Russia

Thursday

Rachel Johnson

Diary – 22 March 2018

I went to a dinner for Toby Young, who has had some troubles of late, at this magazine’s gracious HQ, hosted by the editor. I was slightly dreading being beasted by a reptilian gathering of hard Brexiters, but it was in the diary. So I tipped up last Friday in a somewhat plunging jumpsuit and accepted only water as aperitif, wittering about not having done my column yet and having to do Newsnight later. Half an hour later I was knocking back claret and competing to tell embarrassing stories about Toby and it was still only 7.15 p.m. (the evening started at the ungodly hour of 6.30 p.m.). Over the

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Russia Today’s useful idiots

Some people I respect are content to go on the Russian TV channel RT, on the grounds that ‘they let me say what I think’. I’m afraid this is a form of vanity. Of course, RT lets you say what you think: they would be ludicrously ineffective propagandists if they didn’t. The point is that by appearing, you legitimise their platform. You help create the utter confusion about what is true and who is right which is the Russian government’s aim. To reverse the usual expression, your honest opinions allow lies to be surrounded by a bodyguard of truth. This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes, from this week’s

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Our response to the nerve gas attack has been an act of self harm

There was a growling Russian maniac on the BBC’s Today programme last week, an MP from the United Russia party called Vitaly Milonov. Breathing rather heavily, as if he were pleasuring himself, Mr Milonov likened our country to Hitler’s Germany for having accused Russia over the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. At this point he was cut off by the presenter — rather a shame, I thought, at the time. I would have liked to hear Vitaly expand upon some of his other beliefs, such as homosexuals being responsible for the Ebola virus and Jews being Satanists. He also hates cyclists, so not all bad, then.

Sunday

Katy Balls

Will Russia disrupt the local elections?

Will Russia disrupt the local elections? That’s the question being asked in Westminster. But rather than worries over Russian meddling and subterfuge, the issue at hand is whether Jeremy Corbyn’s questionable response to the attempted murder of a former Russian double agent on British soil will help boost the Conservative vote come May. Those local elections are expected to be a blood bath for the Tories, with Labour predicted to win big – particularly in the capital. The Conservatives are so worried about the vote that the managing expectations operations includes suggesting that it would be a disappointing night for Labour if the party didn’t win every London council. But in

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Boris Titov doesn’t want to be president but he’s still taking on Putin

Boris Titov is running to be president of Russia, but he’s eager to talk himself out of the job. ‘I am not a good politician,’ he says, over breakfast at the Lanesborough hotel in Knightsbridge. ‘To be a president means you need to be wise, a big politician like Thatcher, Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew. Russia needs a tough politician in the presidential chair and I am not that man.’ Titov knows that on 18 March, Vladimir Putin, the toughest politician of our age, will be re-elected as Russia’s Supreme Commander-in-Chief. ‘Everybody understands that,’ he says. ‘We are not stupid. I have common sense.’ Which prompts the question: why run?

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Jeremy Corbyn’s Phrygian cap

Gimson’s Prime Ministers, out this week, is a crisp and stylish account of every one of them. I happened to be reading Andrew Gimson’s admiring essay on George Canning (PM for 119 days in 1827) just after Jeremy Corbyn’s parliamentary remarks about the Salisbury poisoning. The way Mr Corbyn talked, one got the impression that it was Britain which had caused Mr and Miss Skripal to be poisoned. Canning had a gift for light verse. He satirised the sort of Englishman who adored the French Revolution: ‘A steady patriot of the world alone,/ The friend of every country but his own.’ That Phrygian cap fits Mr Corbyn perfectly. It is

Saturday

James Forsyth

Two things that must change after Salisbury

As I say in The Sun this morning, one of the things about the Salisbury attack that has disconcerted the UK government is how–relatively obvious–the Russians have made it, that it was them. They clearly wanted to send a message. In Whitehall, the thinking is that there were three things that Moscow was trying to achieve with the poisoning of Sergei Skripal. First, to show Russia’s enemies that they are never safe. If they can hit a former spy for Britain who was keeping a low profile in a small English City then they can get to anyone. Second, they think that the Russians were trying to test Britain. This

Friday

Melanie McDonagh

Jeremy Corbyn is right about Russia

It’s not every day you find yourself thinking that, well, Jeremy Corbyn has a point, but that’s just how I felt when he wrote in yesterday’s Guardian and reiterated later that the Government was ‘rushing way ahead of the evidence’ in condemning Russia for the attack on Sergei Skripal. Yesterday he observed that ‘this horrific event demands..painstaking criminal investigation…to rush way ahead of the evidence being gathered by the police in a fevered parliamentary atmosphere, serves neither justice nor our national security.’ I don’t think he was being treasonous in suggesting that Russia should have been given more time to respond, and possibly a sample of the toxin to analyse.

Thursday

Paul Wood

Mueller subpoenas Trump Organisation’s Russia documents

When Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, went to Moscow in 2006, she did all the usual tourist things: walked around Red Square, visited the Kremlin… sat in Vladimir Putin’s private chair. At least she did according to Trump’s broker and business partner Felix Sater. ‘I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin,’ Sater said in an email, which was later leaked. Ivanka put out a statement more or less confirming this, saying that she ‘might have’ sat in Putin’s chair, but couldn’t exactly recall. The rest of Sater’s emails were more important as they gave details of his efforts to fix

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn backs his spokesman on Russia

Just in case you had grown confused, the big international story at the moment is actually about Theresa May’s response to Russia’s involvement in the Salisbury attack, not the internal war in the Labour Party. It’s not actually all about Labour, though Jeremy Corbyn and his allies are doing their damnedest to make sure that they get a disproportionate share of the attention. This evening, Corbyn has backed his spokesman’s line on Russia, writing a piece in the Guardian which repeats the post-PMQs claim that British intelligence on chemical weapons has been ‘problematic’. The Labour leader writes: ‘There can and should be the basis for a common political response to

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Putin’s toxic power

On this week’s episode, we look at the situation with Russia, and whether diplomatic relations have been poisoned. We also discuss the bullying scandal in Westminster and consider whether sledging in cricket has gone too far. The nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury has led to an outbreak of antagonism between Britain and Russia. Theresa May has now expelled a host of Russian diplomats, but can anything be done to stop Putin’s assault on Western values? That’s the question Owen Matthews asks in the magazine this week, and he joins the podcast along with Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs select committee, and then former Foreign Minister

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump finally announces sanctions against Russia

Donald Trump today called it a ‘very sad situation.’ The ‘it’ in question is of course the chemical weapons attack in Salisbury, a fresh indicator, if one were needed, of malign Russian intentions toward the West. Even as Theresa May plays, or tries to play, Margaret Thatcher, Trump has been no Ronald Reagan. He doesn’t want anyone ‘Russian to judgment. Instead, when it comes to Moscow, he’s been missing in action, no friend of the United Kingdom. He’s sounded in fact more like the equivocating Jeremy Corbyn than anyone else when it comes to the brouhaha over Salisbury. So the announcement this morning that the Trump administration will institute fresh

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron backs May over Russia

President Emmanuel Macron has offered his full support to Theresa May and said that France may take its own action against Russia after the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. On a visit to Touraine on Thursday morning, the president was asked about the incident and he replied: “Everything leads us to believe that responsibility is in fact attributable to Russia. I will announce in the coming days the measures that we intend to take.” Macron is hosting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris on Friday and it’s expected that the pair will make a joint announcement in which they reiterate their support for Britain. The president’s intervention came

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Alex Salmond’s defence of Russia Today is inexcusable

On his RT television show this morning, Alex Salmond shrugged-off criticism that, by working for the Russians, he has reduced himself from erstwhile statesman to useful idiot. Look, he said, RT is no different from the BBC, ITV or Sky. It is regulated by Ofcom and so, “by definition”, cannot be a “propaganda station”.  “I hold no brief from the Kremlin, nor am I required to have [one]” Salmond said. “No-one has tried to influence the contents of this show in any way, shape or form whatsoever.” But then they don’t need to, do they? Not when, as evidence of his editorial freedom, Salmond is happy to offer a platform,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Thanks to the anti-fracking lobby, Britain can’t avoid Russian gas

Who stands between the government and a proper, effective sanctions regime against Russia? Not Jeremy Corbyn, though he might wish he could. Putin is going to get away with the Salisbury attack, suffering little more than a token expulsion of diplomats, thanks to anti-fracking protesters. They didn’t mean it, of course. When they stood before the bulldozers in the Sussex village Balcombe, jumped up and down about mini-Earth tremors in Lancashire they thought they were doing the Earth a favour. They saw UK-produced shale gas as a dirty alternative to clean, carbon-free energy. But they were wrong. In the short to medium term at least the alternative to UK-produced shale

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

‘Seumas Milne has to speak for himself’: Labour splits in three over Russia

What is Labour’s position on the government’s response to the Salisbury attack? There seem to be at least three. If you listen to Jeremy Corbyn, it’s that there needs to be definitive evidence and that Britain needs to maintain a dialogue with Russia. If you listen to his backbenchers, it’s that Labour should wholeheartedly support Theresa May’s position, both on Russian culpability and on the government’s response. But if you listen to his spokesman, it’s that there is a ‘problematic’ history of UK intelligence on chemical weapons and that there was not yet proof that the Russian state had carried out the attack. It turns out that a large number

Steerpike Steerpike

Seumas Milne and Russia – a brief history

Oh dear. A number of  Labour MPs are calling for Jeremy Corbyn to sack Seumas Milne after the Labour leader’s communications director reportedly questioned the reliability of information on Russia from Britain’s intelligence agencies. In a lobby briefing, the Press Association quote Milne as saying: ‘I think obviously the government has access to information and intelligence on this matter which others don’t; however, also there’s a history in relation to WMD and intelligence which is problematic to put it mildly.’ However, were Milne to have said this, it was in his role as the Leader’s spokesman. So, what does Milne think personally? Happily, there is a wealth of articles –

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

The Special Relationship still trumps Putin

For a president who usually tweets first and asks questions later, Donald Trump’s initial reaction to the Salisbury attack has been curiously slow. Eleven days on from the poisoning of a former Russian agent, Trump’s Twitter account remains silent on the subject. But now that Theresa May is ramping up the rhetoric against Russia – ordering 23 Russian spies to leave Britain – the Trump administration is finally riding firmly behind May, and pointing the finger at Putin in a way it never has before. The White House issued a statement last night saying it ‘stands in solidarity with its closest ally, the United Kingdom’. While the evidence linking the

Paul Staines

A very social spy

I first met Sergey Nalobin in 2012 at Soho House. He introduced himself, in accented English, as from the Russian embassy. ‘On the Ministry of Foreign Affairs orientation course before coming to London, I was told to read Guido Fawkes blog and Private Eye. I enjoy yours more,’ he said flatteringly (I publish Guido Fawkes). A PR company had offered me an irresistibly large fee to give ‘a masterclass’ to corporate marketing types in how to use social media. So it was that I found myself presenting Power-Point slides in front of a boardroom of suits — with one short, heavy-set, cropped-haired Russian from central casting sitting right next to

Wednesday

Polly Boiko

The day I almost lost my job: diary of an RT reporter

My name’s Polly and I work for RT (yes, so shoot me). I’m a reporter in the London bureau, and like many of my RT colleagues I woke up this morning not sure if I’d still have a job in the afternoon. We had heard the pre-statement leaks: diplomatic expulsions. No royals or dignitaries attending the World Cup. But no word as yet about our fate. Just existential uncertainty as to whether RT will be closed down by the British state. Ever since the Prime Minister pointed the finger of blame for the Skripal poisoning at the Kremlin, talk of her closing down RT has been rife. On Monday, as part of her