KGB

The reluctant spy: The Predicament, by William Boyd, reviewed

8 November 2025 9:00 am

Sucked further into the quicksand of 1960s espionage, Gabriel Dax is sent to Guatemala, and then on to West Berlin, where he uncovers a plot to assassinate President Kennedy

The Russian spies hiding in plain sight

3 May 2025 9:00 am

A programme of deep-cover espionage, begun in the 1920s, is as important to Russia as ever with the expulsion of so many diplomats in the wake of the war with Ukraine

Inside the Unholy See: the infiltration of the Vatican by foreign powers

8 February 2025 9:00 am

Yvonnick Denoël reveals how, since the mid-20th century, a scandalous number of priests have acted as communist moles

On the run in Russia

8 July 2023 9:00 am

Owen Matthews concludes his magnificent KGB trilogy, and there’s a thrilling debut from David McCloskey, a former CIA Middle East specialist

Secrets and spies

14 August 2021 9:00 am

The Courier is a Cold War spy thriller and the prospect of a Cold War spy thriller always makes my…

Why did a Russian ballet dancer throw acid in his boss’s face?

12 December 2015 9:00 am

The 16th June 1961 and 17th January 2013 are two indelible dates in the annals of Russian ballet. Two events…

Crime and cover-up — a very Russian tale

7 February 2015 9:00 am

The way to think about Russia, Bill Browder told me in Moscow in 2004, using a comparison he recycles in…

Plisetskaya in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, 1964. She was one of the supreme trophies in the Soviet display case, the most garlanded, the most suspected

Surviving the Soviets

25 October 2014 9:00 am

Ismene Brown talks to the Russian super-couple Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin about ballet, opera and the KGB

Crime and no punishment

27 July 2013 9:00 am

Edward Jay Epstein is an American investigative journalist, now in his late seventies, who has spent at least half a…