Sunday 21 June 2026 Politics has always borrowed its language from romance. Alliances are described as courtships. Coalitions are marriages of convenience. Betrayals become divorces. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that commentators have frequently spoken of the contemporary political relationship between Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump in terms more suited to a society column than a diplomatic dispatch. Yet beneath the superficial fascination lies something more consequ

By Robert Harris Sunday 21 June 2026 In the 1990s, there was a movie called "Street Fighter," based on the video game of the same name. Near its climactic battle, one of the antagonists, a bear wrestler of immense courage and dim intelligence named Zangief, tells one of his comrades in a rather dubious East European accent, "ze enemies of peace and fr-r-reedom are at our valls!" and asks why said comrade is out of uniform, to which the comrade in question incredulously reveal

Sunday 21 June 2026 There are some forms of grief for which language feels obscenely inadequate. We speak because silence appears cowardly, yet every sentence sounds thinner than the reality it attempts to describe. We offer condolences, embrace those who mourn, search for words of comfort learned from religion, philosophy or custom. But there remain moments when the sheer weight of another person’s suffering leaves one standing helplessly before it, conscious that language i

Saturday 20 June 2026 For much of the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia appeared destined to become one of the most successful democratic reformers in the post-Soviet space. The country embraced market reforms, sought integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions and cultivated a national identity firmly distinct from that of Russia. The 2003 Rose Revolution seemed to place Georgia on an irreversible path towards Europe, and successive governments publi

Friday 19 June 2026 Russian efforts to restrict access to virtual private networks (VPNs) reveal a recurring dilemma of modern authoritarian governance: the desire to control information collides with the architecture of the internet itself. The Russian state has spent years attempting to construct a digital sovereign space within its borders, seeking to limit citizens’ access to foreign news, independent journalism and social media platforms. Yet the struggle against VPN tec

Friday 19 June 2026 In the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, international headlines increasingly focus on grand strategy, shifting alliances and the diplomacy of distant capitals. Yet much of the practical support that sustains Ukraine’s resilience continues to come from ordinary citizens, working through local organisations whose efforts rarely attract widespread attention. Amongst these is the Leeds Ukrainian Community Association (LUCA), a volunteer-r