How Rome’s rubbish became a political problem
‘Excommunication,’ reads a stone plaque on the wall of the church of St Theodore in Rome, ‘and a fine of…
The mystery of Vladimir Putin’s mistresses
There’s an odd thing about 18-year old Luiza Rozova’s instagram feed. You can see photos of her breakfasts (sliced exotic…
Journey to the end of the world: the full horror of the Belgica’s Antarctic expedition
The epic story of the Antarctic voyage of the Belgica (1897-9) has all the ingredients of a truly glorious misadventure:…
Why sanctions against Putin and his allies don’t work
Sanctions against Putin and his allies don’t work
Putin and Biden need one another
Does Joe Biden think that Putin is a killer? asked ABC host George Stephanopoulos. ‘Mmm-hmm, I do,’ answered the President.…
The truth about Russia’s hidden Covid deaths
Putin’s hidden Covid deaths
Betrayal was a routine business for George Blake
Kim Philby once remarked to the journalist Murray Sayle that ‘to betray, you must first belong. I never belonged’. Kim,…
Protests for Navalny sweep Russia
The protests began in Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific coast, and spread Westwards across 85 cities across the country’s nine time…
Navalny and Putin: the next chapter
Navalny’s return to Russia is brave – and provocative
Putin plans to make the West destroy itself
How Putin plans to make the West destroy itself
Putin plans to make the West destroy itself
There’s only one person who’ll be genuinely pleased with the UK Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report, finally revealed on…
Vladimir Putin’s history fetish
Russia, the old joke goes, has long been a country with an unpredictable past. On September 22, 1939, for instance,…
Can Putin survive the coronavirus stress test?
Coronavirus is a double whammy for his regime
Moscow rules in London: how Putin’s agents corrupted the British elite
Putin’s corrupt cronies may change, but the paranoid world view they all share remains the same, says Owen Matthews
The King of Christmas: A short story by Owen Matthews
The Christmas King steps slowly from his house and sniffs the evening’s chill. His tread is dainty, for all his…
‘It wasn’t the Russian people who poisoned Skripal, it was just a few guys’: Alexander Lebedev interviewed
Who wants to be a billionaire? Not, apparently, Alexander Lebedev, the self-described ‘Russian ex-oligarch’ who has tried billionaredom and found…
In Ukraine’s presidential elections, life is imitating Netflix
Servant of the People is a hilarious Ukrainian situation comedy currently running on Netflix. It opens with a young high-school…
Dau is the strangest and most unsettling piece of art to come out of Russia in years
Dau is not so much a film as a document of a mass human experiment. The result is dark, brilliant…
Does Putin intend to go to war with Ukraine?
On Europe’s eastern borderlands, trouble is brewing. Two headstrong leaders — Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko —…
How Bellingcat outfoxes the world’s spy agencies
Bellingcat is an independent group of exceptionally gifted Leicester-based internet researchers who use information gleaned from open sources to dig…
The magnificent Atkinsons: rigours of travel in 19th-century Russia
Russia has always attracted a certain breed of foreigner: adventurers, drawn to the country’s vastness and emptiness; chancers, seeking fortunes…
Why the Romanovs were doomed
The true tragedy of the last Romanovs was a failure of imagination. Both during his last disastrous months in office…
Putin says he’s making Russia great again. In reality, it’s crumbling
This is Putin’s time. Next week, the Fifa World Cup kicks off in Moscow, and the Kremlin has spared no…
Vladimir Putin’s toxic power
Vladimir Putin’s spies have a dizzying variety of weapons at their disposal. This week Britain learned of a new one:…
For Putin, the World Cup is not about football but global respect
Authoritarian regimes love grand international sporting events. There’s something about the mass regimentation, the set-piece spectacle, the old-fashioned idea of…
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