Russian roulette

Vladimir Putin, like Josef Stalin before him, deals with his critics by murdering them, but the underlying problem – his disastrous military campaign in Ukraine – has not gone away with the death of Prigozhin.

Ouroboros

The only surprise about Prigozhin’s death is that Vladimir Putin took two months to murder him, but as the brutal Russian regime turns on itself, it’s only a matter of time before Putin himself suffers a similar fate.

Dealing with post-Putin Russia

The death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin signals both Vladimir Putin’s ambition to crush any threat to his dictatorship, and the vulnerability of his hold on power, so how should the West deal with his successor, when the time arrives?

How Putin ruined Russia

While most of Eastern Europe sloughed off Soviet domination to embrace freedom and prosperity, Russia has collapsed back into a new dark age under the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin.

A very Russian revolution

The latest episode of “A Very Russian Revolution” might be over, but Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is not. Before we settle in to watch the next show, whenever it is released, we might want to put our popcorn away and stop treating Russia’s war as something that only happens on our TV screens.

Russian law v Russia’s people

Putin’s weaponisation of Russian law to crush political freedom has been accelerated by his disastrous invasion of UIkraine, and though his plan to rebuild the Soviet Union in terms of territory lies in ruins, he is on the way to recreating the repressive excesses of the Soviet-era police-state.

Putin’s thugs begin to turn on him

Vladimir Putin has used Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary group to do its dirty work in Ukraine, but is increasingly nervous about the threat such groups pose to the ruling elite.

Putin’s cannon fodder

Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine has cost its army thousands of men, and Putin’s attempts to persuade more recruits to face death in the trenches are falling on deaf ears around the country.

Putin the pariah

The scale of Putin’s miscalculation in invading Ukraine defies rational comprehension. The war has left Russia a pariah state in an increasingly desperate position.

Thug life

Vladimir Putin’s search for scapegoats for his humiliating failure to subdue Ukraine risks sparking a civil war with the brutal mercenary gang he has relied upon to do his dirty work.

Russia’s ‘Victory Day’ rings hollow

President Putin and his Soviet forebears have always used Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany to stoke nationalism and buttress their own regime, but this year’s parade will be scaled back as Russian losses mount in Ukraine and the regime fears public protests against it.

Putin’s police state

Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after the latest 1930s-style “show trial” in Putin’s ever-more Stalinist police state.