Putin
War and peace
How Putin bewilders the West
Russian roulette
Is Moscow’s bluff backfiring?
The Ukraine crisis has united the West
There has been a subtle change of tone from Joe Biden and Boris Johnson about the likelihood of a Russian…
Putin may yet resist a full-on invasion
The west is still in the dark on what Vladimir Putin will do next. The Russian military build-up on the…
What really happens if Russia invades Ukraine?
Russia will pay an enormous price if it invades Ukraine, whether it goes for the whole country or only the…
Why Putin wins
Did Vladimir Putin ever intend to invade Ukraine? Or were his troop manoeuvres just a game — another test of…
Ukraine’s plight paints a bleak vision of Europe’s future
It is tempting to view Vladimir Putin as a Cold War relic: a former KGB officer who hasn’t got over the…
Viktor Orbán or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Putin
Viktor Orbán first came to prominence when in 1989 he declared on live TV that Hungary must put an end…
Letter from Odessa
‘God Save the Queen’ trended on Ukrainian social media over the weekend. ‘As a Brit in Kiev I have never…
Read: Tucker Carlson on Ukraine, ethno-nationalism and M&Ms
This week, Tucker Carlson spoke to Freddy Gray on the latest episode of Spectator TV. You can watch their conversation…
No one should celebrate the decline of America
Where is America? Like an old friend who hasn’t been in touch for years, you wonder if its silence is…
Haunted
The spectre of revolution is stalking Putin
No, Putin isn’t trying to bring the Soviet Union back
On Christmas Day 1991, in his last act as president, Mikhail Gorbachev signed away the existence of the Union of…
The battle for Ukraine has already been lost
Forget the ‘commitment‘ of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ukraine’s sovereignty, the EU’s ‘firm and decisive’ support, and…
Lukashenko and Putin are exploiting Europe’s migration muddle
At the border of Belarus and Poland, camps of migrants wait for a chance to cross the border into the…
How Turkey is fuelling the Belarus-Poland migrant crisis
In the cold, damp forest lining the border between Poland and Belarus, thousands of refugees flown over from the Middle…
Is Russia ready for life after Putin?
When Russians headed to the polls last week, the Duma election results were never in doubt: Putin’s United Russiaparty won…
How Russia lurched from vaccine victory to Covid crisis
Russia made headlines last August when it triumphantly unveiled its pioneering coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik V. But now, nearly a year…
Why the Biden-Putin summit wasn’t a waste of time
The meeting between U.S. president Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin in Geneva started cordially enough. A quick handshake, toothy smiles…
History endlessly repeated
Perhaps the secret to understanding Russian history lies in its grammar: it lacks a pluperfect tense. In Latin, English and…
Why Lukashenko keeps getting away with it
The diversion of a Ryanair flight bound for Lithuania from Athens and the arrest of passenger Roman Protasevich – an…
Alexei Navalny’s big gamble
Alexei Navalny seems to undergoing a metamorphosis. Yesterday, we saw him attending another trial by video, looking gaunt after 24…
The rules of Putin’s game
What does Putin want? It’s more straightforward than you might think: usually the answer is ‘what he says’. It’s worth remembering…
Can Biden bring relations with Russia back from the brink?
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov delivered a depressing assessment on the state of U.S.-Russia relations earlier this month. While holding…
Russian count
Putin’s hidden Covid deaths
