I’m running. Shells explode around me. Sometimes they roar like thunder; sometimes they whistle on approach. Large parts of the forest are on fire. Smoke rolls by like dry ice.
“Run. Run. Run,” says Dima. I follow him over the …
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I’m running. Shells explode around me. Sometimes they roar like thunder; sometimes they whistle on approach. Large parts of the forest are on fire. Smoke rolls by like dry ice.
“Run. Run. Run,” says Dima. I follow him over the …
Waking up on Saturday morning, Putin must have wished he’d kept catering in-house. Only the day before, the Ukraine war seemed to be proceeding relatively well for Russia, at least by the lowered expectations of this stage in the conflict. …
Here in Odesa, the mood is a mix of incredulity, fascination and schadenfreude. Or, as my friend Hanna tells me with glee: “It’s popcorn time — it’s just a shame there’s no popcorn in Ukraine these days.” The word “Prigozhin” …
“Since we have achieved our freedom, there can only be one division among us: between those who cherish democracy and those who do not.” Nelson Mandela, shortly before leaving office as president, urged constant vigilance against South Africa’s enemies, “even …
However you try to spin it, the drone strikes that struck Moscow’s wealthiest neighbourhoods on Tuesday night represented a grim turning point in Putin’s flagging campaign against Ukraine. The surprise attacks — which killed eight people, and for which Kyiv …
When Bashar al-Assad touched down in Riyadh last week, to be embraced by the Saudi king on the occasion of Syria’s readmittance to the Arab League, the Syrian War drew to a close, and with it the Arab Spring. His …
A recent BBC documentary promises to take the British viewer “inside” Serbia, exposing the country’s support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The language is heightened, evoking Cold War ghosts. “There’s something strange happening in Serbia,” the presenter mutters in …
Last June, a trio of uniformed Russian teens clutching a Soviet-era banner goose-stepped past a memorial to victims of Nazi fascism. Next to them, a dozen younger children stood awkwardly to attention as they watched soldiers and local politicians coat …
After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, Beijing’s faithful lieges in Europe were quick to declare that China, perhaps even Xi Jinping himself, was “the key” to ending the war. The truth could not be more different: in …
It might be hard to believe that a country like Moldova would be able to stand up to the might of Putin’s Russia. A nation of 2.6 million people, Moldova relies on Ukraine and Russian-controlled territories for 90% of its …
Like the dozens of sanctioned superyachts lying abandoned in European harbours, the empty mansions gathering dust in Chelsea stand as mementoes to the West’s love affair with the Russian super-rich. This romance has soured with Western sanctions, which are based …
The biggest threat facing Putin today is not from Western-sympathising, anti-war liberals, but Right-wing “ultra-patriots” frustrated by the Russian army’s failures in Ukraine. Earlier this month, the Russian MP Oleg Matveychev warned of a potential coup: “The situation is not …
Let’s start with Putin’s Labrador. The Tsar loves this gigantic black beast — or at least, he claims he does. The Chancellor, however, has a visceral fear of dogs that dates back to a traumatic childhood incident with a Rottweiler. …
It was exactly a year ago this week that, contentedly ensconced in a Cape Town hotel, I was woken in the middle of the night by an incessant pinging on my phone. Messages were pouring in from friends in Ukraine …
A year ago, as Vladimir Putin launched his so-called “special military operation” to seize the Ukrainian capital, kill Volodymyr Zelenskyy and wipe much of the latter’s country from the map of Europe, who’d have imagined that the third week of …