How Putin used doublethink to manipulate the Russian election
In many ways, the recent presidential shenanigans in Russia, officially dignified with the word ‘elections’, have become a strange ritual.…
What the rise of Islam means for Putin’s Russia
The term ‘Russians’, which the world likes to use for the 144 million citizens of my country, is often a…
Russians feel bleaker than ever after Alexei Navalny’s death
The news about Alexei Navalny’s death came as a shock to anti-Putin Russians like myself – he’d been a central…
War with Russia won’t be what the West expects
Is war coming our way? The warning last month from Admiral Rob Bauer, the chairman of Nato’s Military Committee, indicates…
Can Europe match Russia’s remarkable rise in weapons production?
‘You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support…
Why hasn’t Russia collapsed?
Following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the calamitous, early missteps of the Russian army, many Western…
How Vladimir Putin stays in power
With Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine well into its attritional phase, Western aid to Kyiv seems to be drying up.…
Why Putin doesn’t want to negotiate
Discussion of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia has until recently, among most Western governments, been considered something of a…
Ukraine’s Nato limbo is set to continue
As the Nato summit on international security opens this week in Vilnius, one obvious issue will be the success or…
Why Wagner’s coup failed
When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was launched, the overall mood among those around me – Russians from a range…
Russian children are being groomed for the war in Ukraine
As we pass the 15-month mark of Russia’s war against Ukraine, it’s clear the Putin government is in a fix. It cannot…
Russians live in fear of Putin’s dreaded draft
On 9 May, Russia’s wet squib this year of a Victory Day, president Putin addressed his beleaguered troops in Ukraine…
How Russia is weathering the storm of Western sanctions
After war broke out in Ukraine a year ago, amidst a slew of shop closures, sanctioned products and predictions about…
The budget black comedy that foreshadowed the rise of Putin
‘The truth is with us,’ said Vladimir Putin in a speech after the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and…
Putin is cornered
On the evening of Sunday 11 September, a general alert was announced in nearly all the regions of Ukraine. A…
Beer and loathing: Why Russians loved and hated Gorbachev
A paradox about Mikhail Gorbachev for my generation of Russians – I was seven years old when he became general…
The two faces of Vladimir Putin
‘Putin’s Philosopher’ Aleksandr Dugin, self-styled deep thinker and ideological architect of current Russian expansionism, has claimed there are two distinct…
The tide is turning in Russia's war on Ukraine
Could Russia triumph? There’s a growing sense that, as the months wear on, Ukraine’s resistance is faltering. The West is…
The end of the Russian dream
I was born in the USSR in 1978 and was just becoming a teenager as the Soviet Union fell. For…
Russia’s anti-Putin backlash is gathering strength
The backlash in Russia to Putin’s war is now visibly getting underway. For the first time, the President risks becoming…
Putin has corrupted Russia’s 'Victory Day'
The Victory Day celebrations on 9 May have been, under Vladimir Putin, through a dramatic mutation. In my childhood, in the…
Russia’s dark path towards the death penalty
In Russia these days, the reintroduction of the death penalty has a grim inevitability about it. There has been a…
Why Russians like me aren't rising up against Putin
I was born, grew up and have lived in Russia all of my 45 years. This means that I belong…
Don't blame us Russians for Putin's war
Thousands of Russians who have fled to Georgia in the wake of Putin’s crackdown are receiving a poor welcome. ‘F***…
