In Germany, this was a Victory in Europe Day like no other. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Berlin’s entire postwar consensus has crumbled. Previously settled policies and cherished beliefs have dissolved in this new reality: the brutal return of war to …
Ukrainian children have learned to hate
From Munich station’s 35 platforms you can go anywhere in the world and I knew I would find them there. I had not expected their animals. When the bombs you never believed you would hear start falling, what do you …
The future is Marine Le Pen
Whatever happens in the second round of the French election, Marine Le Pen will be able to claim victory. If the polls are correct, as they were in round one, she will receive around 46% of the vote. But while …
Why Putin’s invasion failed
Nothing was more predictable about this most predictable of wars than the certain failure of Putin’s Coup de Main invasion to seize Kyiv and conquer Ukraine in one fell swoop. And yet its success was confidently predicted by Russia’s FSB …
Putin is following the Bosnia playbook
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is widely seen as drawing the curtain on the era of Western domination that defined the Nineties. Yet the End of History was not a peaceful time: the conflict now raging in Eastern Europe was …
Putin has made Nato stronger
War is the domain of paradox, contradiction, and boundless surprise. It is not merely because of ignorance or stupidity that military history is a record of crimes, follies, defeats, and very few victories worth their cost. Even so, the Ukraine …
German pacifism is dead
I was a teenager when my father was posted to Munich, on secondment from British Aerospace to work on the Eurofighter Typhoon. None of us really understood what he did there — all I knew is that he was an …
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 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 …
Putin has secured a Macron victory
Let’s call them “The Three Moscowteers”. Until Russian bombs and rockets fell on Ukraine last week, three of the leading candidates in the French Presidential elections were enthusiastic supporters of Vladimir Putin. Between them, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen and …
Has Putin overplayed his hand?
When the US “Intelligence Community” of 17 different agencies started issuing imminent invasion warnings more than a month ago, I disbelieved them. There was no sign that the Russian army was stripping its bases as far away as Khabarovsk to …
Sanctions won’t save Ukraine
Unsurprisingly, the West has decided it won’t send its sons and daughters to die for Ukraine. Instead, it hopes to cripple Russia with economic sanctions. Will such measures bring about the end of the Russian invasion? Will Vladimir Putin scuttle …
Why the West fell for Putin’s bluff
“Russia says some troops returning from Ukraine border,” blasts the update from the BBC. My phone buzzes feverishly: WhatsApp and Facebook ping; Twitter DMs light up my screen; Signal messages come in from Ukraine and Russia. It will only get …
Putin’s next move
A couple of weeks ago, in a biting sleet wind, I visited the graveyard of the tiny village of Bohoniki in Poland’s far north east, home to Poland’s minuscule Tatar Muslim minority, descendents of the Mongol Golden Horde. On the …
Inside Germany’s paedophile experiment
Hidden away in a village in northern Germany, Ruby has lived a lonely and tormented existence. Just 25 years old, she has a horrifying secret that, if exposed, could see her ostracised, even killed.
Ruby is a paedophile.
Ruby is …
