Putin’s aggressive war on Ukraine may have had the unintended consequence of reviving a moribund Nato alliance, but for many liberals, that isn’t enough. Just as the war saved Johnson from seemingly inevitable ejection from Downing Street, so have defenders …
The demolition of Kharkiv
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 …
I will never give up on Chelsea
“The famous Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope” we sometimes sing at the Shed End at Stamford Bridge. I probably shouldn’t tell you how it goes after that. It’s certainly more profane than sacred. Suffice to say …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 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 …