Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rod Thornton, Senior Lecturer in International Studies, Defence and Security., King’s College London

In the recent summit talks in Alaska designed to halt the Russia-Ukraine war, Vladimir Putin demanded that Kyiv cede control of the entirety of its Donetsk oblast (region) to Russia. But this would effectively be tantamount to an acceptance of overall defeat for Ukraine.

In giving up this region, Kyiv would also be giving up its principal defensive barrier against further Russian encroachment into the whole of Ukraine – that is, it will lose its “fortress belt”. This is the name given (by the Russians themselves) to a series of fortified Ukrainian-held cities, towns and settlements in the west of the Donetsk region. This belt roughly links the city of Slovyansk in the north to Kostyantynivka, some 50 km to the south.

The current situation on the battlefield needs to be viewed with a certain context in mind – that of geography. The state that we now call Russia (which has included Ukraine for much of its existence) has been subject to many invasions throughout its long history. Foreign invaders – whether coming from the east, south or west – were generally able to make rapid initial progress in their invasions, not least because Russia had few natural barriers that could act as defensive lines.

In particular, the open steppe lands, lacking hilly or mountainous terrain, have represented an open invitation to invaders. This issue still pertains. But today, ironically, these largely indefensible steppe lands are Ukrainian territory that is under threat from Russian forces.

In light of this, Kyiv cannot rely on terrain to form defensive lines. It has to rely on creating urban barriers. Towns and cities are notoriously difficult to capture or to fight through. Buildings, especially large ones, provide ideal cover and fire points for defenders. Getting into urban areas is difficult because of the channelling effect of the road systems. Obvious routes can be well defended with mines, obstacles and covering fire. Rubble also makes movement difficult. Urban scenarios very much favour the defender.

The normal tactic for an assaulting force would be to try and outflank and surround such urban areas and to then to essentially lay siege to them to prevent their resupply and thus force their surrender. This is what happened, but on a smaller scale, with the capture of Mariupol by Russian forces early in the war.

The other alternative has been to “squeeze out” Ukrainian forces from any town they are holding. In such scenarios, towns have been enveloped on three sides by Russian troops. This has then forced the under-pressure Ukrainians to withdraw though the only remaining egress routes. Russian forces then occupy the abandoned town.

This is what happened at towns that Ukrainian forces lost earlier in the Donbas region: Avdiivka, Bakhmut and Soledar.

But both of these forms of attack on urban areas are currently being denied to Russian forces. This is because of the complex series of Ukrainian defensive lines that have been established now between the series of towns and cities in the Donetsk fortress belt. These make use of minefields, anti-tank obstacles, enfilading fire (firing along the enemy line to inflict maximum casualties) provided by tube artillery and copious drone use.

Because the Russians have largely been unable to break through these lines they have been prevented from surrounding or enveloping any of the major urban areas within the fortress belt.

Last line of defence

It is strategically vital for the Ukrainians that this belt continues to hold back the Russians. It appears that one of the main aims of the 2025 summer offensive by Moscow (according to Russian officers captured by the Ukrainians) has been to break through this belt. It was said to represent the “poslednii ryvok” (the “final push”) that would settle the war’s outcome in Russia’s favour.

But this has not happened and looks unlikely to happen anytime soon. Indeed, as the Institute for the Study of War put it recently, Russian forces “are engaged in an effort … to seize [the ‘fortress belt’] that would likely take several years to complete”.

Hence, it becomes easier to understand why Putin needed to make the demand that he did at Anchorage. What cannot be achieved on the ground in terms of breaking through the fortress belt he is trying to achieve via a peace deal brokered with US assistance.

Gaining control of the west of the Donetsk region is the key to winning the war. Putin knows this. If Donetsk and its fortress belt are given up, then the open steppe land to the west would be exposed to Russian advances. Great swaths of Ukrainian territory would rapidly fall.

As one Russian source put it this week, the fortress belt “is the last serious line of defence for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Beyond it, Kyiv has no other prepared lines of defence to Zaporizhzhia and the Dnipropetrovsk region … [and] … the Russian army can … advance to the Dnieper River”.

If Russian forces came to be camped on this part of the Dnieper, then it’s hard to imagine that Ukraine would not then have to accede to yet further, strategically damaging, territorial demands from Moscow. With such a scenario in mind, the future course of the whole war hinges on Ukraine not giving up its fortress belt in western Donetsk.

Perhaps an irony in Putin’s demand that the whole of the Donetsk region be handed over is that it could be seen as coming from a position of what appears to be weakness and not strength. He cannot wait the years it may take to seize the cities and towns that form the fortress belt. Russia cannot remain on a war footing for too much longer, according to reliable reports on the state of its economy.

But even so, Kyiv may have to accede to Putin’s demands because it will potentially come under pressure from the Trump administration, which itself does not want to wait years to see a resolution to this conflict. If Kyiv does accede, though, then this may amount to Ukraine accepting its overall defeat. It may, indeed, lose the war.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Forcing Zelensky to hand Putin Ukraine’s ‘fortress belt’ in Donetsk will lose it the war – https://theconversation.com/forcing-zelensky-to-hand-putin-ukraines-fortress-belt-in-donetsk-will-lose-it-the-war-263980

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Samantha Friedman, Lecturer in Applied Psychology, University of Edinburgh

Screens, and technology more generally, are often seen to be at odds with engagement and connection with nature. Teenagers are implored to put down their phones and go outside instead.

This is a key premise in recently announced measures by the UK government to “to re-connect young people with the world around them”. Funding for youth clubs and after-school activities is intended to remedy a situation in which young people are “stuck in their bedrooms or behind a screen”.

Certainly, investment in youth activities, especially those which support young people to build their relationships with nature, is necessary and welcome. But viewing these as merely an antidote to chronic screen use is missing the point entirely.

Screens can be an important part of how young people interact with and understand the natural world. Those screens might be the very key to getting teenagers out of their bedrooms and into the outdoors.

Placing blame

At first glance, it is tempting to place the blame on screens when considering the reasons behind why many people have spent less time outside over the last few decades.

Author and journalist Richard Louv, in his popular book Last Child in the Woods, does just this. He points to time spent watching television and using computers as contributing to a rise in what he calls nature deficit disorder – an ailment related to human separation from nature. Nature deficit disorder supposedly affects physical health and attention spans, among other negative outcomes (though many criticisms exist about this concept).

Alongside suggestions that people of all ages have spent less time outdoors over past decades, mental health difficulties in teenagers have increased in recent years. Technology is often pointed to as one potential driving force. It is important to note that the current evidence appears mixed about whether this is the case.

Given the benefits to wellbeing associated with spending time in nature, it is easy to see how a certain narrative emerges: that teens are suffering from poor mental health because they spend too much time indoors on screens, and this problem could be solved if only they would put their phones away and spend time looking at trees.

Connection to nature – the relationship that a person has with the natural world – is also known to dip in early adolescence (around age 12) and remain low until early adulthood. Encouraging young people to spend more time outside could address this issue, too.

However, when approached with the mentality of “screens versus time outdoors”, this risks being a pointless effort. Technology is central to nearly everything we do, for better or worse. It is not realistic to suggest that the answer to any of these modern difficulties – poor wellbeing, increased screentime, or decreased connection to nature – lies in restricting technology or framing time outdoors as a replacement.

Nature with tech

Instead, technology should be seen to have a role in supporting outdoor experiences. At a basic level, technology helps make the outdoors more accessible for many. Maps, location apps such as what3words and location tracking can ensure people stay safe.

Technology can be used to enable communication for people who communicate differently, such as through the use of iPad apps or speech-generating devices. It can help those with sensory needs feel more comfortable going outside; for instance, using a phone and headphones to listen to music can help block out unwanted sensory stimuli outdoors.

Placing higher value on tech-free outdoor experiences only serves to distance people and gatekeep experiences for those who can easily disconnect. People with caring responsibilities or health conditions, for instance, might find it impossible or dangerous to put their phones away completely when spending time outdoors. In many ways, it is a privileged position to be able to go tech-free outdoors.

Rather than taking an approach that views engagement with screens as the opposite to nature experiences, we should encourage young people to use their technology responsibly to support their experiences with nature.

For instance, phones can be used to identify bird song, plants, and animal tracks or to report wildlife sightings through citizen science projects. Even indoors, looking at photos of natural things, watching nature documentaries, or listening to nature sounds can help support relationships with nature.

Despite the drawbacks of social media, nature content can be an effective way in to experiencing the outdoors for many people. See, for instance, the extreme popularity of Outdoor Boys – a recently retired YouTube channel with 16.5 million subscribers which featured videos of an American man partaking in a range of outdoor activities with his children in Alaska and elsewhere.

With the potential to translate online interests into real-life experiences, embracing the power of nature-based social media content is one way of meeting teenagers where they already are.

People who have stronger relationships with nature are more likely to act in service of the environment. Building upon young people’s interest in the environment can provide opportunities to have frank discussions about the environmental effects of the technology we use every day. This could include, for instance, the rare earth minerals in our phones or the huge amount of energy used by generative AI.

Taking this more balanced approach will help young people see technology as a potential enabler of their experiences with nature.

Samantha Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Phones and other tech can enhance teens’ connection to nature – https://theconversation.com/phones-and-other-tech-can-enhance-teens-connection-to-nature-263082

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam R. North, Early Career Researcher, Religions and Theology Department, University of Manchester

Humour has become one of the most potent weapons in the populist politician’s playbook. Comedic populists like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Argentinian president Javier Milei use ridicule, absurdity and sarcasm not just to entertain, but to deflect criticism, confuse opponents and present themselves as relatable outsiders. Their tomfoolery and comedic stunts often dominate headlines and capture attention online.

These uses of humour have been widely discussed in this context. But one key function of populist humour still receives too little attention: its power to mobilise disaffected voters.

My own research has examined how humour functions as a means of speaking truth to power. But I now believe that comedy, long mobilised as a subversive tool, is being appropriated by populists as a strategy for building political loyalty.

Beyond softening rhetoric or mocking political opponents, humour helps politicians create emotional bonds, build group identity and energise voters who feel let down by traditional politics and politicians. It isn’t just comic relief – it’s a call to action.

The appeal of comedic populists is often invisible to their critics. Dislike and distaste can blind people to the way these figures connect with large audiences – especially disaffected voters. This blind spot prevents understanding how humour fuels political support.

Take this New York Times guest essay from August 2024, titled Trump is losing the humor war. While it concedes that “Donald Trump is funny”, it argues his humour had lost its edge. That assessment was premature.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump remained humorous – from working in a McDonald’s drive-through, to driving around as a bin man at a rally to mock Joe Biden, he deployed several humorous stunts to amplify his message and entertain supporters.

These stunts gained widespread coverage and went viral on platforms like TikTok – where, according to Pew Research, nearly half of US users under 30 now follow political news. Humour, in this context, becomes both strategy and spectacle.

Trump recognises this. On one Joe Rogan podcast – viewed over 60 million times – Rogan praises Trump’s comedic instincts. Trump replies: “You need at least the attitude of a comedian when you’re doing this business”. Considering Trump and other comedic populists’ success in the previous decade, it’s hard to disagree.

Who is mobilised by humour?

Populist humour resonates most strongly with disaffected voters – people who feel ignored or betrayed by traditional politics – and research shows that disenfranchised voters often vote for radically different candidates. In an era of declining trust in political institutions in many western nations, it’s unsurprising that voters should turn to political alternatives who break the conventional mould.

Some of these figures were comedians before they were politicians. Others cultivated humorous personas over time. Many have successfully capitalised on this situation. The best known is Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy a former comedian who once played a fictional president on Ukrainian TV.

Other former comedians who have gone on to win national or regional office include Guatemala’s Jimmy Morales, Slovenia’s Marjan Šarec, and Iceland’s Jón Gnarr. Italy’s Beppe Grillo, a stand-up comic, co-founded the Five Star Movement which went on to enter government, though Grillo himself never held elected office.

Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and Javier Milei all cultivated entertaining personalities through TV appearances and a variety of stunts. A consistent pattern emerges: these leaders tend to rise in contexts of low political trust, where their humour grabs attention and appeals to disaffected voters.

But another trend is equally clear: the sustainability of support for comedic populism often diminishes once in office. The performative and oppositional strengths that fuel electoral success often translate poorly into the demands of serious governance.

Zelenskyy appears to be an exception, although recent legislation threatens his approval ratings. Nevertheless, he remains popular due to the Russian invasion, and his shift from comic performer to a serious leader of resolve and emotional authenticity.

Populist humour in the media

Populist humour thrives on public attention. Social media rewards wit over substance; jokes, memes and soundbites travel fast. In a media environment driven by anger, disinformation and tribalism, comedy is a perfect vehicle of delivery. Humour creates sharable content, frames opponents as humourless and signals in-group identity.

A striking example came during Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign when he claimed that Haitian migrants were eating pets in a town in Ohio. The statement, though baseless and inflammatory, went viral. Critics expressed outrage, supporters laughed, and Kamala Harris scoffed at the absurdity. Yet, the allegation provided an effective means of communicating anti-migrant, racist rhetoric across news outlets and social media platforms.

It even inspired a parody song called Eating the Cats ft. Donald Trump, by the South African musician The Kiffness, which has racked up millions of views across social media.

This is the paradox of populist humour: it doesn’t need to be factual, tasteful or substantive. It just needs to resonate with its intended audience and spread across media platforms.

If we want to understand modern populism, we need to take its humour seriously. It’s not a distraction from politics; it’s a vital tool in the populist toolkit. Humour builds community, projects authenticity and drives participation and feelings of inclusion. For disaffected voters, it offers something traditional politics often doesn’t: a reason to laugh, and a reason to listen.

Adam R. North does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Being funny helps populist politicians create bonds and get voters on board – https://theconversation.com/being-funny-helps-populist-politicians-create-bonds-and-get-voters-on-board-260343

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emily-Rose Baker, Research Fellow, Department of English, University of Southampton

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum announced the launch of a new digital replica of the concentration camp for filmmakers. Titled Picture from Auschwitz, the virtual film location is designed to facilitate a range of productions set on the grounds, where preservation regulations currently restrict filming to documentaries.

Established in the town of Oświęcim in German-occupied Poland, Auschwitz consisted of three main camps where over 1.1 million European Jews were murdered: the Auschwitz I concentration camp, the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) killing centre and the Auschwitz III (Monowitz) labour camp.

With this new technology, the museum hopes to support the “true story” of the camp, “without compromising the memorial’s historical integrity”. It intends to do so not only by digitally preserving the Holocaust site, which receives over two million visitors annually, but by submitting the scripts for all new feature film projects involving the replica to a team of historians for review.

A glimpse of the digitised location shows a virtual model of Auschwitz I which, as its name suggests, provides a clear snapshot of the camp’s barracks, grounds and infamous wrought iron gates. The two-minute trailer claims that the certified 1:1 digital representation is the “biggest and most detailed documentation of the camp”. It will eventually include the interior as well as exterior environment of Auschwitz I and II.

The project’s use of digital technology to safeguard Holocaust memories for future generations is symptomatic of a global shift towards digitising the Holocaust as the survivor generation passes on and heritage sites decay over time – a process accelerated by extreme weathering associated with the climate crisis.

As the Holocaust recedes from living memory, cultural institutions are increasingly reliant on digital tools to remember the past. While some have used virtual reality to digitally reconstruct and maintain key Holocaust sites, others have turned to AI to generate interactive survivor holograms.

These technologies are becoming popular educational tools designed for use in classrooms as well as museums and memorial sites.

Ethical implications

Digital memory projects protect and make Holocaust sites globally accessible. Yet these same technologies risk distorting the historical record.

In the UK, public debates concerning the ethics of digital Holocaust technologies including AI and VR have involved high profile politicians as well as scholars. Meanwhile, international bodies including Unesco and the World Jewish Congress have reported that generative AI in particular may fuel Holocaust distortion.

Picture from Auschwitz aims to address these issues and its creators purport to enable “ethical storytelling”. The director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, Wojciech Soczewica, referred to the project on the Memorial’s website as a “powerful example of how culture and technology can unite to protect our shared human history from distortion and denial”. The replica will “preserve the relevance of the history of Auschwitz”, he added, ensuring it won’t “fade with time”.

While the virtual site digitally preserves and encourages historically rooted depictions of the camp, it cannot ensure ethical engagement with the Holocaust. In fact, its creation only raises further issues about the extent to which the Holocaust’s digitisation goes hand-in-hand with ethical modes of remembrance and representation.

A glimpse of the Picture from Auschwitz project

A wholly “authentic” depiction of any Holocaust site or experience is something that digital and filmic interventions can only gesture towards.

Even if such a depiction were possible, ethical portrayals of the Holocaust are not contingent on the accurate representation of sites themselves. They are equally concerned with the kinds of stories being told as well as formal and stylistic factors. As film researcher Archie Wolfman argues, filmmakers’ choices “about camera movements, angles, lighting and editing have as much ethical significance as what is in front of the camera”.

The implication that Auschwitz must be digitised for its legacy to be protected suggests that the wealth of material that already exists on the camp – including its extant remains, the personal belongings of victims and survivor testimonies – are no longer sufficient memorial tools. It also problematically suggests that Holocaust history must somehow keep up with digital culture to remain relevant.

The digitisation of Auschwitz perpetuates the privileging of some Holocaust sites and stories above others, such as the rural landscapes across central and eastern Europe where no human structures or visible traces of the past remain. Even within this, Picture from Auschwitz plans to offer only a selective representation of the camp complex. It excludes Auschwitz III, its network of sub-camps and the surrounding environment.

At the same time, the proposed script review process demonstrates the memorial’s involvement in presiding over cultural narratives of the event. The only artistic representations that are of value, the project implies, are those favouring realism, disregarding Holocaust films that diverge from this aesthetic. This includes stylised films like Jojo Rabbit (2019), The Cremator (1969) and Distant Journey (1949), the latter of which was shot on location in Terezín in the Czech Republic. It showed that films using Holocaust sites need not possess an indexical link to reality to meaningfully represent the event.

The replica ultimately reveals a tension between growing public demand for cultural Holocaust production and the difficulty in cultivating ethical representations of the event. Navigating the ethical dimensions of Holocaust narratives has always been a challenge. But this challenge is rendered ever more complex by digital innovations, which are evolving and difficult to police.

Picture from Auschwitz shows the extent to which the digital is changing how knowledge of the event is understood and disseminated – not always for the better.

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Emily-Rose Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The problem with Auschwitz-Birkenau’s new digital camp replica – https://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-auschwitz-birkenaus-new-digital-camp-replica-263469

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steph Rennick, Philosopher & Lecturer in Interactive Media, University of Stirling

While playing video games has traditionally been thought of as a male-dominated pastime, 51% of women now game in some capacity compared to 53% of men. However, although the number of women playing video games continues to increase, their representation varies across different genres, platforms and games.

We surveyed 1,000 women of all ages across the UK who play mobile games (the most popular way for women to play).Our analysis, published in the journal Sex Roles, found that despite being an important part of their lives, many female gamers experience negative emotions in relation to games.

Twenty-nine per cent felt guilty for taking time to play video games, and 16% keep gaming a secret for fear of judgment.

More than 41% of the women we surveyed agreed that playing games is one of the things they most look forward to each day. However, almost 60% felt that they do not play enough games to consider themselves a “gamer” and more than 30% said they would be embarrassed to call themselves one. Women who look forward to playing were more likely to feel guilty than those who do not.

While 75% of participants classified themselves as “casual gamers”, nearly 25% of them were not only playing mobile games, but also spending more than an hour a day playing games on PC or console. Strikingly, even among women who spent more than five hours a day playing games, only 16% identified as a “hardcore gamer”.

Our results suggest that many women feel excluded from video game culture. But while we expected that feelings like guilt would reduce the amount of time women spent playing games, we didn’t find such a connection. Those who feel guilty or keep their gaming a secret don’t play less – but they feel worse. This surprised us, and led us to dig further into the data.

We found that younger players are particularly guilt prone. Women aged 16-24 were three times more likely to feel guilt than those older than 54. While many people feel guilty about indulging in hobbies, women often get less leisure time than men and feel pressure to spend their leisure time doing productive tasks.

But that’s not the only barrier. Women were twice as likely to feel guilty if they didn’t know which games to try or if they thought games were too violent. This finding aligns with previous research that found that one of the main barriers to gaming for women is a lack of awareness of the diversity of available games available – not least because there is a limited range marketed to women.

Finally, guilt seemed to be related to whether women felt they fit into gaming culture. Women were twice as likely to feel guilty if they also thought that gaming was mainly a male pastime, or if they said they would be embarrassed to call themselves a gamer. In contrast, women who felt that occasionally playing any game made you a gamer were 42% less likely to feel guilty.

We found that 16% of participants keep their gaming a secret for fear of judgment. Women who reported feeling anxious or depressed when scrolling social media were more than twice as likely to do so compared to women who did not.

Feeling and expressing pride in gaming as a woman is a difficult balancing act. Women who felt very proud of their achievements in games were slightly more likely to keep it a secret than those who did not feel as proud. In contrast, women who were motivated to play games to challenge themselves were half as likely to keep it a secret.

Removing barriers to play

Our findings suggest that many women feel games and gaming culture are not intended for or open to them. Women spend less time playing if they believe that gaming is a male pastime, or that they don’t play enough games to be a gamer, are embarrassed to call themselves a gamer, or think video games are too violent.

We think that guilt and keeping secrets are just symptoms. While they are clearly negatively affecting female gamers, they don’t seem to be the root of the problem.

There’s more work to do. This study focused on participants who identify as women, and there are probably other barriers to play facing people of other gender identities. Understanding these barriers and how they interrelate is important for overcoming them, to increase the quantity and quality of gaming experiences in general.

Removing barriers to play will require deeper structural changes, such as reducing leisure inequality. But people in the games industry and gaming culture can also help by broadening the perception of who plays video games, who games are for, and what types of games are available. Given that pride is associated with more time playing, it would also benefit both the games industry and players to normalise the celebration of gaming achievements for women. You can help too. If you play games, why not recommend one to a friend?

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Stephanie Rennick conducted this research in collaboration with Unity consulting and Undone Games.

Seán Roberts conducted this research in collaboration with Unity consulting and Undone Games.

– ref. Nearly a third of female gamers feel guilty about their hobby – new study – https://theconversation.com/nearly-a-third-of-female-gamers-feel-guilty-about-their-hobby-new-study-263752