Russia
Putin’s cult of war
This idolisation of the Soviet military is Russia’s modern tragedy. Not least because it is crucial to Putin’s way of…
Read: Vladimir Putin's victory day speech in full
The following is The Spectator’s translation of Putin’s speech for victory day 2022. Most respected citizens of Russia, dear veterans,…
Is Putin preparing for total war on 9 May?
Ahead of Russia’s annual Victory Day celebration on 9 May – which marks the date the Soviet Union defeated Nazi…
No, BP’s profit hasn’t boosted Starmer’s windfall-tax call
BP’s ‘underlying’ first-quarter profit of $6.2 billion, compared with $2.6 billion in the first quarter of 2021, was a direct…
The sin of neutrality
Yet again, millions of civilians across the Horn of Africa are starving. The world blames the crisis on drought and…
British volunteers shouldn't be fighting in Ukraine
What’s going to happen to British volunteers captured while fighting Russian forces? According to Ukrainian analysts, there is intelligence to suggest that Russia…
Refugee status: the social cachet of taking in Ukrainians
The social cachet of taking in Ukrainians
Fractured: can the West fix itself?
So why be ashamed of ourselves?
Letters: Workshy Whitehall has its benefits
In check Sir: Jade McGlynn (‘Conflict of opinion’, 23 April) has a point that there are many reasons for popular…
How Russia is splitting the EU
Russia is turning off the gas to Poland; the country’s state-owned gas supplier has refused to pay Gazprom in roubles.…
Germany’s military muddle over Ukraine
The reluctance of chancellor Olaf Scholz to provide heavy weapons to Ukraine is now coming under increasing fire from abroad…
Portrait of the week: Boris packs his bags, XR blocks bridges and Netflix viewers switch off
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told the House of Commons that it did not occur to him that the…
Ukraine, the Roman army and why morale matters
Commentators talk much about the morale of the Ukrainian troops and the edge that this has given them over the…
Why more and more Russians are backing the war
Why Russian support for the war will keep growing
Why Putin’s ‘Satanic’ missile launch matters
In some ways, it’s a headline-writer’s dream: Putin puts his faith in Satan. In reality, it’s actually Putin’s new RS-28…
Is Putin in pain?
Is Vladimir Putin in pain? Until now, there has been plenty of chatter about the wellbeing of his minister of…
Why Russians celebrate monsters
Nobody knows how long people live in Dzerzhinsk – life expectancy statistics for the Russian city, 250 miles east of…
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…
The rise and fall of the Tsarist legal system
St. Petersburg University in Russia is (desperately?) inviting scholars worldwide to a conference in September celebrating Mikhail Speransky. It was…
Why so many African leaders support Putin
Why so many African leaders support Putin
‘Putin still has a lot left to lose’: Niall Ferguson and David Petraeus in conversation
Niall Ferguson and David Petraeus on Russia’s mistakes, Xi’s plans and the lessons of Iraq
How Putin weaponised the Russian Orthodox church
How Putin weaponised the Russian Orthodox church
Cross to bear: can Russia ever atone for Putin’s sins?
Can Russia ever atone for Putin’s sins?
The next phase of the Ukraine war will be bloody
The war in Ukraine is about to enter an even deadlier stage, one in which both Kyiv and Moscow will…
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…
