Russia

As the power games play out in Europe, we continue to hope that key players will use reason and self-control

In order to defend the best of Western tradition, we have to redefine it

Olaf Scholz is moving at last, but energy dependency and World War II guilt lie behind what could prove a fatal apathy

Our columnist explains why, despite Ukraine's pleas for help, Olaf Scholz is desperately trying to ignore rising tensions at the border.

A war between Russia and Ukraine is a prospect to be avoided at all costs. If it is not, then the human, social and economic impacts across Europe will be devastating.

The West faces an ultimatum from Russia that could result in actual war. Yet we don’t seem to have noticed. Paris Sorbonne professor of international relations and Russia specialist FRANÇOISE THOM analyses the threat.

He’s remembered as an unsmiling, bloated figure festooned with medals. But at one point the Soviet leader was classed as a heart-throb.

Facing rare criticism at home, Vladimir Putin is preparing a crowd-pleasing war against what he considers a ‘fake’ country.

News that you might have missed from around the continent, selected by Steve Anglesey.

Russian rap no longer acts purely as social commentary, but reflects a money-obsessed society in turmoil.

News that you might have missed from around the continent, selected by Steve Anglesey.

The Russian region, disconnected from the motherland and deep in EU territory, is both an asset and a vulnerability for the Kremlin. PAUL KNOTT tells the story of one of the continent’s most intriguing places, where geography and history collide

Dancers perform on the back of a T-72B3 tank at the opening ceremony of the 2021 International Army Games at the Alabino military training ground near Moscow.

JAMES RODGERS was working in Russia in the summer of 1991, when the cracks in the USSR’s system suddenly broke apart.

ARTEMY TROITSKY was on the barricades in August 1991 to prevent the coup from succeeding. He says the freedoms that followed were soon squandered

With the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, Britain's then man in Moscow tells of his ringside seat as the August Coup that preceded the break-up of the Soviet Union played out before an astonished world

The continent's strangest news, including a colony of rabbits winning a court battle against the French military and an alleged fraudster with a gold toilet

Anton Chekhov transformed theatre. But many critics and audiences of his era were not so enamoured by the change, writes CHARLIE CONNELLY

Eighty years ago this week Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, launching the most decisive clash of the Second World War. JONATHAN DIMBLEBY, author of a new book on the campaign, explains what was at stake and the consequences we live with today Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in the early hours of June 22, 1941, was the […]

Vladimir Putin has urged against interference in Russian-British relations after the head of MI6 described the nation as a “declining power” and criticised the Kremlin’s “reckless” behaviour. The Russian president stressed on Friday evening that Richard Moore is “new” to the role as he suggested the spy chief would “revisit his assessments” of Moscow. Moore, […]

Climate change has transformed the Arctic into one of the most politically dangerous regions on the planet. Now, Vladimir Putin is ramping up the rhetoric. If the James Bond franchise is looking for a baddy for its next film, it wouldn’t need to bother auditioning Vladimir Putin. He relishes the part; he plays to the […]

Labour has criticised the Tories for its plans to introduce voter ID – whilst failing to implement any of the recommendations of the Russia report. Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy has challenged the government to focus on preventing foreign interference in elections rather than its existing proposals to make it “so much more difficult” for […]

Sergei Krikalev went into space as a citizen of the USSR. While he was away, his country ceased to exist and he was left stranded in orbit. On its 30th anniversary, MICK O’HARE tells the astonishing story of his flight. On 19 August 1991 Boris Yeltsin, newly elected president of the Russian Soviet Republic, stood […]

The Russian president is currently embroiled in a bewildering array of crises, yet seems impervious to everything his opponents can throw at him. So how should the West respond? It’s one of the TV moments of 2021. Good Morning America, March 17. The host is George Stephanopoulos, former communications director under Bill Clinton and one […]

The Russian president is testing the resolve of the West, but in doing so he reveals his weakness rather than his strength.

When former Financial Times editor LIONEL BARBER was granted an audience at the Kremlin, Russia’s president proclaimed the end of the liberal idea. Was he right?

The same factors that led up to his incursion into Ukraine are in place again, including domestic protests, a struggling economy and a desire for glory. So are the likes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania next on the Russian leader's list?

Recent unrest in the country reflects the competing forces which have been exerted on it for centuries. Should it look to Moscow or to Europe? Andrew North reports from Tbilisi A narrow street in the centre of Tbilisi lined by distinguishedlooking 19th century houses leads to a brutalist, yellow-brown Soviet-era office block that houses the […]

The news you might have missed from around Europe, selected by Steve Anglesey. A group of hapless would-be thieves were arrested in Nancy, north-east France, after a disastrous attempt to rob a friend’s stash of several thousand euros. Two men, one armed with a hunting rifle, aborted their first raid when a woman they did […]

Alexei Navalny has done his bit, but only the president’s corrupt inner circle have the power to topple him. “I mortally offended him by surviving an attempt on my life that he ordered. That’s driving this thieving little man in his bunker out of his mind. Murder is the only way he knows how to […]

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is descending into the biggest transatlantic diplomatic crisis since the Iraq War. CATHRIN SCHAER explains how we got here