Ukraine
Does Putin have blood cancer?
Suddenly, we are all diagnosticians. Clips of a puffy Putin slurring his words, his hands twitching or clutching a table…
Portrait of the week: The Queen’s Speech, Sinn Fein surge and an £184m lottery win
Home The Prince of Wales delivered the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament sitting on a throne next…
Putin’s emperor complex
Did Vladimir Putin ever use his infamous ‘historical’ account of Russia-Ukraine relations to consider how Ukrainians might react to his…
Merkel is turning into Blair
Angela Merkel left the German chancellery at the end of last year with a bunch of flowers, a standing ovation…
Germany’s wilful ignorance is hurting Ukraine
Berlin, Germany Germans have a complex relationship with their Erinnerungskultur, or ‘culture of memory’. Whenever the word appears, it almost invariably…
Putin’s cult of war
This idolisation of the Soviet military is Russia’s modern tragedy. Not least because it is crucial to Putin’s way of…
Read: Vladimir Putin's victory day speech in full
The following is The Spectator’s translation of Putin’s speech for victory day 2022. Most respected citizens of Russia, dear veterans,…
Is Putin preparing for total war on 9 May?
Ahead of Russia’s annual Victory Day celebration on 9 May – which marks the date the Soviet Union defeated Nazi…
The sin of neutrality
Yet again, millions of civilians across the Horn of Africa are starving. The world blames the crisis on drought and…
British volunteers shouldn't be fighting in Ukraine
What’s going to happen to British volunteers captured while fighting Russian forces? According to Ukrainian analysts, there is intelligence to suggest that Russia…
Refugee status: the social cachet of taking in Ukrainians
The social cachet of taking in Ukrainians
What makes a ‘just’ war?
What is a just war? Those who, from St Augustine onwards, have debated the question usually begin with Cicero, the…
Letters: Workshy Whitehall has its benefits
In check Sir: Jade McGlynn (‘Conflict of opinion’, 23 April) has a point that there are many reasons for popular…
Portrait of the week: Twitter takeover, late nights for pubs and a row over leg-crossing
Home Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said Britain assessed that 15,000 Russians had been killed in the war against Ukraine…
Germany’s military muddle over Ukraine
The reluctance of chancellor Olaf Scholz to provide heavy weapons to Ukraine is now coming under increasing fire from abroad…
Could Russia lose the war in Donbas?
We face a serious dilemma as the Battle of the Donbas begins. The idea that the Russian army remains a…
Why more and more Russians are backing the war
Why Russian support for the war will keep growing
Why Putin’s ‘Satanic’ missile launch matters
In some ways, it’s a headline-writer’s dream: Putin puts his faith in Satan. In reality, it’s actually Putin’s new RS-28…
Is Putin in pain?
Is Vladimir Putin in pain? Until now, there has been plenty of chatter about the wellbeing of his minister of…
Why does India get a free pass for supporting Russia?
When Russia invaded Ukraine the Indian government rapidly launched ‘Operation Ganga’. This was not a military operation, nor did it…
Why the sinking of the Moskva matters
The sinking of the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva is both a reminder of the past and a marker for the…
Why Russians celebrate monsters
Nobody knows how long people live in Dzerzhinsk – life expectancy statistics for the Russian city, 250 miles east of…
Portrait of the week: Boris in Kyiv, Rishi in hot water and crystal meth in a cereal packet
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, travelled to Kyiv in secret and joined President Volodymyr Zelensky for the cameras in…
Bitter harvest – how Ukraine’s wheat has always been coveted
Publishers love books with ambitious subtitles such as ‘How Bubblegum Made the Modern World’, and this one’s, about American wheat…
I can feel my heart hardening as the war goes on
Palm Sunday in Perugia. Umbrians were scuttling around with twigs and leaves, but I was in town to celebrate another…
