Can Zelensky hold back his hawks?
There is no doubt that the West supports Ukraine’s fight for its sovereignty and survival. There is equally no doubt…
Russia’s spy ships are playing mind games in British waters
The news that Russian spy ships appear to be mapping British and other underwater cables and pipelines in the North…
The US intelligence leak and the hypocrisy of the spy world
So what did everyone learn from the massive trove of more than a hundred top secret US documents a 21-year-old…
Kyiv wants to make it untenable for Russia to hold Crimea
Crimea matters to Russians – whether they adore or abhor Vladimir Putin – in a way none of the other…
Who is behind the murder of Putin’s propagandist?
Those who live by hate often die by hate, too. Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky, was one of…
The kidnapping of a journalist and Russia’s descent into thugocracy
It’s a crude but inescapable fact of history that many states had their origins in better-organised bandit gangs. It’s a…
Nikolai Patrushev, the man dripping poison into Putin’s ear
If I were to have to pick the figure in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle who scares me the most, it…
Dmitry Medvedev and the weakness of Putin’s Kremlin
It’s a long time since Dmitry Medvedev was last considered a potential liberal hope for Russia. Most recently, after all,…
After his trip to Moscow, Xi Jinping still holds all the cards
After his arrival in Moscow on Monday, President Xi Jinping said that China is ready, along with Russia, ‘to stand…
Wagner’s founder Evgeny Prigozhin is in a fight for his life
As Wagner mercenaries are being deliberately expended by the regular military as cannon-fodder in the battle for Bakhmut, their backer,…
How Russia is dodging sanctions
They might not be the quick knock-out blow their champions misleadingly claimed they’d be, but sanctions are having a serious…
Did the Ukrainians bomb the Nord Stream pipeline?
There’s an uncomfortable fact about covert operations in the information-saturated modern world. Like personal WhatsApp messages, they always leak –…
Ukraine’s drone war on Russia could backfire
Vladimir Putin has sold his Ukrainian war to the Russian people by trying to find the sweet spot between existential…
Why is Zelensky playing deadly mind games with Putin?
Many have weighed in on how Vladimir Putin’s reign will end. Now it is the turn of Volodymyr Zelensky, asserting…
Has Prigozhin pushed his luck too far with Putin?
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the businessman behind Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, is hardly a man to keep a low profile. He is…
Macron is right about the danger of Russia after Putin
France’s President Macron has raised hackles time and again with his interventions on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. For all his…
Putin’s real threat comes from Russia’s ‘turbo-patriots’
Does Vladimir Putin face a challenge, not from cuddly, West-looking liberals, but from even sharper-toothed nationalists? Certainly this is suddenly…
Tank warfare: why the West is worried about arming Ukraine
Ukraine’s top soldier, General Valery Zaluzhny, has said that if he is to launch a successful counter-offensive, the West will…
Tank warfare: why the West is worried about arming Ukraine
Ukraine’s top soldier, General Valery Zaluzhny, has said that if he is to launch a successful counter-offensive, the West will…
Putin is using fear to mobilise the masses
There was nothing subtle about it, as cranes lifted truck-based Pantsir-S1 air defence systems onto the roofs of the sprawling…
Will Putin’s latest general escalate the war in Ukraine?
So, one granite-faced general has been replaced by another. The announcement that, after just three months in post, General Sergei…
The age of AI diplomacy
The age of AI diplomacy
Putin’s hollow dream of a mightier army
Who needs Santa when you have Vladimir Putin? Just in time for Christmas, the Russian president has promised his military…
Putin’s hawks are turning on each other
Feathers are flying and divisions are widening among Russia’s hawks as the degree to which the invasion of Ukraine was…
Ilya Yashin is in jail, but his words will sting Vladimir Putin
Fewer than one in 100 defendants in the Russian court system get acquitted. Even in the best of circumstances then,…
