A much more worrying possibility, and indeed quite plausible with the Johnson government in particular, is that they're perfectly well aware of why, but have such a high level of corrupted oppor… (View Post)

I was fascinated by this too. It reminds me very much of the public humiliations of Stalin's show-trials, in tone. It also very obviously shows that Putin feels he has to reinforce his position … (View Post)

The naivety, or doublespeak, is also staggering. If a former security contact of the Russian state and Putin says he's no longer in that line of work, we can also obviously *entirely* trust him.… (View Post)

The first really unwise comment I've seen from Ben Wallace, who's done reasonably well for most of the rest of this crisis. More like a return to facile, ill-advised and dangerous Brexit-er… (View Post)

The Russians had little option after 1991. The previous structures had collapsed, and there were very considerable both financial and ideological pressures. it was only several years later that Weste… (View Post)