Chechnya
Sarah Rainsford joins the long list of foreign correspondents banned from Russia
After decades of writing about Russian affairs, Rainsford now finds herself persona non grata – but admits she no longer feels nostalgia for the country
How dangerous is the Sunni-Shia schism?
What unites the two groups is more fundamental than what divides them, says Barnaby Rogerson, and the more serious conflict among Muslims concerns ethnicity and language
‘We don’t get many foreigners around here’
Scarred by reporting the Beslan school siege in 2004, Tom Parfitt embarks on a gruelling – and ultimately healing – journey from the Black Sea to the Caspian
Inside Putin’s mind
The lessons of Chechnya
Ukrainians fear Chechen fighters. Russian soldiers hate them
Residents fleeing the Kiev suburb of Bucha reported Chechens machine-gunning cars, even those with the word ‘children’written in their windscreens.…
![Marie Colvin, a year before her death. [Rex Features]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Marie_Colvin.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
For Marie Colvin, mortal danger was what made life worth living
When Britain finally lowered the flag in the Iraqi city of Basra in 2007, the army’s top brass valiantly claimed…
Away with the fairies
As an erstwhile obituarist, I pity the poor hack who had to write up the life of Laurence Oliphant —…
Isis takes its British schoolgirl jihadis seriously. Why don’t we?
When the first schoolgirls ran away to Isis I had some sympathy for them — at least, I could see…
Putin and the polygamists
The Kremlin is tying itself in ideological knots as it tries to make new friends in the Muslim world
Broken dreams
As Masha Gessen herself admits — and as friends and journalist colleagues repeatedly told her — it was a strange…
