Putin is lining up a lengthy list of scapegoats for his war
Lately Vladimir Putin has been strikingly unwilling to subject himself to any serious debate about his war in Ukraine. On…
Will Putin manage to spin Kyiv’s counter-offensive as a victory?
The Ukrainian counter-offensive has duly started and, needless to say, there is a rush to judgement. It is going to…
Russia flounders as Kyiv gears up for its counter-offensive
According to Moscow, Ukraine’s long-awaited counter-offensive has begun, and has begun badly for Kyiv. Of course, we need to treat…
Tug of war
Ukraine cannot afford to play it safe
Russia’s fake news machine has a fresh target
There is a certain perverse cachet in one’s words being wilfully distorted by someone who thinks it gives their argument…
Why has Ukraine admitted that it assassinates people in Russia?
After months of flat denials, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence has admitted that Kyiv is carrying out a campaign…
Prigozhin’s ‘treachery’ poses a dangerous challenge to Putin
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the businessman behind the Wagner mercenary army, likes accusing his political enemies of ‘treason’ for not backing him…
The Black Sea is Nato’s new front line against Russia
Earlier this month, an unarmed Polish aircraft monitoring potential human smuggling and illegal fishing on the Black Sea almost ditched…
War in Ukraine rains on Putin’s Victory Day parade
It may be having trouble on the battlefield, but the Russian army does know how to stage a parade. Behind…
Putin has made Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin eat his words
He huffed, and he puffed, and he damn near blew his own house down. The way Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man…
How ordinary Russians continue to resist Putin
Russia is gearing up for its annual festival of state-sponsored militarist kitsch that are the 9 May Victory Day celebrations,…
What’s the truth about the Kremlin drone attack?
The Russian government has claimed that ‘two unmanned aerial vehicles were aimed at the Kremlin. As a result of timely…
What’s behind Putin’s digital crackdown on draft dodgers?
With the break-neck pace with which it tends to respond to measures coming from the Kremlin, this month Russia’s parliament…
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 –…
