There were a lot of us in Moscow, back then. Silly, millennial Euro-Brits, trying to be journalists, floating through a boozy world of “hackpack” drinks and Russian liberals. We were there on cooked visas — fixed in Kyiv — dreamers …
You can’t cancel Putin
“We cannot just witness these atrocities and do nothing.” It’s a statement that resonates, the kind of thing you’d expect to hear from those we empower to keep the peace: Nato, the UN, our leaders. But this solemn vow to …
In defence of wokeness
Since the end of the Second World War, most of the world’s conflicts have been civil wars. The average length of an international war is less than six months; for a civil war it is seven years. The heretic is …
How war radicalised Germany
“Death is a master from Germany.” The line is from Paul Celan’s Deathfugue, a poem which tried to express the abject horror of the Nazis’ genocidal war in Eastern Europe. Celan, a Jew, was a son of Chernivtsi, then a …
How Western elites exploit Ukraine
The war in Ukraine poses a palpable threat to Western democracies, but this has little to do with Russia posing an inherent strategic threat to the United States or its European allies. No — more so than the Russian state, …
A Putin puppet government will fail
Southern Ukraine
A week after it launched its attempted blitz across Ukraine, finally the Russian army has taken its first major city: Kherson, a key port city in the south of the country. But the defenders of Kyiv and Kharkiv …
This is how despotism ends
The absurdly long table Vladimir Putin sits at, whether with Emmanuel Macron last month, or his terrified subordinates now, was the giveaway. There is stately furniture, then there is 20 feet of thuddingly symbolic paranoia. Isolated during the pandemic, padlocked …
The sly sexism of Left-wing men
It’s a year since Sarah Everard was abducted, raped and murdered — and the London Mayor this week called for men to lead a “fundamental cultural shift” to help end violence against women. Sadiq Khan said the problem was not …
Why America is losing the war on drugs
In the summer and early fall of 2020, as protests and riots swept across the United States, a new consensus began to emerge among progressive activists, writers and politicians. Given that black men, from George Floyd to Daniel Prude, were …
Putin doesn’t have mummy issues
Did Russia invade Ukraine because Putin wasn’t loved enough as a child? AnnaLynne McCord, an “actress/human rights activist”, seems to think so.
Last week, she posted a poem online declaring that if only she’d been Vladimir Putin’s mum, he would …
Could Russian mercenaries conquer the world?
Four days before the invasion of Ukraine, an eerily prescient documentary aired on France 5. Le monde en face:Wagner, l’armée de l’ombre de Poutine assiduously tracks the activities of the Russian President’s “shadow army”: the Wagner Group, which arranges military …
Why we need a new Domesday Book
As Russian bombs rain down on Kyiv, we should gaze upon our own capital with disgust. How did we allow London to become a piggy bank for Putin’s cronies?
The Government has announced new measures to “flush out the oligarchs, …
The metaverse will steal your identity
In 1950, sociologist David Riesman declared that we were The Lonely Crowd. In 2000, political scientist Robert D. Putnam told us we were Bowling Alone. If the metaverse promises us one thing, it’s that we will not be lonely.
Meta …
How Vladimir Putin weaponises refugees
For the last three decades, Europe’s leaders have pursued a noble strategy to prevent conflict using trade, aid and diplomacy. But their reliance on soft power has had an unintended consequence: it has left them divorced from reality.
Soft-power tools …
Is Margaret Atwood a coward?
Margaret Atwood never fancied herself a discourse power broker, but we thrust the role on her anyway. The year was 2016; the election of Donald Trump had sparked a brief, blazing feminist backlash that now feels like something out of …