Russia
Barr investigates the investigators
‘OBAMA TAPPED MY PHONES!’ When President Trump blared out this accusation in a series of tweets in March 2017, the White…
Two football books examine where money is taking the modern game
‘Football holds a mirror to ourselves,’ Michael Calvin asserts in State of Play. Modern football is angrier, more brutal, more…
Trumpworld is spinning out of control
Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was oddly silent as the news came that his former campaign manager and his former lawyer…
The plight of the returnee: A Terrible Country, by Keith Gessen, reviewed
If the 20th century popularised the figure of the émigré, the 21st has introduced that of the returnee, who, aided…
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…
Assad is back for good in Syria – and with Trump’s blessing
Amid the confusion and the almost deafening cries of treachery and collusion over Donald Trump’s relations with Russia, few noticed…
Rarely have I sat through such a chaotic and whimsical script: Describe the Night reviewed
Describe the Night opens in Poland in 1920 where two Russian soldiers, Isaac and Nikolai, discuss truth and falsehood. Next…
The rise – and rise – of Trump Derangement Syndrome
New York ‘What do we do with these men?’ thundered a New York Times headline. It was followed by a…
Corbyn’s profoundly anti-western worldview is fully exposed at last
The Tories’ great worry after the last election was that they had effectively vaccinated the electorate against Jeremy Corbyn. They…
Brexit saved my marriage. Could Putin wreck it?
I went to a dinner for Toby Young, who has had some troubles of late, at this magazine’s gracious HQ,…
Putin follows the example of Octavian
Barely a day passes without yet another Russian explanation for the Salisbury nerve agent attack. What’s new? Such disinformation has…
Our response to the nerve gas attack has been an act of self-harm
There was a growling Russian maniac on the BBC’s Today programme last week, an MP from the United Russia party…
The Russian spy who went to all the Tory parties
I first met Sergey Nalobin in 2012 at Soho House. He introduced himself, in accented English, as from the Russian…
Radio’s role in winning the Cold War
Some of us grew up worrying about reds under the bed, which was perhaps not as foolish as all that…
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…
The time is right for an Erté revival – a new hero for our gender-anxious times
Erté was destined for the imperial navy. Failing that, the army. His father and uncle had been navy men. There…
Faulty connection
There’s no doubting her passion for the programme of which she is now chief of staff. Talking to Roger Bolton…
High life
When the Germans smuggled arguably the world’s most evil man into Russia 100 years ago, they did not imagine the…
Trump’s eastern front
Kiev There is no lavatory paper to be found in government buildings in Kiev. Plan ahead, locals advise, if you…
Yes sir, we can boogie
It’s dance — but not as you know it. A giddy mass of flying limbs, sashaying hips and pouty faces.…
I met Donald Trump’s Russian fan club (and fought them on TV)
Moscow To the Union Jack pub on Potapovsky Lane for a US election night party. The jolly Muscovite Trump supporters…
Andrey Kurkov’s The Bickford Fuse is a satirical masterpiece
Whimsy, satire and deadpan humour: welcome to the world of Andrey Kurkov. If you know Kurkov’s work, The Bickford Fuse…
Might Eurovision determine the outcome of the EU referendum?
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
A literary lap dance: Doctor Faustus reviewed
Great excitement for play-goers as a rare version of a theological masterpiece arrives in the West End. Doctor Faustus stars…
Ancient Egypt’s obsession with death was in fact a preoccupation with life
The Fitzwilliam Museum is marking its bicentenary with an exhibition that takes its title from Agatha Christie: Death on the…
