Nicholas Farrell Nicholas Farrell

The war in Ukraine may benefit the populist right

[Getty Images] 
issue 19 March 2022

Ravenna, Italy

Ever since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, it’s been widely assumed that Europe’s right-wing populists are finished. Figures such as Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orban have all been cast as Putin’s useful idiots – defending his nefarious deeds because they saw him as a vital ideological ally.

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