Luke Harding

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Vladimir Putin has been in power as prime minister or president for a quarter of a century. Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov/AFP/Getty Images

Europa, , ,

Vladimir Putin’s war plan was simple. Russian tanks would roll into Kyiv, while special forces seized key buildings and raised the Russian flag. The operation – to conquer Ukraine and to install a puppet government – would take around three days. The west would be horrified, of course. But – sooner or later – it would grudgingly recognise this new and great Russian reality.

Two and half years after his full-scale invasion, however, the triumphant parade Putin envisaged on Kyiv’s Khreshchatyk boulevard has yet to happen. Victory has proved elusive. Ukrainians didn’t welcome “liberation” by their Slavic brothers in the way Putin’s spy agency predicted.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoCáucasoEuropa, , , ,

After three weeks in Georgia reporting on the war and its aftermath, I find one conversation sticks with me. I had arrived in Karaleti, a Georgian village north of Gori. I had gone there with a group of foreign journalists in a Russian army truck; our ultimate destination was Tskhinvali, in South Ossetia. Several houses along the main road had been burned down; an abandoned Lada lay in a ditch; someone had looted the local school.

Refugees from Karaleti and nearby villages gave the same account: South Ossetian militias had swept in on August 12, killing, burning, stealing and kidnapping. Sasha, our Kremlin minder, however, had a different explanation.…  Seguir leyendo »