Russian troops in Crimea This is not my usual blog post. Instead it’s in the form of a letter that I sent to the UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague, today, 23 March. I wrote the letter because I want to shed some light on the vast dangers and risks of the next stage of the […]
Archive | March, 2014
Time for more than sanctions and words
London, 17 March 2014 It is 24 hours since the “result” of the referendum in Crimea. There was no surprise there, and today the region was recognised as independent by the Russian state. The result in Brussels and Washington and London has been somewhat different. The consequence of everything Western politicians have said […]
Timid western politics won’t wash with Putin
New Statesman, 14-20 March 2014 The first Ukrainian I met was called Peter. On my first visit to Kyiv, exactly 20 years ago, Peter introduced himself to me in front of the monument to the 150,000 massacred Jews of Babi Yar. He was a retired accountant from Croydon, but had been born outside Kharkiv, […]
Rebirth of a nation
Bullied and humiliated by Russia, seen as a strategic buffer by the US, Ukraine is riven by corruption and deeply divided. Can it rise and free itself?
