RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
Latest editorial
Russia in the labyrinth of Middle East politics
This is a concise and timely handbook to Russia policy in the Middle East, writes GAVIN O’TOOLE
Russian ground support Sukhoi Su-25 at Latakia, Syria on October 3 2015
[Mil.ru/CC]
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
Russian Foreign Policy towards the Middle East: New Trends, Old Traditions
Edited by Nikolay Kozhanov
Hurst £25
WHILE there is still no hard evidence that Syrian mercenaries recruited by Russia have arrived in Ukraine or started fighting there, there is no doubt thousands have signed up to do so.
Reports have proliferated since March that Moscow is using its close ties with the regime of Bashar al-Assad to source a new supply of potential cannon fodder for its Ukrainian adventure.
There is nothing new about Syrian fighters serving as mercenaries abroad in countries such as Libya on behalf of Russian foreign policy interests, often under the cloak of deniability and at low cost.
Similar stories
The transformation of a stable secular state into a fractured ruin largely ruled by Western-backed fundamentalists exposes the hollow nature of ‘multipolarity’ and the absence of principled anti-imperialism today, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
