Russia
What does Putin really make of Britain’s Brexit mess?
When it comes to Brexit, Britain’s friends, neighbours, trade partners and even antagonists are generally united in one thing: wondering…
Why Vladimir Putin may have Belarus in his sights
What will Vladimir Putin do next? Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, discussions about Russia in the west have been preoccupied…
How the West failed to bring Russia into line
Moscow does not feel like a city under siege. Cracking jokes about Novichok, Muscovites are sanguine about the conflict they…
Why Russia – and Putin’s – weakness should terrify us
A Russian ship has just rammed a Ukrainian vessel, opened fire on it and captured its sailors. Ukraine has called…
The trouble with Interpol
At the last minute, the Russian police general everyone had assumed was a shoo-in to become the next head of…
Don’t be fooled by Putin’s bungling spies
Suddenly Russian spies seem funny rather than fearsome. ‘More Johnny English than James Bond’ as Security Minister Ben Wallace put…
Corbyn’s Salisbury response is straight from the Trump playbook
It is deeply weird that Jeremy Corbyn will not condemn Russia for carrying out a chemical weapons attack on British…
Jeremy Corbyn and Novichok: what did the Labour leader really say?
Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman this afternoon caused something of a stir when he insisted to journalists that the Labour leader had…
The British government must not let Russia off the hook
On the day that Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned, Arsenal were hosting CSKA Moscow for the second leg of a Champions…
Erdogan, Trump and other fragile egos: Theresa May’s unenviable foreign policy dilemmas
Given the way her Cabinet ministers are behaving at the moment, Theresa May is really rather used to dealing with…
England’s diverse World Cup team is something to celebrate
England kick off their World Cup campaign today by putting their faith in youth as they take on Tunisia: Gareth…
How Nato is fighting back against Russian fake news
At first, the Spanish marines are just a distant dot on the horizon. A few minutes later their speedboat is…
The Spectator Podcast: Putin’s Losing Game
In this week’s episode, we talk about Russia’s hidden fragility, and ask, is Putin surviving on luck? We’ll also be…
Argentina, why not boycott the entire World Cup?
I am all for taking ethical stands, but if you are going to do so it does help to show…
Putin shows off his ‘dagger’ on Victory Day
It’s difficult to think of a good comparison from the thousands of public holidays, festivals, galas and pageants around the world by which to…
The 10 graphs that explain Vladimir Putin’s Russia
This is an edited version of a presentation given by Owen Matthews at The Spectator’s What does Russia want? event.…
The Cold War is over – and the Grey War has begun
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General, announced on Friday that the Cold War is “back with a vengeance”. Although the US…
Vladimir Putin and the new Cold War
In my researches for the final volume of my Thatcher biography, there is plenty, of course, about the Cold War,…
What does Russia want?
With Russian poisoners stalking the streets of Salisbury and the real possibility of a hot war with the Kremlin’s troops…
Is Trump the Neville Chamberlain of our time?
So Britain is responsible for staging the Syrian gas attack? According to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov:…
Theresa May is losing the PR battle on Syria
After Theresa May’s Cabinet agreed on the ‘need to take action’ in Syria, it seems a matter of when, not…
How have the Russian oligarchs got away with swaggering around London for so long?
A decade ago I commissioned an article about Vladimir Putin’s business cronies. Among other lines of enquiry, it sought to…
President Erdogan’s Syrian dilemma
Istanbul It is a bad time to have an ally on the fence. With US military action in Syria looking…
Sergei Skripal being out of a critical condition doesn’t get Moscow off the hook
The latest news from the Salisbury attack is that Sergei Skripal is no longer in a critical condition and that…
Could the Russian economy benefit from some Roman history?
The Russian economy is not in the greatest of shapes. That being the case, one would have thought friendly diplomatic…
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