‘Putin is not dying,’ Kremlin says November 6, 2020 The Kremlin has dismissed “nonsense” claims Putin will quit the presidency amid fears for his health. This morning The Sun reported the Russian president, 68, is ill and poised to quit amid fears he has possible symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The Sun cited Professor Valery Solovei, a Russian political pundit, who suggested earlier this week [...]
To understand Russian President Vladimir Putin, we must see the world through his eyes September 14, 2020 One of the most valuable analytical lessons of all was explained to me succinctly by my foreign policy tutor during my happy days at St. Andrews. As he put it, the key to political risk analysis is not to imagine what you would do if you were in Fidel Castro’s shoes, but rather to empathize [...]
Putin and Erdogan launch Turkstream oil pipeline January 8, 2020 Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan today opened the Turkstream oil pipeline in Istanbul. The 930km pipeline, which crosses the Black Sea, will carry oil to southern Europe in a move that will allow Russia to reduce its shipments via Ukraine. Read more: Russian pipeline Nordstream 2 gets final approval In [...]
Our divided country can’t even agree on who our enemies are December 4, 2019 Aristotle wrote that “a common danger unites even the bitterest enemies”. So what hope of unity is there for a nation where the very perceptions of danger become contested? Ahead of this week’s Nato meeting, the British Foreign Policy Group conducted a public opinion survey with pollsters at Opinium, exploring perceptions of the most pressing [...]
Putin critic Navalny freed from jail August 23, 2019 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been released from prison, his spokesperson confirmed this morning. Navalny, President Putin’s most prominent critic, had spent 30 days behind bars for violations of the country’s law on protesting. Read more: Theresa May demands Salisbury poisoning suspects face justice ahead of Vladmir Putin talks He was locked up after [...]
Theresa May demands Salisbury poisoning suspects face justice ahead of Vladmir Putin talks June 28, 2019 Theresa May has called for the suspects in the Salisbury Novichok attack to be “brought to justice” ahead of a meeting with Vladmir Putin at the G20 summit today. UK authorities suspect two people from Russia’s intelligence service, GRU, were responsible for the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia last year. Read [...]
Trump jokes to Putin at G20: ‘Don’t meddle in the election, please’ June 28, 2019 Donald Trump has playfully warned Vladmir Putin not to “meddle” in the 2020 US election, smiling and waving his finger at the Russian president. The US president met face to face with Putin today as the G20 summit in Osaka gets underway. Read more: Putin says liberalism has “become obsolete” and praises “talented” Trump He [...]
Kremlin says it hopes US investor Michael Calvey will be freed June 3, 2019 The Kremlin said it hopes US investor Michael Calvey, who is under house arrest in Russia, will be freed and able to attend an economic forum in St Petersburg this week. Calvey, who founded private equity group Baring Vostok, was detained in Russia in February over embezzlement charges. The businessman has denied wrongdoing and alleges that [...]
DEBATE: Is the uproar over Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK in June unwarranted? April 25, 2019 Is the uproar over Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK in June unwarranted? Freddie Jordan, a freelance writer, says YES. President Trump’s visit has unleashed the same public mania as would Lord Voldemort’s. He may be unctuous, and some might prefer to watch his comedy of errors play out from afar, but to throw a childish [...]
Forget Brexit, corporate debt is a bigger issue March 11, 2019 As a few of you might have been told many times already, today is the latest Brexit D-Day for the UK, and for Theresa May in particular. Now, despite the fact that I am – at the moment that you are reading this – down on a chilly College Green in Westminster reporting on the latest [...]