Putin

Has Germany finally shaken off its dark past?

6 January 2024 9:00 am

‘When it comes to helping others, we are the world champions’, one politician declared in 2015. But Merkel’s welcome to immigrants was pragmatic – and anti-Semitism is on the rise again

Must we live in perpetual fear of being named and shamed?

6 January 2024 9:00 am

Current wars, Brexit and Trumpism have sucked us into a vortex of outrage and disgrace, says David Keen – while advertisers make us feel guilty for being too fat or just poor

How the West plays up to Putin’s caricature

12 August 2023 9:00 am

In an outstanding article in the New York Times, Roger Cohen recounted his experience of travelling across Russia for a…

Russian military chief lets slip the cost of invasion

7 August 2023 1:59 am

When it comes to disclosing the true cost of the war in Ukraine for Russia, the Kremlin has rarely, if…

Why Putin still needs Wagner

8 July 2023 9:00 am

Why Putin still needs Wagner

The Wagner Group isn’t Russia’s only private army

1 July 2023 9:00 am

The Wagner Group isn’t Russia’s only private army

The Wagner uprising has left Putin isolated

26 June 2023 4:55 am

Both Vladimir Putin and the mercenary Wagner Group have been dramatically weakened by yesterday’s attempted coup. Wagner’s nominal leader, Yevgeny…

This failed coup will be just the beginning

24 June 2023 6:50 pm

Yevgeny Prigozhin has just exposed the full extent of Vladimir Putin’s weakness. In less than 24 hours, the leader of…

Prigozhin leaves Rostov

24 June 2023 5:24 pm

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, has left Rostov-on-Don and ended the armed insurrection against Vladimir Putin.…

Putin’s nuclear reshuffle is designed to antagonise Nato

11 June 2023 8:33 pm

Days before Nato leaders descend on Vilnius for the alliance’s annual summit next month, things will be afoot just across…

How Ukrainians are making the lives of even anti-Putin Russian artists impossible

3 June 2023 9:00 am

Zoe Strimpel talks to the anti-Putin Russian artists who have been cancelled since the invasion of Ukraine

Why Putin won’t take Hitler’s way out

15 January 2023 9:30 pm

The last time Europe fought a major war, there was no shortage of planning. We knew what peace meant. Winston…

What Zelensky has taken from his former TV career

29 October 2022 9:00 am

Volodymyr Zelensky is one of the few leaders of modern times whose charisma, determination and sheer cojones can be said,…

Is Putin preparing a nuclear strike?

26 October 2022 1:49 am

Russia is peddling implausible tales of Ukrainian ‘dirty bombs’. Kyiv and the West are embarked on a campaign to counter…

What does Russia really want?

22 October 2022 7:00 pm

The question of ‘why’ Russia invaded Ukraine has been forgotten amid war’s fog. Greed and malice partially explains it. History, geopolitics…

Tsar Vladimir brings in martial law

20 October 2022 3:10 am

Martial law can arrive with a bang: tanks on the streets, Swan Lake on the TV. It can also creep…

How should the West respond to Putin’s threats?

8 October 2022 9:00 am

How should the West respond to Putin’s threats?

Putin at 70: How The Spectator has covered his life

7 October 2022 8:00 pm

Vladimir Putin turns 70 today. Since he became Prime Minister of Russia in 1999, some of The Spectator’s greatest contributors…

Letters: Britain needs the English National Ballet

1 October 2022 9:00 am

Putin’s options Sir: I agree with Paul Wood that Vladimir Putin is on the back foot (‘Cornered’, 24 September). His…

War has come home to Russia

1 October 2022 9:00 am

  Moscow A week of somewhat mixed messages from the Kremlin. One day Vladimir Putin opened Europe’s largest Ferris wheel…

Did Russia sabotage its own pipelines?

28 September 2022 6:15 am

It almost seems worthy of the opening scene in a Bond film. Vital Russian gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea close…

What's behind Putin's no-show?

21 September 2022 5:43 am

Has Vladimir Putin carried out a cynical stunt, or ducked out of a seismic decision? That’s the debate among Kremlinologists…

More mad than Vlad: Russia’s ultra-nationalist threat

17 September 2022 9:00 am

Putin’s most dangerous opposition comes from Russia’s ultra-nationalists

Gorbachev was no saint. But he was a kind of hero

31 August 2022 8:08 am

Mikhail Gorbachev is dead at the age of 91, and in a way I feel orphaned. I became fascinated by…