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Owen Matthews

Owen Matthews

The Spectator

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The US war aid might be too little, too late for Ukraine

At the last possible moment, after months of prevarication and with Russian troops on the brink of a major breakthrough in Ukraine, the US Congress...

sunday 20

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Will Biden support Ukraine’s attacks on Russia?

This time last year, Volodymyr Zelensky was touring western capitals, calling for weapons and money to launch a decisive summer offensive. Nato...

17.04.2024 3

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Will Biden support Ukraine’s attacks on Russia?

This time last year, Volodymyr Zelensky was touring western capitals, calling for weapons and money to launch a decisive summer offensive. Nato...

11.04.2024 5

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

The Moscow terror attack is Putin’s 9/11

The Crocus City Hall attack blindsided Putin’s vast security state. Employing nearly a million policemen, 340,000 national guards and over 100,000...

26.03.2024 20

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Pope Francis’s unhelpful Ukraine comments

Pope Francis has made a statement on the Ukraine war that has sparked fury among many of Kyiv’s supporters. Asked by a Swiss television interviewer...

10.03.2024 8

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Hollow tsar / Putin may seem confident – but Russia’s future is bleak

How old will you be when Vladimir Putin’s next presidential term ends in 2030? Which of today’s world leaders will still be in office? By that...

07.03.2024 9

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Foreign life / Navalny’s final agony at the Polar Wolf gulag

One winter’s night before the Ukraine war, I was on a train that stopped at a remote station deep in the Russian arctic. It was late November. The...

22.02.2024 6

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

The tragedy of Alexei Navalny

I knew and greatly respected Alexei Navalny. The news (as yet not independently confirmed) that he died in prison came today as a physical blow –...

16.02.2024 3

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Ukraine’s new strategy hits Russia where it hurts

Ukraine is fighting not one but two hot wars against Russia. The first, a conventional, bloody land war along an 810-mile front line, has descended...

25.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Putin’s ‘peace’ is a partitioned Ukraine

Is Vladimir Putin trying to end his war in Ukraine? According to recent reports, the Kremlin has launched a new ‘back-channel diplomacy’ to reach...

04.01.2024 20

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Time to talk? / The Ukrainian war can only end in a peace deal

Kyiv In Ukraine, the political mood has become sombre and fractious. As the front lines settle into stalemate, Russia ramps up for a new season of...

07.12.2023 30

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Foreign life / The heady, hedonistic summer in which I became a life-long foreigner

Rome I have spent almost all my adult life as a foreigner. When I graduated from Oxford I faced a stark choice: work for a living or leave the...

30.11.2023 2

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

Missed target / Sanctions against Russia have backfired

Does a British government department have the right to punish individuals who have broken no laws on the basis of their political views? Are private...

23.11.2023 7

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

The exiled activists who dream of dismantling the Russian empire

There is a dream called the Republic of Ingermanlandia. This republic’s values will be European, its borders will be open and it will prosper like...

21.09.2023 7

The Spectator

Owen Matthews

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