Vladislav Surkov knows that no one goes to see puppet shows anymore. But for more than 20 years, the self-confessed ‘author’ of the Putin system built a career on the idea that puppet-masters can still attract an audience. Swirling rumours …
The PsyOps war comes to Ukraine
Zakarpattia, Ukraine
Far from the war, in Ukraine’s sleepy, western city of Uzhhorod, whose crumbling pastel-coloured Habsburg-era buildings straddle the river Uzh, government officials are concerned about the growing tension with Hungary. Despite Hungary’s voting in favour of EU sanctions …
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 …
How Britain betrayed my Ukrainian family
“This reminds me of the Soviet Union,” joked the elderly Ukrainian woman as we joined the queue snaking out of the UK Government’s visa centre in Warsaw. Of course, we had expected a queue — what we hadn’t expected was …
This isn’t a war between good and evil
The images emerging from Bucha are haunting. Dead civilians line the streets, many with their hands bound behind their backs. They are the victims of systematic executions, left to rot before the Russians decided to retreat.
Reports of such atrocities …
Inside the Battle of Bucha
“The worst thing is that, in the end, you get used to it.” Dmitry — not his real name — is talking to me over a bad line from the town of Bucha in the Kyiv Oblast of Ukraine. Several …
Ukraine cannot win this war
Since war broke out in Ukraine, Greek politician and economist Yanis Varoufakis has been accused of being a Putin apologist, a “Westsplainer”, and a conspiracy theorist. But what does he really think about this conflict? Freddie Sayers spoke to him …
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 …
How the Ukraine war saved Orbán
Budapest
In the 12 years of rule that have followed three landslide electoral victories, Viktor Orbán, now Europe’s longest-serving leader, has successfully reshaped Hungary in his own image: too successfully, in the eyes of both the weak and fractured opposition …
Will China rebuild Ukraine?
The readout from the Politburo meeting published by the Xinhua news agency on 28 March 2022 was the shortest in decades: just 100 characters or so. Apart from a statement of condolence for the tragic China Eastern plane crash a …
Ukraine has split the far-Right
Toby Cook was a 19-year-old with a history of mental health problems, a growing recreational drink and drug habit, and a mounting sheet of criminal charges when he decided to leave his native Australia and travel to Ukraine in 2018. …
Why Russians hated the Nineties
The Nineties were a time of American hegemony and British cockiness. The internet was a utopian idea as opposed to a collective psychological disorder. Climate change, terrorism, autocracy and gross inequality were either not-on-the-radar or assumed to be moving in …
Interview 1714 – Iain Davis on the New World Order and How to Oppose It
Biden has warned that there is going to be a New World Order. Putin and Xi are writing joint statements about the creation of a New World Order. In fact, all of the globalists are interested in a New World …
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 …
Erdogan’s Turkey won’t save Ukraine
The Bayraktar Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) TB2 looks like the malformed lovechild of a small plane and a large, angry wasp. But if the armed drone looks weird, there’s nothing strange about its performance. Over the past few weeks, the …