Zelensky’s peace summit flop
Ukraine’s allies are running out of patience
Distrust and resentment have plagued Anglo-Russian relations for centuries
On a visit to England in 1556, Ivan the Terrible’s envoy alienated Londoners with his extreme suspicions – and lurid insults have been exchanged ever since
Putin’s purge of his top generals
In the past month, Vladimir Putin has had five top generals arrested on corruption charges. More are likely to follow…
The US war aid might be too little, too late for Ukraine
At the last possible moment, after months of prevarication and with Russian troops on the brink of a major breakthrough…
Will Biden support Ukraine’s attacks on Russia?
This time last year, Volodymyr Zelensky was touring western capitals, calling for weapons and money to launch a decisive summer…
The Moscow terror attack is Putin’s 9/11
The Crocus City Hall attack blindsided Putin’s vast security state. Employing nearly a million policemen, 340,000 national guards and over…
Pope Francis’s unhelpful Ukraine comments
Pope Francis has made a statement on the Ukraine war that has sparked fury among many of Kyiv’s supporters. Asked…
Ukraine’s spirit isn’t even close to broken
Rome and Kyiv have one thing in common – the distinctive whine of motor-scooter engines in the night. The difference…
The tragedy of Alexei Navalny
I knew and greatly respected Alexei Navalny. The news (as yet not independently confirmed) that he died in prison came…
Putin’s ‘peace’ is a partitioned Ukraine
Is Vladimir Putin trying to end his war in Ukraine? According to recent reports, the Kremlin has launched a new…
The heady, hedonistic summer in which I became a life-long foreigner
Rome I have spent almost all my adult life as a foreigner. When I graduated from Oxford I faced a…
The exiled activists who dream of dismantling the Russian empire
The dream of the dismantling of the Russian empire
Why the US will decide Ukraine’s fate
The US will decide Ukraine’s fate
Yevgeny Prigozhin was a dead man walking
Yevgeny Prigozhin died, as Macbeth almost said, as one that had been studied in his death. In the last three…
The Ukrainian war is coming to Moscow
War is coming home to Moscow
Russia’s complex relationship with the ruble
The first banknotes were greeted with deep suspicion in 1769 – but it was nothing to the distrust that Soviet and post-Soviet issues aroused
The Wagner Group isn’t Russia’s only private army
The Wagner Group isn’t Russia’s only private army
Prigozhin has made Putin more dangerous than ever
As rebel tanks trundled up the highway towards Moscow yesterday morning, Vladimir Putin labelled the mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin…
Why Prigozhin rebelled
Civil war broke on Russia like a thunderstorm, replacing weeks of mounting political heat with a deluge of fire and…
