World

Much has been made of what Putin has in common with Stalin. Both leaders brook no dissent: they subordinate truth to ideology and preserve their lies through terror. Yet such obvious parallels between these Russian leaders, past and present, matter less than their differences. Indeed, when trying to work out what makes Putin tick, there’s another figure from Russia’s past who serves as a more useful role model than Stalin: the Christian fascist Ivan Ilyin. Back in 2005, Putin arranged for the reburial of Ilyin at Moscow’s Donskoi monastery, where those who fell foul of Stalin’s secret police were burned and buried. It was a mark of respect for Ilyin, a

Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen clash tomorrow evening in an eagerly anticipated live television debate. The president has been accused of dodging the presidential campaign but it doesn’t seem to have harmed his chances of re-election, with the latest poll giving him a handsome ten point lead over his rival. If Le Pen is to pull off a shock victory in Sunday’s second round she will need to debate with far more finesse than she did in 2017. On that occasion she was given the run-around by Macron as 16.5 million viewers looked on. The pressure on her is immense but her campaign team say she is upbeat and

The sinking of the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva is both a reminder of the past and a marker for the future. It harkens back to a lesson learned forty years ago. It was in 1982, in the waters around the Falkland Islands, that the ability of anti-ship missiles to destroy modern warships was brought home to much of the world. It was a shock for many to see a not-first-rate military run by the oppressive Argentinian Junta being able to destroy a number of the newest British warships during the Falklands War. Most notably the destroyer HMS Sheffield, which had been commissioned only seven years before, was destroyed after being

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has paradoxically heightened China’s global reputation, if only because it has not yet invaded a weaker neighbour. Yet China remains a far greater threat over the long run than Russia. And recent disruptive behaviour by Xi Jinping should remind London, Washington and their allies that Beijing poses not merely a regional threat, but a global one. Though overlooked in the wake of Russia’s devastation of Ukraine, Beijing has flagrantly interfered in Britain’s national interests by proclaiming support for Argentina’s claims to the Falkland Islands. China’s timing was particularly provocative, given that 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the Falklands war. Britain’s success in that conflict

Nobody knows how long people live in Dzerzhinsk – life expectancy statistics for the Russian city, 250 miles east of Moscow, aren’t released to the public. In the days of the Soviet Union, it was closed to outsiders and left off official maps, but those in neighbouring Nizhny Novgorod joked that residents must have purple skin and second heads because of the emissions from its secretive chemical weapons plants. In recent years, however, it has gained notoriety as one of the most polluted places on the planet, with a study after the fall of the Iron Curtain reporting locals usually died in their mid-forties. ‘You can make more money here