The Russian nuclear threat is looming once more
It is 00.40 pm, 26 September 1983. Lieutenant-Colonel Stanislav Petrov, the duty commander in charge of monitoring the Soviet Union’s early…
Putin’s frightening fascination with the occult
Wearing a long white scarf, military khaki pants and holding a drum and stick, Vladimir Putin smiles as he watches…
The vast corruption of Ukraine’s sanctions regime
Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, a former US government official visited Kiev to inquire how he could help to supply…
Russia is still very much a security threat inside the UK
At 1.30 p.m. on 7 September 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident and BBC journalist, approached a bus stop at the…
The Caribbean island that wants to claim a Russian super yacht
Earlier this year I asked Gretta Fenner, head of a Swiss Foundation that investigates oligarchs and financial crime, about confiscating…
The real origins of Putin’s war
In 1992, Richard Nixon assessed the future of Russia in a remarkably prophetic interview. ‘Russia is at a crossroads’, said…
Putin and the power of the Orthodox church
In April this year, a sombre looking Vladimir Putin attended a midnight Orthodox Easter Service in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour…
Russian sanctions are hurting Putin’s enemies
‘Ukrainians fight for their homeland, Russians fight for Putin’s ambitions’, declared the TV presenter on his YouTube channel earlier this…
Like Putin’s Russia, Bulgaria has become a mafia state
In a historic speech to the US Congress on 12 March 1947, President Truman addressed the menacing spread of Communism…
What Putin could learn from Stalin
On 29 August 1942, as German tanks reached the Volga river near Stalingrad, Josef Stalin consulted his most senior General,…
Is this the man who will one day take over from Putin?
Boris Ratnikov, a former KGB officer and retired chief advisor to Russia’s security service, gave a remarkable interview back in…
Our Russian sanctions are only helping Vladimir Putin
‘I don’t see a single beneficiary of this crazy war’, wrote the self-made Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov on his Instagram…
How oligarchs use Brussels to launder their reputations
When the police raided the home of the former socialist MEP and lawyer Pier Antonio Panzeri and found €500,000 in…
How Prince Charles’s €1m bagman infiltrated the British establishment
The Queen rarely – if ever – accepts invitations to dinner at private houses, no matter how grand. But in…
How Russia’s oligarchs are evading sanctions
On 25 February 2022, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, a select group of oligarchs attended a private meeting with…
Why did it take so long to sanction Roman Abramovich?
On 28 October 2016, I received an email from a well-connected former senior MI6 officer who asked me if I…
