Spoken Recommends: w/c 21 February

"This is the most dangerous moment in Europe since 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis”?warns General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO's former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

As Kyiv awakes to the sound of explosions and a full-scale Russian invasion begins, Spoken Recommends is the go-to destination for content that challenges the status quo and helps you to stay ahead.

We are in a different world now.?The full effects of Russia’s attack on Ukraine will play out not just over years but over decades — and in ways that no-one, including Putin, can predict with any confidence. The war will almost certainly be the biggest conflict in Europe since 1989, perhaps 1945. It will be transformative.

1. Jeremy Cliffe, writer-at-large at the New Statesman, provides his analysis of the invasion.
2. The Spectator has added a dedicated Ukraine tab to their Data Hub, updated daily. It features a clear breakdown of Russian seizures of territory, global oil prices, Russia's international reserves and reported Russian strikes across Ukraine.
3. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, argues that "Putin's real fear is liberal democracy, which poses a direct threat to authoritarian “strongmen” like him".
4. According to Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of R.Politik. Reality of Russian Politics, "Putin is planting a bomb under the Russian state". She argues that the invasion has alienated the Russian elite and is public discontent.
5. Former US ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried revists Vladimir Putin's 2007 Munich address; a clear rejection of the post-Cold War European security architecture and the start of a deliberate and dedicated path to build empire where the Soviet Union once stood.
6. Fifteen years later, the message appears to remain unchanged. In a rambling address on Monday, Putin recognised two Moscow-backed separatist states in eastern Ukraine. John Daniszewski, AP vice president, argues that this was an attempt by the Russian President Putin to rewrite history, dismissing modern-day Ukraine and claiming that "its creation as a sovereign state was a tragedy and an accident of communist leaders in the 20th century."
7. For Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs columnist at the Financial Times:

The effects on the Russian economy are likely to be profound. But that is unlikely to divert Putin from his chosen course. The Russian leader himself is not going to go hungry. Instead, he is likely to use the war he has unleashed as an excuse to wipe out the last vestiges of political freedom in Russia. The country will now tilt into full-scale dictatorship, which will make it easier to stamp out any dissent from Russians dismayed by the course that Putin has chosen.

In other news:

1. Kate Raworth appears on BBC's The Climate Question to discuss our obsession with GDP and whether we require a new metric that puts sustainability at its core.
2. Paul Krugman tackles the recent 'anti-vax' protests that have plagued Canadian authorities. The androtestors numbered around 8,000, yet caused billions of dollars in economic damage - Paul estimates that the blockade of Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario, caused US$ 300 million of damage per day. It equals the losses associated with the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd — "protests that appear to have involved more than 15 million people."
3. According to a 2021 United Nations report, “gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years.” Deborah Frances-White argues that this is optimistic, highlighting the damaging impact of gender stereotypes dominating children's television.
4. Jacques Attali reviews the state of democracy in the world today. He suggests that a flourishing European Union is intolerable to Russia and China. He calls for unity in the defence of democracy.