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December 21, 2024
 

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Nina L. Khrushcheva
Destruction left in the wake of Russia's military invasion of Ukraine in the city of Hulyaipole, in the country's Zaporizhzhia region, in September 2022
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2024
Does a savage war of partition await Ukraine?
Donald Trump appears bent on striking a “peace” deal with Russia that involves Ukraine’s dismemberment.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump managed to win the support of over 72 million Americans despite his history of trying to overturn elections, a lack of policy expertise and his authoritarian rhetoric.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2024
A Donald Trump victory: How did it come to this?
How did a convicted felon, who sought to overturn a presidential election that he decisively lost just four years ago, win the votes of more than 72 million Americans?
Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine, much like those of past Soviet leaders, stem from a desire to be recognized as a global power and from perceived Western threats.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 7, 2024
The sources of Russian conduct
From Josef Stalin to Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leaders shared Putin’s desire for “great power” prestige.
Giant figures depicting Russian authors Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, Daniil Kharms and Fyodor Dostoyevsky are paraded through a carnival in central Moscow in September 2015.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2024
When art is all that remains
Looking at the Kremlin today, one wonders, “Do they really now know how this story ends?” Art will always have the last word.
Russia isn’t a theocracy but Orthodox Christianity, the state religion, has become all-encompassing, with President Vladimir Putin claiming to have a divine mission.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2024
The demigods of populism
By claiming to represent the will of the divine, populist leaders like Putin, Modi, Erdogan — and even Trump — stake an otherworldly claim to political power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet in Beijing on May 16.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2024
The fragile fraternity of China and Russia
Putin’s Mao-like bid for a full-fledged military alliance with China, including commitments to mutual defense, also seems to have failed.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (left) and then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in the Kremlin on May 7. While President Vladimir Putin has no real challengers, powerful actors within his government are vying against each other.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2024
The battle of ministries in Putin’s Russia
Historical parallels suggest that Putin’s top-down approach, like Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization and Gorbachev’s perestroika, risks sparking opposition by causing intra-elite infighting.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich (right) with then-wife Dasha Zhukova in 2014. Zhukova's mother, Elena Zhukova, is engaged to media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2024
The oligarch, his ex-wife, her mother and Rupert Murdoch
Were it not for other stories coming out of Russia, Rupert Murdoch's engagement to Roman Abramovich's ex-mother-in-law would have made more headlines.
Demonstrators hold a rally to honor the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in front of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2024
The lonesome death of a Russian opposition leader
The prison where Navalny died, Nicknamed “Polar Wolf,” is a freezing cold gulag for violent criminals. But Navalny — an anti-corruption lawyer and blogger.
Today’s Russia is nothing like the citadel of stability and satisfaction nor the bastion of prosperity that the Kremlin tries to claim it is.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2024
Preparing Russia for permanent war
Today’s Russia is nothing like the citadel of stability and satisfaction nor the bastion of prosperity that the Kremlin claims it to be.
Fighters of the Wagner private mercenary group, many of whom were recruited from prisons, are deployed in June near the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2023
Vladimir Putin’s killer patriotism
Pardoning violent convicts to get more soldiers onto the battlefield is not desirable, but for Putin, the alternative would be even worse.
A new Russian textbook for high school students on general world and national history
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2023
Putin’s history lessons fail to heed the lessons of history
Putin seems to have forgotten is that rewriting history to serve the interests of those in power tends to invite dissent and often backfires.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2023
Russia’s fractured state
In the wake of Yevgeny Prigozhin's aborted rebellion, President Vladimir Putin’s weakness — and the cracks in the system he so meticulously built — are unmistakable.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2023
Twenty-four hours that shook the Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to the rebellion by Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was hardly that of a powerful leader or even a skilled tactician.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2023
Russia has a new Rasputin
The Wagner mercenary chief has been attacking Russia's top military brass and warning that ordinary Russians, increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress in the Ukraine war, could revolt.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2023
How Russians fight back amid an unpopular war
Despite the full force of the security state breathing down the necks of ordinary Russians, covert resistance to the Kremlin's narrative about the war can be found everywhere.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2023
Xi makes it clear to Putin who is really in charge
Chinese President Xi Jinping likely visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow recently to show the West he is in charge.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2023
The assassinated are the peacemakers
Just as the Ukraine war carries a high price, so would peace with Russia — not least for whomever negotiates it.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2023
Russian Muppets or American puppets?
The experience in the 1990s of trying to introduce “Sesame Street” to Russia offers valuable insights into the Russian mind.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Dec 29, 2022
Dissecting the ties between war and populism
Russia may no longer be the totalitarian society that Nikita Khrushchev ruled six decades ago, but totalitarianism seemingly remains in its DNA.
Mother hopes for reunion with daughter ensnared by Tokyo host clubs
The Kabukicho district in Tokyo, where the daughter of a woman in her 60s fell deeply into the host club culture.
A year after going private, structural reforms bearing fruit for Toshiba
Toshiba's Corporate Senior Executive Vice President Koji Ikeya speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Monday.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.
Curiosity didn’t kill the meme: Why cats still rule Japanese YouTube
A screen shot from YouTube user @lagelda shows the simplicity of going viral in Japan in 2024: A cat dancing to EDM in front of a green screen.
With rare Asia carrier deployment, France seeks greater interoperability
The flight deck of the French Navy's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier during a stop at Changi Naval Base in Singapore in May 2019

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

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