Owen Matthews writes about Russia for The Spectator and is the author of Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine.
The soldier with the Kalashnikov wasn’t happy. Neither were the hundreds of comrades who had chosen him as the spokesman for their angry complaints as they milled about on a train platform somewhere in Russia. ‘There are 500 of us, we are armed, but we haven’t been assigned to any unit,’ the newly mobilised soldier
Who blew up the Kerch bridge? One of President Zelensky’s most senior advisers, Mikhailo Podolyak, has suggested that the Russians did it themselves. ‘Isn’t it obvious who made an explosion?’ he asked on Twitter. ‘Truck arrived from RF (Russian Federation).’ Officially, the Ukrainian government is saying nothing: its secret service has said it will remain quiet until
Moscow A week of somewhat mixed messages from the Kremlin. One day Vladimir Putin opened Europe’s largest Ferris wheel and presided over citywide celebrations of Moscow’s 875th anniversary, full of calm and good cheer and mentioning the war only in passing. A few days later he appeared on national TV telling the world that he
In the wake of Vladimir Putin’s surprise announcement of partial mobilisation on Wednesday, thousands of young Russian men decided that the time had come to flee. Google searches for ways to leave Russia (as well as for ‘how to break your own arm’, another way out of military service) spiked. Flights sold out, and long
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This week on Spectator Out Loud, Owen Matthews evaluates Russia’s ultra-nationalist threat (00:55), Cindy Yu reviews Perhat Tarsun’s The Backstreets (12:36) and ex-royal ladies maid Alicia Healey tells us why a handbag was the Queen’s secret weapon (15:22). Produced and presented by Oscar Edmondson.
‘Russia without Putin!’ was the cry of Muscovites who turned out to protest against Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency for a third term in December 2011. Crowds 100,000 strong chanted their opposition on Moscow’s Academician Sakharov Prospect – as symbolically named a venue as you could wish for – as riot police stood calmly
Enforced brevity focuses the mind wonderfully. And when the minds in question are two of the West’s most interesting historians of Russia, the result is a distillation of insight that’s vitally timely. Sir Rodric Braithwaite was Britain’s ambassador to Moscow from 1988-92 during the collapse of the USSR (where he was the boss of Christopher
Enforced brevity focuses the mind wonderfully. And when the minds in question are two of the West’s most interesting historians of Russia, the result is a distillation of insight that’s vitally timely. Sir Rodric Braithwaite was Britain’s ambassador to Moscow from 1988-92 during the collapse of the USSR (where he was the boss of Christopher
Do you hate Russia, or do you hate Putin? That’s the central question behind a current debate about whether to suspend tourist visas to the EU for all Russian citizens. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky started the ball rolling last week in an interview with the Washington Post, where he said that the ‘most important sanction’
Don’t believe Vladimir Putin’s hype. The Russian economy is not OK. With western sanctions jeopardising up to 40 per cent of the country’s GDP, Putin’s assurances of an economic pivot to the East are a sham. And his weaponising of gas supplies to Europe is the financial equivalent of strapping on a suicide vest. That,
Starvation is a weapon as old as war itself. But Vladimir Putin has put a perversely postmodern twist on the ancient stratagem. Instead of menacing his Ukrainian enemy with hunger and poverty, he is threatening the whole world. Putin has long used oil and gas as a political instrument, most recently cutting off supplies to
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This week Lara Prendergast and William Moore talk to James Forsyth and the academic, Dr Alexander Clarkson about Zelensky’s possible path to peace (00:42). Followed by Owen Matthews, The Spectator’s Russia correspondent on Turkey’s power over Nato expansion (13:28). Finally, a chat between two bowls fanatics, Michael Simmons, The Spectator’s data journalist and Andrew Gibson
Driving a hard bargain is the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief survival skill – one that has kept him in power for nearly as long as his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. And the basic principles of bargaining are twofold: never give something away for nothing, and make your threats to walk away convincing. No
It’s spring in Tbilisi. The fruit trees are in full blossom, the nights are warm. The Purpur restaurant near the Gudiashvili Gardens and Vinzavod No. 1 on Rustaveli Avenue – favourites of visiting Moscow hipsters and creatives for years – buzz with Russian conversation. ‘Everyone I know is here now,’ says Katya, 43, a museum
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In this week’s episode: How are the people of both Russia and Ukraine processing the war? Our Russia correspondent Owen Matthews writes in this week’s Spectator that he has been stunned at how easily some of his Russian friends have accepted the Kremlin’s propaganda. He joins the podcast to explain why he thinks this is, followed
‘The photographs of murdered civilians, their hands tied behind their backs, shot in the head and tossed like animals on to the street… we will not forget, and no one will let us forget,’ wrote Russian journalist and author Yevgenia Albats last week. ‘The guilt for this will lie on our children and grandchildren. Bucha,
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In this week’s episode: could President Erdogan broker a peace deal between Putin and the West? For this week’s cover piece, Owen Matthews has written about how Turkey’s President Erdogan became a key powerbroker between Vladimir Putin and the Western alliance. On the podcast, Owen is joined by Ece Temelkuran, a political thinker, author, and
Istanbul Vladimir Putin’s ill-conceived blitzkrieg in Ukraine has failed thanks, first and foremost, to the guts of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. British and US-supplied anti-tank weapons have played a crucial role, too. But it’s Ukraine’s Turkish–made TB2 Bayraktar drones that have been the war’s most unexpectedly effective weapon. Unexpected not just because of their battlefield
Things fall apart. Moscow friends call to say that I have to urgently send my 19-year-old son out of Russia. He is travelling on his Russian passport and a new law says that he is obliged to register for the military draft. Nikita is on a gap year working at a Moscow theatre and he
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In this week’s episode: What’s the mood on the ground in Ukraine and Russia? For this week’s cover piece, Owen Matthews asks whether the invasion of Ukraine will mean the end of Putin’s regime. And in this week’s Spectator diary, Freddy Gray reports on pride and paranoia on the streets of Lviv. They join the
