Besieged Odesa is still caught in a conflict of identities
Older citizens have identified with Russia all their lives – and Russian is still commonly spoken everywhere. But young Odesans are now using more Ukrainian as a symbol of resistance
Lies about the Katyn massacre added insult to the horror
Alan Philps reveals how many western journalists, duped by Stalinist propaganda, rushed to blame the Nazis for the Soviet atrocity
My case against Russia’s war criminals
Lviv My favourite hotels in Lviv were all booked out over the weekend. The world’s justice elite were in…
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…
From salivating dogs to mass indoctrination: Pavlov’s sinister legacy
Peter Pomeranzev describes the refinement of thought-control techniques over the past century – and the worldwide competition to employ them
Russian memoirs are prone to a particular form of angst
Perhaps the secret to understanding Russian history lies in its grammar: it lacks a pluperfect tense. In Latin, English and…
The power of disinformation is that it’s so readily believed
On 27 November 1960 African and Indian diplomats visiting the UN in New York opened their mail to find a…
Punks vs. Putin
What makes for meaningful political protest? In regimes where ideology was taken seriously (such as the Soviet Union or America…
