How endless optimism can make it difficult when confronted with unpleasant choices

This book is an apt metaphor for the state of freedom of speech in modern Britain

When will we get serious about cyberwarfare?

Robert Thicknesse ruminates on The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko

The GRU, Unit 29155 of Russia’s military intelligence service, is a remarkable failure of counterintelligence and politics from the West, says James Snell

Weekly pressers from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have turned into festivals of hostility towards the countries caught in the Kremlin’s crosshairs — why?

The response to the political plight of Navalny has demonstrated that many civil rights organisations are neither principled nor brave

Christopher Silvester shows how Konchalovsky has one of the strangest careers in world cinema

The Happy Traitor tells Blake’s story in a witty and sophisticated way, fully alert to its complexities and ironies

The Integrated Review: goodbye Middle East; hello South China Sea; but still Russia first