The Fix: Backflips and realignments

We’ll be asking contributors to put together their own short collected observations like this one in the weeks ahead – and as always, if you’ve got an idea to pitch for The Interpreter, drop a line via the About page.

Ten days after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s audacious “non-coup coup” in Russia, geopolitics are back on everyone’s news diet.

To keep up to speed on the fast-moving situation in Ukraine, I’ve been feasting on the substack Comment is Freed – a politics, policy and foreign affairs blog by Sir Lawrence Freedman and his son Sam. The back catalogue is jam-packed with analysis on Russia’s invasion, but also all manner of thought-provoking commentary on the tactics and language of conflict.

With the new season of ABC’s Utopia out, the excruciating and arcane machinations of the National Building Authority are almost too hard to watch. So many policy pivots, backflips and realignments that it’s difficult to keep up.

And feeling a little late to the game, a recent recommendation to the China Project’s Sinica podcast has filled a void on all things China. The weekly discussion with diplomats, scholars and activists on current events in China is hosted by former heavy metal guitarist turned communications guru Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn, the founder of a number of China-focused internet platforms.