Russia

Old Vic’s Tree: Beckett plus Seinfeld - plus swearing

17 January 2015 9:00 am

‘Fucking hell. You twat. Fuck off. Fuck. Fuck.’ These dispiriting words are the opening line of Tree, a newish play…

Europeans no longer fear Germany. But do the Germans still fear themselves?

13 December 2014 9:00 am

Germans are beginning to recognise that they will not always be able to stay out of military conflicts

The crash of the ruble — and what's next for Russia

6 December 2014 9:00 am

Will Putin’s people still love him when the money dries up? He’s about to find out

What went so wrong for Vaclav Havel?

8 November 2014 9:00 am

The unforgettable moment a quarter of a century ago when the Berlin Wall came down was the most vivid drama…

Mariinsky’s Boris Godunov - a revelation

8 November 2014 9:00 am

Anyone who thinks opera singers and orchestral players are overworked should spare a thought for the Mariinsky Opera on its…

Portrait of the week

1 November 2014 9:00 am

Home The last British combat troops turned over Camp Bastion in Helmand to Afghan forces and withdrew from Afghanistan after…

Russians made the theatre space the most liberating imaginative device ever invented

1 November 2014 9:00 am

You have to hand it to the Russians. They beat us into space, beat us to sexual equality, and a…

Plisetskaya in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, 1964. She was one of the supreme trophies in the Soviet display case, the most garlanded, the most suspected

Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin: ‘The KGB put a microphone in our marriage bed’

25 October 2014 9:00 am

Ismene Brown talks to the Russian super-couple Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin about ballet, opera and the KGB

Europe will reconcile with Russia, and soon. It can’t afford not to

18 October 2014 9:00 am

The West will have to drop sanctions on Russia – or face another global economic crash

Letter from Donetsk: peace, with missile attacks

11 October 2014 9:00 am

For what is technically peacetime, there’s a lot of shelling going on round here. Donetsk airport is still held by…

Václav Klaus: The lies Europe tells about Russia

27 September 2014 9:00 am

Václav Klaus, the former Czech president, on David Cameron, the EU, Russia — and the end of free speech

Six rivals for the name Isis

30 August 2014 9:00 am

Not in their name The BBC decided to start calling the Islamic terror group Isis by the acronym IS instead.…

The wars that really are about the oil

30 August 2014 9:00 am

You can’t understand any of the world’s crises without understanding petropolitics

Radek Sikorski’s notebook: Goose-steppers in Oxford, and a drone in my garden

30 August 2014 9:00 am

As the BA flight from Warsaw landed at Heathrow, I felt a little tremor of anxiety, though it wasn’t anything…

You can't make friends with Uncle Sam and survive for long

30 August 2014 9:00 am

Can somebody tell me when America last got it right? Uncle Sam’s track record in selecting leaders in faraway places…

Violence, fear, confusion: this is what comes into a leadership vacuum

16 August 2014 9:00 am

The old cliché that ‘nothing happens in August’ has again been brutally disproved. From the centenary of the outbreak of…

Why a City job should be graduates’ last resort

16 August 2014 9:00 am

August is the season for conversation about career choices. Every holiday party seems to include new graduates or next year’s…

I know how ineffective sanctions are – but these ones just might work

2 August 2014 9:00 am

‘Sanctions,’ said Kofi Annan, ‘are a necessary middle ground between war and words.’ Neither the EU nor the US will…

The MH17 disaster

26 July 2014 9:00 am

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, told Parliament that President Vladimir Putin of Russia should end his country’s support for…

Sanctions won’t tame Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Talking might

26 July 2014 9:00 am

Sanctions won’t help. One thing might

Vladimir Putin’s empire of lies

26 July 2014 9:00 am

Putin’s answer to the destruction of Flight MH17 has been more propaganda. In Russia, at least, it seems to be working

Peter Mandelson’s diary: The accomplishments of George Osborne – and Vladimir Putin

31 May 2014 9:00 am

My trips to meet Russians in Russia these days are a little less controversial than my encounter with them in…

Paul Johnson’s diary: Boris would make a great PM – but he must strike now

10 May 2014 9:00 am

I feel an intense antipathy for Vladimir Putin. No one on the international scene has aroused in me such dislike…

No, Putin didn’t plot to invade Ukraine. But now he might have to

10 May 2014 9:00 am

Further Russian military intervention would be a disaster. But Putin might have to do it anyway

Portrait of the week

3 May 2014 9:00 am

Home The British economy grew by 0.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2014, disappointing hotheads who’d expected 1 per cent. It…