Vladimir Putin
The new alliances dedicated to destroying democracy
Despite their diverse ideologies, autocracies in China, Iran, Russia and Latin America are increasingly collaborating to sabotage a rules-based international order
From the front line of the battle to save Kharkiv
Kharkiv region Moonlight shines on the wings of the reconnaissance drone as it glides over the field. Within minutes, the…
What I saw at the Okhmatdyt bomb site
Kyiv For weeks, Kyiv had felt relatively safe compared with just about everywhere else in Ukraine. People had adjusted to…
Brexit has helped the EU
There was hardly an election poster to be seen on the roadside during a two-hour drive from London to the…
Putin is trying to annexe people, not just land
On 1 September 2021, six months before his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was speaking at the All-Russian Children’s…
My return to Ukraine
I arrive at Lviv station just before 9 a.m. As the clock strikes, the conductor announces a minute’s silence: a daily…
Ukraine’s greatest, yet least publicised success
Odessa Our conference here is about Black Sea security, where I am the guest of UK Friends of Ukraine. Its…
Zelensky’s peace summit flop
Ukraine’s allies are running out of patience
Why Russia’s ‘king of the kickback’ was arrested
The universal corruption of the Russian elite suits Vladimir Putin. When everyone has a skeleton in their closet, power rests…
Russia will not attack Nato
There is a lot of war fever about. In January, Grant Shapps, Britain’s tiggerish defence secretary, said the UK was…
Why the US will decide Ukraine’s fate
The US will decide Ukraine’s fate
Russia’s long history of smears, sabotage and barefaced lies
Mark Hollingsworth describes how the KGB became the world’s most industrious conspiracy-theory factory, with its agents of influence dedicated to sowing maximum confusion
The Ukrainian war is coming to Moscow
War is coming home to Moscow
Igor Girkin’s arrest was a long time coming
With the reported arrest on Friday of Igor Girkin (aka ‘Strelkov’ or ‘Igor the Terrible’) the career of one of…
How does the Russian public view the invasion of Ukraine?
It’s not just Putin’s war, says Jade McGlynn. The mass of Telegram data shows how much the nation as a whole supports the offensive
Putin is copying the propaganda playbook of Serbian war criminals
A year ago, Ukrainian soldiers discovered evidence of the Bucha massacre in which Russian forces slaughtered hundreds of Ukrainians in…
After his trip to Moscow, Xi Jinping still holds all the cards
After his arrival in Moscow on Monday, President Xi Jinping said that China is ready, along with Russia, ‘to stand…
Xi’s nuclear warnings are a coup for Scholz
Checks and balances on Vladimir Putin don’t come from inside Russia. The people around him supported forced mobilisation, pushed his…
Is Putin preparing a nuclear strike?
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?
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
Martial law can arrive with a bang: tanks on the streets, Swan Lake on the TV. It can also creep…
Putin at 70: How The Spectator has covered his life
Vladimir Putin turns 70 today. Since he became Prime Minister of Russia in 1999, some of The Spectator’s greatest contributors…
Did Russia sabotage its own pipelines?
It almost seems worthy of the opening scene in a Bond film. Vital Russian gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea close…
Was Nato expansion worth the risk?
This is an important and topical book. Mary Sarotte traces the difficult course of Russia’s relations with Europe and the…
