Fear and loathing in the Oval Office
NEW YORK –
U.S. President Donald Trump has swiped another page from the authoritarian playbook. His verbal assault on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before camera-wielding media in the Oval Office last month amounted to precisely the kind of ritual humiliation autocrats have long used to elevate and amuse themselves — and intimidate everyone else.
One of history's most notorious dictators, Josef Stalin, regularly demeaned my great-grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev, and his politburo colleagues. As Khrushchev recounted much later, Stalin once made him dance the
gopak
, a Ukrainian folk dance, before some top party officials. 'I had to squat down on my haunches and kick out my heels, which frankly wasn't very easy for me,' he recalled. 'But when Stalin says dance, a wise man dances.'
In orchestrating such spectacles, Stalin was surely motivated by the desire to keep his subordinates subordinated. But it was not all politically motivated: as Khrushchev noted, Stalin found others' humiliation 'amusing.' How could a megalomaniacal dictator not relish the sight of his empire's most powerful men voluntarily debasing themselves to please him — the one figure who towered above them all?
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Japan Today
3 hours ago
- Japan Today
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Zelenskiy urged Ukraine's allies to take steps to force Russia into peace, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called for immediate new sanctions and air defence systems. Although Moscow and Kyiv have held two rounds of direct peace talks in recent weeks, the only tangible progress has been an agreement on exchanges of prisoners of war, and Russia has continued to advance along the front line in eastern Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv blame each other for the lack of progress towards ending the war, which has raged since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed frustration with both sides. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Ukraine Says Russia Launched the Biggest Overnight Drone Bombardment of the War
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Japan Today
a day ago
- Japan Today
Russia, Ukraine swap first prisoners in large-scale exchange
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