“Let that motherfucker send as many slaves as he wants. It won’t make any difference. We will send them back to Russia in boxes, like we did to the ones he sent already.”
“Ivan” pauses. He is involved in civilian …
Why is Russia obsessed with slavery?
There’s nothing wrong with being cautious. Since 1709, when Peter the Great routed the troops of Swedish King Charles XII at Poltava, smack-dab in the middle of modern-day Ukraine, Europeans have understood Russia as a military threat. Never has this …
Bankers have failed us again
A year ago, the governor of the Bank of England tried to downplay growing fears of inflation. Any increase, Andrew Bailey assured us, was understandable given the “bumpy” economic recovery after the pandemic, and he expected “it to come back …
How Dubai entices crooks
Dubai might be “the planet’s influencer capital”, but the people bankrolling the city aren’t TikTokers arriving with suitcases of bikinis. The Emirati city also attracts the kind of people who jet in on helicopters stuffed with cash, positioning itself as …
Will Putin use WMDs?
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is dragging into its fifth month. Initially, most observers believed that Russian forces would steamroller weaker Ukrainian defences in days or weeks. Instead the invaders were pushed back. The conflict is now a slog, with …
Is Russia winning the war?
A couple of weeks ago, I was smoking a cigarette outside my hotel in Kharkiv when a Ukrainian man, hearing me speak English, came over to show me a photo on his phone. It was of his 21-year-old son who …
Did Ukraine need a war?
War has always been the father of innovation: a reset for societies forced to adopt whatever methods work just in order to survive. The outburst of voluntarism that has gripped Ukraine is a striking example: mutual aid groups, local volunteer …
Our Russia strategy has backfired
Whatever the origins of the Ukraine war, the West and Russia are now engaged in a broader confrontation that is not confined to the military struggle: the war has become a competition in pain-tolerance.
This is, as Thomas Schelling wrote, …
Refugees could weaken Russia
On the evening of 24 August last year, Karin Garretsen and her 10-year-old son rode their bicycles to the sprawling army camp on the outskirts of their village in the Dutch countryside. Some Afghans who had fled the Taliban takeover …
Neoliberalism died before Ukraine
The neoliberal order that triumphed on a global scale in the Nineties and 2000s aspired to the free movement of goods, capital, people, and information throughout the world. Unfettered capitalism would release the global economy from arbitrary constraints, and if …
Germany’s arrogant pacifism
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 …
The loneliest Russian in the world
No one in Washington will speak to him. His phone calls go unanswered, and he can’t get meetings. Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, is the most isolated man in the American capital.
When an interview with Antonov containing …