europe. I hosted a radio program ([link removed]) on Friday with political science professor Andrew Kydd, who addressed many of these concerns and some of the history behind the current conflict. Earlier this week, anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman wrote for our website about the potential risks to Ukraine’s nuclear power infrastructure. “Hiding in plain sight,” he says ([link removed]) in the days before the first guns were fired, “amidst the chaos of a possible war in Ukraine is the horrifying potential of another Chernobyl-scale apocalypse.” By late Thursday, Russian forces had captured ([link removed]) the Chernobyl site.

Much of the conversation in U.S. media the past few days has been about how the intelligence agencies “got it right ([link removed]) ” in predicting Russia’s military action. But even up to the moment ([link removed]) of the first attacks, there were voices on both sides ([link removed]) calling for a diplomatic solution to avoid war. Independent journalist Olga Churakova, reporting for Forbes in the Rostov region in western Russia two days before the attack began, interviewed soldiers and contractors there who said ([link removed]) , “We were told there would be no war.” Immediately following the incursion into Ukraine, peace demonstrations began around the globe, including
([link removed]) in the center of the Russian capital city of Moscow. More than 1700 people have been arrested in protests in fifty-four Russian cities, some threatened ([link removed]) with charges of treason.

Following the September 11 attacks, people’s historian Howard Zinn (whose 100^th birthday anniversary is being commemorated ([link removed]) this year) wrote ([link removed]) in the November 2001 issue of The Progressive, “We need new ways of thinking. . . . We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.”

In other news this week, Jeff Abbott reports ([link removed]) on efforts to extradite former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández on drug charges. James Goodman continues to follow ([link removed]) the four-year-long case of a young woman who remains in ICE detention in upstate New York. Eleanor Bader reviews ([link removed]) a new book on Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society. Edward Frantz looks at ([link removed]) the authoritarian impulse behind the current book-banning wave in states across the country. And Dr. Princess Currence pens an op-ed ([link removed]) on the need for more Black physicians to create true health care equity.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. – In just three days from now, The Progressive is again participating in The Big Share. The Big Share ([link removed]) is an annual day of giving hosted by Community Shares of Wisconsin to support a group of seventy local nonprofits dedicated to building an equitable and just community and protecting our environment. Each year, the donations that come in during The Big Share significantly improve our ability to produce not only our print publication but also our daily online content. You can join in this collective effort by donating between now and midnight on March 1 at: [link removed]. Thank you for donating, sharing, engaging, and helping to make The Progressive a better publication!

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