Vladimir Putin
Why we shouldn’t ban Russia Today
Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, has written to Ofcom urging it to keep the situation with Russia Today ‘very carefully…
Has Putin outplayed Macron in Africa?
While the world is focused on Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron has withdrawn all French forces from Mali. Last weekend, thousands of…
Would Trump have prevented the crisis in Ukraine?
‘I know Vladimir Putin very well,’ said Donald Trump yesterday, speaking of the Ukraine crisis, ‘he would have never done…
Putin’s next move
Budapest Russian troops, many apparently without insignia, began advancing into the disputed Donbas region yesterday. The question now is how…
Sanctions won’t stop Putin
The Lithuanian prime minister, Ingrida Šimonyte, put it well yesterday: ‘the way we respond will define us for the generations to…
How the Ukraine crisis ends
Vladimir Putin does not think in the way the West does. Of course sanctions will hurt. But so what? He…
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…
Was the Kazakhstan uprising an attempted Jihadi takeover?
The Kazakh uprising is over. The stench of burnt-out vehicles and bombed out buildings in Kazakhstan’s most populous city and…
Gorbachev’s failed experiment
Thirty years ago the Soviet Union was guttering to its close. Those of us who were there remember the exhilarating…
Is Russia preparing to invade Ukraine?
I can still hear the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Just a mile or so from us, thousands of Russian troops…
The mystery of Vladimir Putin’s mistresses
There’s an odd thing about 18-year old Luiza Rozova’s instagram feed. You can see photos of her breakfasts (sliced exotic…
Ella Pamfilova and the dismantling of Russia’s democracy
Vladimir Putin’s Russia is hardly known for its free and fair elections. But a purge of the field ahead of…
Why Joe Biden’s Russia-bashing is a tactical mistake
You might not think that Geoff Norcott, the self-proclaimed conservative comedian, has something to contribute to western relations with Russia,…
Inside a dictator’s playground
Armed soldiers guard the barbed-wire compound. Helicopters buzz around the parameter, drifting above families on tandem bicycles. Groups of giggling…
The Soviet spectre haunting Afghanistan
As US and British forces pull out of Afghanistan, further victims of the ‘grave of empires’, Russia is experiencing a mix…
The Kremlin’s plan to destabilise the West
On Sunday, Russia releasedits new National Security Strategy. In many ways, it picked up from where the 2015 version left…
Biden and Putin have left Britain out in the cold
It would probably be wrong to say that Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin got on like a house on fire.…
Bear-baiting
Sanctions against Putin and his allies don’t work
Putin and Biden need one another
Does Joe Biden think that Putin is a killer? asked ABC host George Stephanopoulos. ‘Mmm-hmm, I do,’ answered the President.…
What does Belarus’s opposition leader want?
There is an assumption that those fighting tyranny must instead want Western-style democracy, that the arc of history bends towards…
America’s Russian sanctions are futile
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to approach Russia and its irascible President Vladimir Putin with a new…
Everyone suddenly believes Vladimir Putin
For four years, Vladimir Putin’s meddling in Our Democracy™ has been the all-consuming political obsession of the entire Washington/New York…
We want lies
On 27 November 1960 African and Indian diplomats visiting the UN in New York opened their mail to find a…
The war for your mind
The romantic plans of a Kazakh bodybuilder named Yuri Tolochko have become one more casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. He…
Tantrums of a tyrant
It is easy to forget the abnormality of Donald Trump’s presence in the White House. Before his election it would…
