“One hundred and forty-six million [people] for such a vast territory is insufficient,” said Vladimir Putin at the end of last year. Russians haven’t been having enough children to replace themselves since the early Sixties. Birth rates are also stagnant …
What Zelenskyy got wrong about Israel
In Israel, one of the most-shared videos in recent weeks shows a Ukrainian soldier named Alex revealing the contents of his military backpack. After waving his night-vision goggles at the camera, he pulls out a Ukrainian-language translation of Golda, a …
This war can save liberalism
Francis Fukuyama helped define how we understand contemporary history in his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man. His new book, Liberalism and its Discontents, is a trenchant defence of an ideology under attack. Freddie Sayers spoke …
Russia will never want peace
I honestly can’t remember the number of times I’ve written about Russian peace talks. I could try to look it up, but I suspect it would only depress me. Ukraine and Syria; tangentially Georgia and, I guess, Chechnya. None of …
What we failed to learn from Syria
The 11th anniversary of the war in Syria passed earlier this month with little notice, eclipsed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the two wars are intimately connected. It was Russia’s entry into the Syrian war in 2013, at the …
Inside Ukraine’s Tinder war
If you are impatient with the calibre of potential partners in your city, Tinder has a feature for you. For £18 a month, you can “passport” to another place; that is, you can set your location to anywhere in the …
Sanctioning Russia could topple the West
The West, following the lead of the United States, has reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by introducing a “crippling” regime of sanctions. It is a “total economic and financial war” aimed at “caus[ing] the collapse of the Russian economy”, …
What will Russia’s oligarchs do next?
Russia’s loyal oligarchs have always been liable to become chess pieces in political struggles. After the revolution broke out in Petrograd in February 1917, the long-despised Romanov aristocracy were ruthlessly stripped of their property and most prized possessions. The people …
Wheat has corrupted humanity
“Beef & Liberty”. Such was the slogan of the 18th century London dining club, The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks. The carnivorous Regency gentlemen were sensible in associating the scoffing of sirloin with freedom and the rights of Britons. Food, …
Episode 416 – SHOCKING Document Reveals Trudeau’s REAL Plan!
We all know that when a politician walks like a globalist, talks like a globalist, acts like a globalist and quacks like a globalist, that means they’re a globalist, right? And what about when that politician comes out with an …
How Russia’s sanction-proofing failed
“How could our government have been so stupid?” one Russian acquaintance of mine wondered, after the West imposed sweeping sanctions that froze around $300 billion of the Russian government’s foreign exchange reserves held in Western banks.
Over the past few …
Why the Left is split over Ukraine
Last week, Philip Bump of the Washington Post wrote a column about Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and referred, in passing and without elaboration, to “Right-wing pundit Glenn Greenwald”. The results were predictable. …
Europe’s empty promises to Ukraine
Every war has a photograph that captures its horrors. Vietnam had Napalm Girl; Spain had The Falling Soldier. How will the war in Ukraine be remembered? Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s ruthlessness, an image of a heavily pregnant woman being stretchered …
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 …
Will Russia drop a nuclear bomb?
Why would a leader decide to drop a nuclear bomb? Almost three weeks into Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, with still no end in sight, it’s a question that hasn’t felt so urgent since the outbreak of the Cold War. When …