How the international media covered the Russo-Ukrainian war, August 17

John Mearsheimer, a long-time influential critic of the Westʼs policy towards the Russian Federation, writes about the underestimated, in his opinion, risks of escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian war in an essay on Foreign Affairs. Mearsheimer believes that Western politicians believe lightly in avoiding a catastrophic escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian war, while, in his opinion, these risks are significant and include both the outbreak of hostilities outside the borders of Ukraine and the use of nuclear weapons. In the authorʼs opinion, both sides ― that is, Russia and the USA, because he considers Ukraine only as a battlefield ― have raised the stakes since the beginning of a full-scale war. The USA went from preventing the victory of the Russian Federation to promising to weaken Russia for a long time. Mearsheimer ignores the abundant evidence of Putinʼs imperial ambitions and still believes that the purpose of the attack was to deter NATO from expanding eastward, and believes that Moscow is sincere in its commitment to the Minsk agreements. However, now, the author writes, Putin intends to annex all or most of the captured territory. Both Russia and the US are determined to fight to victory, leaving little room for compromise, which Mearsheimer sees as the most attractive option for ending the crisis. Next, the author fantasizes about possible scenarios of escalation: the introduction of a closed sky zone over Ukraine, the introduction of US Ground Forces into its territory, attacks by Ukraine on Russian cities with the aim of provoking the Russian Federation to a massive response that will force the US to join the hostilities, etc. Another Mearsheimer fantasy is damage by Ukraine to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which could force Russia to respond. It is good that, as Mearsheimer writes, Russia does not yet want to use all the levers available to it ― such as a general draft or damage to the electrical network in Ukraine, which, according to the author, is an easy target. The author believes that the Biden administration should have warned of the invasion before it began, and now it is too late to make a deal and a compromise is impossible.

Leonid Bershidskyi, a German journalist of Russian origin, writes in a Bloomberg column why, in his opinion, Russian emigrants should remain silent about possible visa restrictions for Russians. Even the so-called Anti-War Committee, formed by famous emigrants such as Harry Kasparov, Mikhail Khodorkovskiy and Yevgeniy Chichvarkin, opposed the ban on issuing visas to Russians, who compared the idea of ​​the ban to "returning the Jews back to Nazi Germany" on Twitter. Bershidskyi believes that anti-Putinist Russians are missing a great opportunity to remain silent instead of airing their concerns about the impossibility of traveling through Europe at least one step ahead of what Russia is doing in Ukraine. The journalist writes that this campaign is a shame for the emigrant community. The author examines the moral and practical side of the issue, and comes to the conclusion that European countries have many reasons to restrict the entry of Russians into their territories, because Russia is a threat, and Russians, even to varying degrees, still represent Russia.

The German publication Der Spiegel writes about an interview of Russian military expert Ruslan Pukhov with the Prisp analytical center, which criticizes the Kremlin forces. Pukhov notes the use of outdated technologies, the insufficient number of soldiers, and the inaccuracy of the Russian Air Force. Instead, the expert says, the Ukrainian armed forces are equipped with modern and effective equipment. If NATO continues to supply advanced weapons, and Ukraine maintains the number of fighters, then, according to Pukhov, the situation for Russia will deteriorate critically by the end of the summer.