Vladimir Putin

Is Russia preparing to invade Ukraine?

17 November 2021 8:30 am

I can still hear the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Just a mile or so from us, thousands of Russian troops…

The mystery of Vladimir Putin’s mistresses

12 October 2021 8:29 am

There’s an odd thing about 18-year old Luiza Rozova’s instagram feed. You can see photos of her breakfasts (sliced exotic…

Ella Pamfilova and the dismantling of Russia’s democracy

29 July 2021 4:59 pm

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is hardly known for its free and fair elections. But a purge of the field ahead of…

Why Joe Biden’s Russia-bashing is a tactical mistake

29 July 2021 5:28 am

You might not think that Geoff Norcott, the self-proclaimed conservative comedian, has something to contribute to western relations with Russia,…

Inside a dictator's playground

11 July 2021 8:21 pm

Armed soldiers guard the barbed-wire compound. Helicopters buzz around the parameter, drifting above families on tandem bicycles. Groups of giggling…

The Soviet spectre haunting Afghanistan

10 July 2021 4:15 pm

As US and British forces pull out of Afghanistan, further victims of the ‘grave of empires’, Russia is experiencing a mix…

The Kremlin's plan to destabilise the West

10 July 2021 9:52 am

On Sunday, Russia releasedits new National Security Strategy. In many ways, it picked up from where the 2015 version left…

Biden and Putin have left Britain out in the cold

19 June 2021 4:11 pm

It would probably be wrong to say that Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin got on like a house on fire.…

Why sanctions against Putin and his allies don’t work

29 May 2021 9:00 am

Sanctions against Putin and his allies don’t work

Putin and Biden need one another

2 May 2021 4:00 pm

Does Joe Biden think that Putin is a killer? asked ABC host George Stephanopoulos. ‘Mmm-hmm, I do,’ answered the President.…

What does Belarus's opposition leader want?

7 March 2021 12:03 am

There is an assumption that those fighting tyranny must instead want Western-style democracy, that the arc of history bends towards…

America's Russian sanctions are futile

3 March 2021 6:06 pm

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to approach Russia and its irascible President Vladimir Putin with a new…

vladimir putin

Everyone suddenly believes Vladimir Putin

28 October 2020 4:04 am

For four years, Vladimir Putin’s meddling in Our Democracy™ has been the all-consuming political obsession of the entire Washington/New York…

The power of disinformation is that it’s so readily believed

15 August 2020 9:00 am

On 27 November 1960 African and Indian diplomats visiting the UN in New York opened their mail to find a…

russians

The war for your mind

13 August 2020 1:57 am

The romantic plans of a Kazakh bodybuilder named Yuri Tolochko have become one more casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. He…

Trump’s autocratic antics risk becoming the new normal

8 August 2020 9:00 am

It is easy to forget the abnormality of Donald Trump’s presence in the White House. Before his election it would…

putin

Putin plans to make the West destroy itself

23 July 2020 1:52 pm

There’s only one person who’ll be genuinely pleased with the UK Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report, finally revealed on…

china

Dear dictators: don’t lecture the US on how to treat its people

3 June 2020 8:00 am

If you’ve been watching the news, you would think the United States is a third world nation on the verge…

oil

Crude tactics: Russia and Saudi Arabia are at war over oil prices

14 March 2020 4:52 am

It all started at what everyone thought would be a routine meeting between Opec and non-Opec nations in Vienna. There…

The hunt is on for Putin’s successor

16 January 2020 7:44 pm

Putin does like to spring a surprise. The first hour or so of his state of the nation address yesterday…

robert mueller collusion

Robert Mueller pursued every avenue to dispel the collusion myth

20 April 2019 4:59 am

If the report released Thursday proved anything, it was that Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors had an extremely…

Does Putin intend to go to war with Ukraine?

1 December 2018 9:00 am

On Europe’s eastern borderlands, trouble is brewing. Two headstrong leaders — Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko —…

To avoid knowing the distasteful origin of ‘scumbag’, look away now

13 October 2018 9:00 am

President Vladimir Putin of Russia remarked of Sergei Skripal, whom his agents tried to kill, ‘He’s simply a scumbag.’ Scumbag…

Corbyn’s profoundly anti-western worldview is fully exposed at last

21 April 2018 9:00 am

The Tories’ great worry after the last election was that they had effectively vaccinated the electorate against Jeremy Corbyn. They…

The US Treasury shows London how to cold-shoulder Putin’s cronies

14 April 2018 9:00 am

A decade ago I commissioned an article about Vladimir Putin’s business cronies. Among other lines of enquiry, it sought to…