World

It is still too early to predict the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Russia has certainly solidified its position in the east and is making small military gains. What’s become clear over the last few days is that Russia may, after all, be able to achieve at least some of its military goals. Here is an interesting, albeit disturbing, political scenario by Sabine Fischer, a senior fellow at a German foreign policy tank. She notes that the mood in Moscow itself has shifted. It is the Kremlin’s political calculation that the western nations will not sustain their massive financial and military support for Ukraine.  The German government is prioritising its commercial relations with Russia – as it

This is an edited transcript of a conversation between Freddy Gray and Lionel Shriver on The Spectator’s Americano podcast, which you can listen to here. Freddy Gray: Lionel, I feel a bit guilty asking you to talk about this, because I know you’ve become a kind of go-to person about mass shootings in America because you wrote a very significant novel – We Need to Talk About Kevin. You’ve written before about how awkward it is that every time there’s a mass shooting in America, people ask you to come on and talk about it. But in your book, the killer was using a bow, not a gun. So you don’t

Do black lives really matter… to black people? Yesterday marked the second anniversary of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, setting off a wave of protests under the anthemic banner of ‘Black Lives Matter’. The narrative of young black men being killed across America by white cops was strong and inspired a Covid-summer full of protests and promises of change. Now New York’s mayor Eric Adams has finally said the quiet part out loud. Adams slammed Black Lives Matter and anti-police activists after a recent night of bloodshed across the city that saw more than a dozen people shot. ‘Where are all those who stated “Black