Samuel Novnik

What's the link between these clippings? That's easy! These faces, strands & CIA MI5 & KGB secrets & menace star in a 1983 Cold War true spy story. A journalist is drawn into espionage & then a race against time, risking prison & death, to avert Armageddon amazon.com/dp/B0C4MRW4Z8

EXCLUSIVE: We've obtained a cache of text messages and recorded conversations between Russian intelligence officers and a student they coerced into becoming an informant. Here’s a rare insight into Moscow’s efforts to infiltrate opposition groups abroad: politico.eu/article/russia…

Answers? No Prizes for correct answers

What is it? Costs billions. Where? Easy as the most common password: 1,2,3,4. Dead easy for Spies, & decoders can Tell: 1) Chocolate gears bore tunnels (in Switzerland). 2) (& first of all) It's Happy Exit Putin (in Russia). No? give in? intriguing key to a labyrinth of Lies.

In Hungary, a striking scene: during Viktor Orbán’s campaign stop in Szombathely, citizens gathered not in applause but in protest, chanting “Russians go home”. It’s more than a moment of dissent—it reflects a deeper European divide between those who stand for democratic sovereignty and those who flirt with authoritarian influence. Europe must remain firm: our future cannot be shaped by fear, nor by those who look East for inspiration instead of forward for progress.

Again. And again, the question is why. Because corrupt autocrats stick together? The fake "conservative values" propaganda? Or simply because Putin desperately needs to keep Orbán to sabotage the EU and the Trump admin seems to do whatever Putin wants?

I understand that Viktor Orban clinging to power in Hungary is so important to Putin that he is doing everything possible to tamper in Hungary’s election, but why is it so important to Trump and Vance?

Here's my message today to Vladimir Putin and the same message to Donald Trump. From way up in the sky, I'm watching you. And I can read your mind... unfortunately... Enjoy! youtu.be/OCVG5AZdxZg?is…

Recent internet blackouts in Moscow and St Petersburg are not just reactive responses to Ukrainian drones. They are early-stage tests of a Kremlin equivalent to China’s ‘Great Firewall'. chathamhouse.org/2026/03/moscow…

With more and more Russians now accessing the internet via VPNs, the authorities are now trying to block access to VPNs. Meanwhile, there are rumours that the Ukrainians have already hacked MAX, compromising the supposed better security of MAX. nytimes.com/2026/03/31/wor…

On the shelf, once again #DeadSpiesTellNoLies is squeezed comfortably in an Irish sandwich between #GrahamNorton's #Frankie and #LizNugent's #StrangeSallyDiamond. 3 very different books with very different secrets - but only 1 on the KGB with an Appendix of secret docs & poetry!

Another day & yet another @Waterstones! & #DeadSpiesTellNoLies gets to the Crime & Thriller table under a sign quoting John le Carré: "Nothing is ever quite what it seems". How true. Like a Brit banker's fatal fall off a Moscow balcony & other mysteries in Dead Spies Tell No Lies

Three arguments are made for Russia’s inclusion in the world’s leading contemporary-art exhibition. All are bad: econ.st/4swmNod Photo: Getty Images

In Moscow's Shadows 242: Igor Sechin, Sharpening Putin's Pencils for 30 Years Rosneft's CEO + every liberal's favourite bugbear is back in the news, after a time laying low. Why? Because of the difference between being a friend of Putin's and a crony buzzsprout.com/1026985/episod…

@NatalkaKyiv 🤣 Even Andrei Lugovoi seems to stifle a smile of incredulity at this assertion!

“I officially declare that we have the best air defense in the world, and no one has air defense better than ours. There isn’t any today.” — Russian Colonel General and State Duma deputy Andrey Kartapolov. I just can’t… 😂🤣😂

Out today. My memoir of 25 years in Russia, from Yeltsin to Putin, and my later reporting on the Kremlin's sick and evil war in Ukraine.

my review in today's @thetimes of excellent new book on Russia's descent into madness by @marcbennetts1

R.I.P. John Fisher Burns a British journalist. He was the Times Moscow Bureau Chief 1981-84, just one of his postings which resonates most for me. "The dean of U.S. foreign correspondents", he won the Pulitzer prize twice, ending as @nytimes London Bureau Chief until 2015.

John Burns obituary: Pulitzer prizewinning foreign correspondent #Echobox=1774683957" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/…

How do you put the genie back in the bottle? How does an authoritarian regime control a population that has tasted freedom & peace and has no wish either to lose its (internet) freedom or die in a senseless war while its leaders lie & live in luxury? chathamhouse.org/2026/03/moscow…

@MoscowTimes No surprise. The Russian Mafia State has always squeezed businesses from billionaires down to SMEs to extract volontary funds whenever more is needed - for example, at election time or when the Boss needed a new yacht, palace or bunker. It's a straightforward Protection Racket...

An unidentified businessman was said to have proposed the idea during a private meeting, but the Russian president himself did not request that donations be made to the state, according to the Kremlin. themoscowtimes.com/2026/03/27/kre…