Kharkiv, Ukraine
“I will not talk to anyone who calls this war a ‘conflict’! Bye!” The angry response surprises me. I’m typing a message on Facebook chat while I dash through a street in Odessa, buying last minute supplies for …
The battle for Moldova
Chișinău, Moldova
There’s a joke in Moldova that the country could defend itself against a Russian invasion for two hours, that being the length of time it would take a tank to drive into the capital Chișinău from the Russian-backed …
Inside the battle on the Eastern Front
Barbed wire knots together sky and earth. Burned-out vehicles, modern-day carcasses of industrial warfare, dot the landscape. The ground is strafed and cratered: Eastern Ukraine has been disembowelled by shelling. The war here is fought with 21st-century drone technology, but …
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 …
Why Dnipro is Ukraine’s future
Dnipro, Ukraine
To arrive in Dnipro is to not quite cross a Rubicon. The city sits at the centre of the Dnieper River, the body of water that sunders Ukraine — both practically and psychologically. It starts in the Valdai …
Is Ukraine just a white man’s war?
Fourteen years ago, when Boris Johnson was a mere twinkle in the British electorate’s eye, I wound up shadowing the then MP for Henley-on-Thames as he campaigned to become Mayor of London. He won, of course, then bagged a second …
Putin’s plot to paralyse the EU
“It’s much worse than everyone thinks.” Alan Riley is drinking tea on the outside patio of the Radisson hotel in central Chișinău, the capital of Moldova. “The recent winter energy crisis was exceptional. And we now realise that it was …
How the Ukraine war must end
On August 20, 1968, I happened to be in Prague when Czechoslovakia was simultaneously invaded from East Germany, Hungary, Poland and western Ukraine by more than 800,000 Warsaw Pact troops making any resistance futile. By contrast, on February 23 this …
The city stopping the fall of south Ukraine
Mykolaiv, Ukraine
The lady burrows into the earth. Swathed in blue plastic to protect her against the rain, she pats the soil and digs into it with her hands. She won’t speak to me, but allows me to watch as …
Why Bishops should be political
Good Friday coincided with Passover this year. We didn’t have a proper Seder service because we had just moved house and everything we needed was hidden in unpacked boxes. But at least we had all our possessions with us. For …
Passover in war-torn Odessa
Odessa, Ukraine
The soldier leans through the car window and stares at me. He has the guileless but wary eyes of a child; he can’t be much more than 18. I’ve just crossed the border from Moldova into Ukraine and …
Vladislav Surkov leaves the stage
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 Marine Le Pen conquered Normandy
Here is a confident prediction about tomorrow’s first round of the French presidential election. In my lovely, peaceful village in the Calvados hills, Marine Le Pen will comprehensively top the poll. President Emmanuel Macron will come third or maybe even …