Russia
The prophet Tolstoy and his dodgy vicar
One fine day in June 1896, a lone Russian nihilist visited Leo Tolstoy on his country estate. Come to hear…
Panic, profiteering and a mysterious girl in a Mini: notes from Moscow
Moscow Here we go again. The rouble slides, then tumbles, and slides again. For those of us who remember the…
Old Vic’s Tree: Beckett plus Seinfeld - plus swearing
‘Fucking hell. You twat. Fuck off. Fuck. Fuck.’ These dispiriting words are the opening line of Tree, a newish play…
Europeans no longer fear Germany. But do the Germans still fear themselves?
Germans are beginning to recognise that they will not always be able to stay out of military conflicts
The crash of the ruble — and what's next for Russia
Will Putin’s people still love him when the money dries up? He’s about to find out
What went so wrong for Vaclav Havel?
The unforgettable moment a quarter of a century ago when the Berlin Wall came down was the most vivid drama…
Mariinsky’s Boris Godunov - a revelation
Anyone who thinks opera singers and orchestral players are overworked should spare a thought for the Mariinsky Opera on its…
Portrait of the week
Home The last British combat troops turned over Camp Bastion in Helmand to Afghan forces and withdrew from Afghanistan after…
Russians made the theatre space the most liberating imaginative device ever invented
You have to hand it to the Russians. They beat us into space, beat us to sexual equality, and a…
Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin: ‘The KGB put a microphone in our marriage bed'
Ismene Brown talks to the Russian super-couple Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin about ballet, opera and the KGB
Europe will reconcile with Russia, and soon. It can’t afford not to
The West will have to drop sanctions on Russia – or face another global economic crash
Letter from Donetsk: peace, with missile attacks
For what is technically peacetime, there’s a lot of shelling going on round here. Donetsk airport is still held by…
Václav Klaus: The lies Europe tells about Russia
Václav Klaus, the former Czech president, on David Cameron, the EU, Russia — and the end of free speech
Six rivals for the name Isis
Not in their name The BBC decided to start calling the Islamic terror group Isis by the acronym IS instead.…
The wars that really are about the oil
You can’t understand any of the world’s crises without understanding petropolitics
Radek Sikorski’s notebook: Goose-steppers in Oxford, and a drone in my garden
As the BA flight from Warsaw landed at Heathrow, I felt a little tremor of anxiety, though it wasn’t anything…
You can't make friends with Uncle Sam and survive for long
Can somebody tell me when America last got it right? Uncle Sam’s track record in selecting leaders in faraway places…
Violence, fear, confusion: this is what comes into a leadership vacuum
The old cliché that ‘nothing happens in August’ has again been brutally disproved. From the centenary of the outbreak of…
Why a City job should be graduates’ last resort
August is the season for conversation about career choices. Every holiday party seems to include new graduates or next year’s…
I know how ineffective sanctions are – but these ones just might work
‘Sanctions,’ said Kofi Annan, ‘are a necessary middle ground between war and words.’ Neither the EU nor the US will…
The MH17 disaster
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, told Parliament that President Vladimir Putin of Russia should end his country’s support for…
Sanctions won’t tame Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Talking might
Sanctions won’t help. One thing might
Vladimir Putin’s empire of lies
Putin’s answer to the destruction of Flight MH17 has been more propaganda. In Russia, at least, it seems to be working
Peter Mandelson’s diary: The accomplishments of George Osborne – and Vladimir Putin
My trips to meet Russians in Russia these days are a little less controversial than my encounter with them in…
Paul Johnson’s diary: Boris would make a great PM – but he must strike now
I feel an intense antipathy for Vladimir Putin. No one on the international scene has aroused in me such dislike…
