I have only just caught up with this brilliant film - a year of video diaries featuring the lives of people under fire in #Kharkiv. Hope someone makes Trump watch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alrr...

Charlie Kirk has become a poster boy for the ultra right Orthodox in Russia. Putin's 'confessor', Metropolitan Shevkunov, heaped praise on him as a Christian missionary who "dared to swim against the tide" when "the truth dies in a sea of political correctness." meduza.io/en/feature/2...

The many faces of Tikhon Khrennikov who controlled the Soviet Union of Composers for 42 years. On @bbcradio3bot.bsky.social I map his influence over decades of cultural control. Can music ever be apolitical in a dictatorship? Listen here from Sunday evening: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

The British Academy Book Prize 2025 shortlist is here! Each book offers a new perspective on issues of global importance, driven by rigorous research and an ability to tell powerful stories in an engaging and compelling way. 📖 Discover the full list here: https://bit.ly/4glo8Jo

open.substack.com/pub/zygaro/p... This is beyond creepy

open.substack.com/pub/zygaro/p... fascinating glimpse into the machinations which led to suicide of former Kursk governor.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... on air now - the story of the notorious book published à century ago.

He understood the church could bring a sense of dignity to these humiliated parts of Russian society but pretty soon there were icons appearing in the cockpits of bomber jets & every army division battalion would be named after a saint @lucyaash.bsky.social on Kirill tinyurl.com/jexnt8hk

Great that @thetimes.com selected my edition of In The Studio on BBC world service as a must listen this week: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Why is the Orthodox church so supportive of Putin's war? This was a great conversation with @lucyaash.bsky.social about orthodoxy, Putin, Kirill, Ukraine, history and theology. tinyurl.com/jexnt8hk

My dad was a pioneer of fibre optics - he would be so horrified to see how that technology is being used today. Great piece by @yogital.bsky.social www.bbc.com/news/article...

Heartbreak on the Cote d'Azur: why are the courts siding with a rogue state against a French association that has existed for over a hundred years? www.lemonde.fr/en/france/ar...

Thanks Kriszta! It was a memorable trip…

The "TheoBros" are opening a church in Washington D.C. The leader of this mission? Doug Wilson, a pastor known for saying that women should never have been given the right to vote.

Hours after the first Russia-Ukraine peace talks in 3 years, Russian forces attacked a civilian bus, killing 9 people and injuring 4 more, Ukrainian National Police report. Hardly a signal that Moscow is seeking an end to its war.

I am over the moon that my book on the Russian Orthodox Church has found its way onto the Orwell Prize shortlist in the company of some brilliant authors. www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-p...

At a time when all the talk is of closing borders, Rotterdam opens a new art museum inspired by stories of migration. Definitely worth a visit. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Russia’s orthodox church is converting Americans to the Kremlin’s view of the world. Some converts have hundreds of thousands of followers online & push narratives that Russia is the world’s last bastion of “true”Christianity. Hear @lucyaash.bsky.social podcast from Texas 🇺🇸

Why did "a soft, timid intellectual" call for Alexei Navalny’s murder ? What turned many smart, well educated and independent minded journalists of the 90s into Kremlin stooges? Read @andreisoldatov.bsky.social and Irina Borogan's brilliant new book about their former Moscow mates.

NEW: The woman thrown out of the Magic Circle for pulling off the ultimate illusion, disguising herself as a boy, has been found after The Times sparked a campaign to track her down Sophie Lloyd was readmitted to the club “A wrong was made right," she said www.thetimes.com/article/456c...

Recognizing that the need to chronicle the war and its impact on Ukrainian society is as strong as ever, the IWM is very glad to announce that it will be continuing its Documenting Ukraine program, with the next application cycle beginning in June 2025: www.iwm.at/news/documen...

Hard not to feel that evil begets evil...my review of sinclair McKay's compelling history of the Leningrad blockade www.theneweuropean.co.uk/lucy-ash-the...

A telling statistic : Only 30% of Russians have had direct exposure to the war, according to a September 2024 poll while almost 80% of Ukrainians know someone killed or wounded. Read this excellent piece 👇https://bbcrussian.substack.com/p/invisible-russian-losses-in-ukraine

Lord of the Rings inspired one of the world's most dangerous men according to this profile: www.businessinsider.com/russia-media...

Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has zealously backed Russia’s ‘special military operation’ and castigates a morally corrupt west, writes @lucyaash.bsky.social. www.prospectmagazine...

Too much English spoken in Berlin so to learn German I went to help out on a farm in Mecklenburg Vorpommern. Listen here to see how I got on: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I really enjoyed Mariupol at the Cockpit Theatre - the invasion of Ukraine explored with unflinching granularity... Photo (c) Tom Crooke thecockpit.org.uk/show/mariupol

Ukraine has launched a major offensive inside of Russia. At least 1,000 Russian soldiers have been report captured in the last 24-48 hours, including a North Korean. Russia will be forced to pull troops from other fronts to avoid an bigger defeat. Putin calls the situation, "very difficult."

I joined church leaders from Ukraine last week @chathamhouse.bsky.social to discuss religion and the war. Ukraine’s spiritual independence after 300 years under Moscow enraged Putin and his patriarch and became a casus belli. www.chathamhouse.org/events/all/r...

Talked about the birth of Russkiy Mir ideology and the Orthodox church's embrace of state power with disinformation expert Dave Troy. Buckle your belts for a long ride! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

A shot in the arm? Russia's top military cleric, Archpriest Dmitry Vasilenkov, boasted to the Duma that his chaplains persuaded 700 fleeing conscripts in the Kursk region, to return to the frontline. www.agents.media/v-gosdume-za...

Russia's church is creating new warrior saints to inspire the troops. Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev suggested canonising Catherine II's general, Alexander Suvorov. Some say he's more war criminal than saint, for killing 10,000 civilians in Poland's 1794 uprising. nokta.md/rpc-vzyala-k...

Really looking forward to discussing the Orthodox Church at the war in Ukraine this afternoon @chathamhouse.bsky.social there is a big delegation here from Ukraine. www.chathamhouse.org/events/all/r...

📢 Research Panel | The Orthodox battlefield 📆 29 Jan, 14:30 GMT, online & in-person at @chathamhouse.bsky.social Panel: @lucyaash.bsky.social, Metropolitan Yevstratiy Zoria & Bishop Anatoliy Kozachok. Chair: Orysia Lutsevych, OBE Details & registration: chathamhouse.org/events/all/r...

An alarming initiative: cepa.org/article/behi...

Brilliant by Andrey Kurkov: "I am free. These words mean a lot to me. I am free, and I am alive, but more than 100 writers, poets, publishers and translators have died since February 2022. Remember this and do not allow yourselves to fall into a cosy stupor" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It is not going away: balkaninsight.com/2025/01/24/t...

Read this insightful piece @sfchronicle.com by Oksana Pushkina, ex-Duma MP who tried to get a law passed to protect victims of domestic abuse. For her pains, she was vilified and hounded out of Russia. www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...

An excellent piece of reporting from @bbcrussian.bsky.social on the "life-changing sums" of money paid to men risking early deaths on the battlefield in Ukraine. bbcrussian.substack.com/p/cash-for-s...

"This neighbour has lived next door to us for almost 250 years. He sits at our table, he eats our food, he lies down in our beds, he takes what belongs to us." Novelist Nino Haratischvili on Georgia's determination to escape from Russian influence. www.eurolitnetwork.com/georgia-call....

Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Lithuania is no more. He bravely condemned the Soviet attack on Vilnius in 1991 and was the only senior cleric to admit he had been recruited by KGB. www.thetablet.co.uk/news/lithuan...

The Baton and The Cross is "a terrific book" according to this Irish review. www.mercatornet.com/russian_church

A glimpse into Putin's Empire State of Mind @thetroubleclub.bsky.social with @gabrielahouston.bsky.social talking about my book on how the Orthodox Church helped to fuel the Ukraine war. www.iconbooks.com/ib-title/the...

Jeffrey Hardy’s ‘Finding God in the Gulag’ came out last week, adding another book to the run of new innovative work on the Gulag.

Wishing a happy Orthodox Christmas to those celebrating today. If you are interested in the Russian church's relationship with the Kremlin and its role in the Ukraine war, I'm doing Pushkin House event in February in person and online. www.pushkinhouse.org/whats-on/eve...

An exploration of the sonic and creative production of the feminist movement in Algeria, between radio, podcasting, and social media.

Delighted by this latest review in @themoscowtimes.com. My book, is "lively and empathetic" but also delivers an "eviscerating" portrait of cheerleader in chief for the Ukraine war, Patriarch Kirill. www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/12/24/i...

Persecution of anti-war Orthodox priests in Russia and abroad intensifies as Patriarch Kirill copies Putin’s ‘power vertical’ - my piece on From Our Own Correspondent [email protected] www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

In his essay on Dostoevsky Rowan Williams calls The Baton & The Cross "the best survey I know of the history ...of the entanglement of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Russian state...and the rise of an aggressive, fantasy-ridden Orthodox traditionalism.” literaryreview.co.uk/dostoevsky-u...

Russia’s population is plummeting, yet Patriarch Kirill backs a "Holy War" killing hundreds of Russians daily—while pleading with women to keep their babies. Life is sacred why send so many young men to the meat grinder? The latest review of my book @economist.com www.economist.com/culture/2024...