What use is the United Nations?

For the first time since World War II, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has employed force to appropriate territory of another UN Member State, and yet the United Nations seems powerless to take any worthwhile action.

The revolution will be televised

Phone, dashcam and CCTV footage of Russia’s horrific crimes in Ukraine has help harden world opinion against Putin’s thuggish regime, and may yet play a role in his downfall.

Saint Olga of Kyiv – Ukraine’s patron saint of defiance and vengeance

The past few days have seen Ukrainians bravely defying a vicious onslaught of Russian aggression. Ukrainians are used to adversity and they have a special medieval role model who personifies their bravery in the face of hardship imposed by their Russian foes.

Russia’s well-oiled killing machine

Russia has a long and ignoble history of invading its neighbours, but its armed forces’ embarrassing performance against tiny Georgia in 2008 provoked an intensive modernisation which has now been unleashed in all its fury against the people of Ukraine.

Putin sets the world against him

Putin’s brutal vision of a resurgent Russian empire will not stop at the borders of a butchered Ukraine.

Putin’s bloody gamble

While Russia’s dictator claims his invasion of Ukraine is to counter western militarisation, it is the West’s failure to arm and protect Ukraine which has enabled this reckless adventure.

Bringing Putin to his knees

Russia’s dictator is now threatening to use nuclear weapons against the West as his bloody aggression aligns the world against him, but tough financial sanctions should offer a more credible threat against Russia’s creaking economy.

Kick Russia’s kleptocrats in their wallets

Putin runs a ‘rogue mafia state’, having turned Russia into ‘a gas station with nukes,’ in the words of Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and so the best way to hit the ruling clique is to seize the money they have looted during their self-serving reign.

Ukraine’s heroes fight on against the odds

The heroism of Ukraine’s leaders, soldiers and citizens has won the admiration of the world, and against all the odds they continue to fight against the Russian invaders, sadly without the direct support of the West.

The modern Munich moment

If we are on the path to another bloody global confrontation, future historians will no doubt claim it would have been easier to stop Putin in 2008 when he invaded Georgia, or 2014 when he seized Crimea, or 2022 when he invaded Ukraine.

A world split asunder

The real-time feeds of Russian attacks in Kyiv and Kharkiv bring home the brutal reality of what Putin is doing to people who dared live in democracy on his doorstop.

The short arm of the law

The fact that Russia, the current president of the UN Security Council, launched its invasion of Ukraine during a Security Council meeting to resolve the crisis tells you everything you need to know about its contempt for international norms – and their powerlessness to stop it.