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Alexander Etkind

@sashaetkind.bsky.social
12K followers 7.9K following 699 posts

Professor of CEU in Vienna. A historian who teaches IR and the Anthropocene, but mostly thinks and comments about the current war. I am writing for the New Statesman.

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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 21h
While any victory of the far right is horrible, it shows poverty of the old left. Gerontocracy doesn’t work. The world is desperate for fresh ideas. Bolsonaro will help Trump and Putin. Israel, Spain and Germany are the next battles. But the biggest one will be the US
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Chris⚖️Justice @chrisjustice01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
💥 A Russian strike against the building of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine 9/28/26
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South Carolina Department of Propaganda @southcarolinadop.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Release the #EpsteinFiles!
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
An interesting review. I spent years stepping on the grass at Kings Cambridge — and, like the author, failed to understand the reason for asymmetry between sociology, anthropology and history at Oxbridge www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Susan Pedersen · Keep off the grass: Oxbridge Attitudes
Academic life is full of churn. The world changes; younger scholars are seized by new questions and, as they hare down...
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
A wonderful guidebook, highly recommended. Thank you from all of us, Andrea Peto
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
My new column for NS: www.newstatesman.com/internationa...
newstatesman.com
Ukraine is surrounded by false friends
Maga hasn't started supporting Zelensky, it just worships power
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I see that the debate between the New Left and neoliberals has triangulated without notice. The new part is the Latourian crowd, and the colors are red, black (like oil) and green. Two older parts hate the novice almost equally, but the reds criticize the greens more passionately
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
“to make things even worse, the far-right parties that capitalise on migration turn deportation into a political show that promises to eradicate it – a promise they can never keep, for the migrant is their resource.” — My new column in NS www.newstatesman.com/world/europe...
newstatesman.com
How Europe fell for Faragism
The deportations and offshoring that Nigel Farage advocates are becoming facts of European politics
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
This is so symbolic
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Rick Green @bcbrews.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
"It is amazing to see #Denmark and #Poland blessing the passage of #Russian tankers – enormous, rusty, full of flammables – along their well-groomed coasts. You cannot take part in the profits of the #petrostate and not, in some way, share its political interests."
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
My fresh: "When people breached the wall in Berlin, we called it freedom. When they breach the wall in Ceuta, we call it a catastrophe. The difference is not in the people climbing. It is in what waits for them on the other side." www.newstatesman.com/world/europe...
newstatesman.com
Spain gets migration right
The Ceuta crisis brought shame on the rest of Europe, not Pedro Sánchez's Spain
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Morgan J Freeman @mjfree.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
88 Days...
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
My fresh column: “It is insane that tankers are regulated more lightly than motorcycles. If Europe has learned to break its addiction to the profits from burning Russian molecules, it has not yet confronted its addiction to the fees for moving them” www.newstatesman.com/internationa...
newstatesman.com
The EU cannot break free of Russian oil
The membership now treats sanctions as auctions
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
www.newstatesman.com/internationa...
newstatesman.com
This is the end of Russia
Europe will never be the same, and the world's powers must build a new order
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
“Historians should be in the business of defending the past from the totalizers: the people, factions and ideologies — the ones we despise and the ones we agree with — that want to take the dead, too, into their empires.” — a brilliant essay by Charles King www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” Isn’t Saying What You Think It Is
In the same year as America’s founding, Edward Gibbon wrote “Decline and Fall.” 250 years later, it still holds lessons for us.
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Amazing and fateful stupidity www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Most UK media reports on June heatwave failed to mention climate crisis
Exclusive: Analysis of nearly 2,500 articles finds almost three-quarters made no reference to global heating
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NBC News @nbcnews.com · 14/07/2026
New York to impose the country’s first statewide moratorium on data centers.
nbcnews.com
New York to impose the country’s first statewide moratorium on data centers
The order will pause state permitting for new large data centers and direct state regulators to create standards that address environmental impacts, energy demand, water usage and other factors, the g...
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
liquidation of MCC is a bold and important decision. But what will happen to its assets? Will they be confiscated or (partially) re-directed for new educational and research purposes? Hungary and Europe needs its universities and think tanks more than ever
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
The Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 triggered the global crisis of trust and security. It led to Trump’s presidency in 2016, Brexit in 2020, new invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gaza war in 2023, and Iran war in 2026. The retreat from Crimea will start the unwinding of the crisis
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Longtail News @longtail-news.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Feed: "New Statesman" By: Alexander Etkind on Thursday, May 7, 2026
newstatesman.com
Vladimir Putin’s nightmares have come true
Russia's leader has created the world he always feared
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
The 14 points signed in Versailles? — Wrong historical analogy. Woodrow Wilson was incomparably smarter, and his advisers too. And this why the next war started decades later
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Judah Grunstein @judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Trump has offered us a profound insight into conflict resolution: All you have to do to get your enemy to stop fighting is to give him everything he wants and ask for nothing in exchange.
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Sarah Good @sassy0210.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Wednesday Friends #2 @sunniedayye.bsky.social @neverstopthefight.bsky.social @wicked-lizzie.bsky.social @eddsmitty.bsky.social @pauhawk.bsky.social @barskin.bsky.social @frozenborderline.bsky.social @spotonthesun.bsky.social @thecaffeinator.bsky.social @jbertuglia.bsky.social
White bold text on a shiny pink fabric background reads: Michelle Obama is not a man. Neither is Donald Trump.
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martindvz.bsky.social @martindvz.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Russia is trying to bribe European politicians
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I finally put something in my bio #SmokeFleet #NAFO @snarky-op.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Among all the components of national and regional military-industrial systems, refineries are the most vulnerable. The states subjected to petroaggression can always count on this vulnerability – the Achilles heel of the petrostate. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
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UNITED24 Media @united24media.com · 03/06/2026
🤭 The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is opening to a surreal backdrop as a massive fire rages at a nearby oil terminal.
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Our new article about refineries, the global crisis, and the Critical Theory of Oil: kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...
kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me
ScienceDirect.com | Science, health and medical journals, full text articles and books.
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Phillips OBrien @phillipspobrien.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
The Ukrainian decision to double down on drone warfare, from the battlefield, to mid range and long range strike, and not to draft all of its young men to make infantry, will be seen by historians as one of the most important decisions in 19th-21st century warfare.
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
they are clearly experimenting www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/b...
nytimes.com
Bluesky Says Kremlin Is Hacking Its Platform to Spread Propaganda
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
The UN General Assembly voted to adopt a landmark resolution which will advance implementation of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on climate change and state responsibility, today. The resolution passed with 141 votes in favour, 8 against and 28 abstentions.
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I’m the Foreign Minister of Sweden. Don’t Overestimate Russia. Russia has claimed that its economy grew by around 13 percent between 2020 and 2024, but by measuring nighttime luminosity we estimate that the economy contracted by around 8 percent during this period. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | I’m the Foreign Minister of Sweden. Don’t Overestimate Russia.
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
amazing historical text of 1939 about Nazism, Stalinism, homosexuality and “degeneracy” — we published it from the archive, with my extended introduction and Mecacci’s annotations. We have it now in Italian and Russian — we need publishers for English, German, etc
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Theodore Roosevelt: The one thing I won't do is to bluff when I cannot make good; to bluster and threaten and then fail to take the action if my words need to be backed up.
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Another “temporary extension” to allow Putin to profit from Trump’s war.
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
FFF: Fossil Fuel Fascism. A great article about the central issue of our time. Do not miss a great joke about America, in the middle www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
theguardian.com
The American epoch of oil is collapsing. What comes next could be ugly | Jonathan Watts
China is dominating the energy transition with astonishing result, while fossil fuel fascists in the US try to turn back the clock
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
In a period of general upheaval, a country that maintains domestic authority is in a position to exploit chaos in neighboring states for larger international objectives. Henry Kissinger
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
No, there is no ‘straight Kissinger’ — not even a hint at an attempt to make China stop supporting Russia. Xi will not save Trump from his suicidal war, and Trump will not save Putin from his. Let them go, and the rest is memory — curses and pain of future generations
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Any hope that this huge American group in Beijing will do a straight Kissinger rather than reverse one, which some had been talking about a lot, and then chose to forget? This would be so nice indeed
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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Excellent article. 👇 By undermining the international rules based order in pursuit of a neo-Russian Empire, Putin has unleashed forces he cannot control which will end up both destroying him and his imperial delusions. Russia is living on adrenalin and anger... but it has no future.
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Putin did not create Trumpism, but Putin got there first. For some reason, Trump has not shown any trace of an anxiety of influence, nor did Putin claim his intellectual rights. This is, in fact, the only mystery that still remains to be solved. www.newstatesman.com/internationa...
newstatesman.com
Vladimir Putin's nightmares have come true
Russia's leader has created the world he always feared
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Ivan Krastev: “the greatest achievement of May 8th was that Europeans collectively found the courage to imagine a future different from the present — and different from the past” Excellent speech: iwm.at/news/all-europ….
iwm.at
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
My article in the New Statesman www.newstatesman.com/internationa...
newstatesman.com
Vladimir Putin's nightmares have come true
Russia's leader has created the world he always feared
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R Phelps @greygosling.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
How it started, how it's going. Screw these unrealistic realists.
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
“That once seemed unthinkable.” Talk for yourself guys, and apologize —you the so called Russia experts deemed it unthinkable. Many others, including me (here and elsewhere), predicted that since 2022
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
For my Dutch friends www.groene.nl/artikel/de-r...
groene.nl
We zitten midden in een clash tussen twee vormen van moderniteit, ziet de Russische historicus Alexander Etkind
De wereld bevindt zich in een overgang van de fossiel gedreven paleomoderniteit naar een nieuwe ‘groene’ moderniteit, zegt de Russische historicus Alexander Etkind. En die transitie gaat gepaard met e...
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Alexander Etkind @sashaetkind.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Written about a year ago
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