Ukraine
Transnistria: a breakaway republic of a breakaway republic
Transnistria is not an area well-served by travel literature or, really, literature of any kind. The insubstantial-seeming post-Soviet sandwich-filling between…
Russia Today is Putin's weapon of mass deception. Will it work in Britain?
Russia Today’s mission to subvert the West from your living room
The crash of the ruble — and what's next for Russia
Will Putin’s people still love him when the money dries up? He’s about to find out
Emmanuel Carrère: a poet and psychopath doing his best to further destabilise Ukraine
If Eduard Limonov, the subject of Emmanuel Carrère’s utterly engrossing biographical ‘novel’, hadn’t invented himself, Carrère would have had to…
Portrait of the week
Home The last British combat troops turned over Camp Bastion in Helmand to Afghan forces and withdrew from Afghanistan after…
Europe will reconcile with Russia, and soon. It can’t afford not to
The West will have to drop sanctions on Russia – or face another global economic crash
Here’s how to remain cheerful in the face of such a multitude of scares
I don’t think I can remember a time when there have been so many scares about. They come at us…
Letter from Donetsk: peace, with missile attacks
For what is technically peacetime, there’s a lot of shelling going on round here. Donetsk airport is still held by…
Michael Fallon: parliament needs the 'courage' to vote for war
The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is an eager interventionist
Portrait of the week
Home England suddenly began to take the prospect of Scottish independence seriously after a poll of 1,084 people by YouGov…
Portrait of the week
Home Britain’s terror threat level was raised from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’ in response to fighting in Iraq and Syria, meaning…
Portrait of the week
Home Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said that Britons who went to Syria or Iraq to fight could be stripped…
The wars that really are about the oil
You can’t understand any of the world’s crises without understanding petropolitics
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, writing of the Islamic State in northern Iraq, said: ‘If we do not act…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, resisted calls for Parliament to be recalled to debate the crisis in Iraq. Philip Hammond,…
A world crisis with no world leader
No one wants to pay the price of speaking for the free world
The MH17 disaster
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
Sanctions won’t help. One thing might
Portrait of the week: ministerial musical chairs, women bishops, giant snails
Home In a ministerial reshuffle, William Hague, who promised to leave Parliament at the election, was made Leader of the…
It's not just Putin who misses the Soviet empire. President Bush did, too
In the latest – and best – of the books on the end of the USSR, Victor Sebestyen finds that the only good thing about the Soviet empire was the manner of its passing
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, rang Jean-Claude Juncker to congratulate him on being nominated by EU heads of government…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, responded to the triumph of the UK Independence Party in the European elections (which…
Viktor Yanukovych’s palace is full of tasteless treasures – and London auction-house tags
Quite a few of the former president Yanukovych’s ‘treasures’ seem to carry tags from London auctioneers
Ukraine vs Sparta
As rebels, terrorists, fascists, foreign forces, activists, separatists, militants, militias, nationalist groups, Neo-Nazis, Right Sector forces — take your pick — spread…