Meta Ramsay: the spy who could have been MI6’s first female ‘C’ After a 22-year career in intelligence she became a Labour minister in the Lords, helping to steer Scottish devolution. Evening Standard · May 29
Star City review – Anna Maxwell Martin is terrifying in a fascinating space race thriller This spin-off from hit series For All Mankind is packed with paranoia and tension. It tells Russia’s side of the alternative history – and is so believable that it will give you nightmares The Guardian - UK · May 29
Putin will try to recruit any envoy sent to talks, Ukraine's former PM says Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former Ukrainian prime minister, told Euronews that while the European leaders are considering direct talks with Russia, the only thing Vladimir Putin is ready to accept is Europe's surrender. Euronews · May 28
Ponies review – Emilia Clarke’s joyful 70s spy thriller shouldn’t work … but it really does This weirdly endearing show is a total mash-up of genres – espionage drama, buddy caper, retro movie. But that makes it a unique watch, with cracking chemistry and a lot of laughs The Guardian - UK · May 22
‘The doorbell went at 5am. Six masked men were outside’: Belarus Free Theatre bring totalitarian terror to the Venice Biennale They’ve been imprisoned, tortured and spied upon. Now dissidents from Europe’s last dictatorship are bringing the sights, sounds, smells and even tastes of brutal repression to the world’s biggest festival of art The Guardian - UK · Apr 28
Chernobyl Wasn't a Nuclear Disaster—It Was a Communist Disaster Forty years after the Chernobyl meltdown, too many people are still drawing the wrong conclusions. Reason · Apr 26
Apple's Intergenerational Sci-Fi Epic Just Dropped A Crucial Clue For Its Spinoff One under-the-radar character in 'For All Mankind' could be the key to everything. Even the spinoff show. Inverse · Apr 24
Chernobyl at 40: Secret Stasi files reveal extent of Soviet misinformation campaign over nuclear disaster On April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were conducting a safety test. Doomed by a fatal design flaw and pushed to the limit by human negligence, reactor 4 exploded amid an attempted shutdown during a routine procedure, setting off a chain of events that ultimately… The Conversation · Apr 22
‘We wasted a lot of lives’: CIA spymaster’s caution over past Iran intervention resurfaces from beyond the grave A documentary about Peter Sichel – the ‘Jewish James Bond’, whose wine portfolio boasted Blue Nun – includes striking mea culpas about the cost and efficacy of US involvement in the Middle East The Guardian - UK · Apr 20
Poison, a plane crash and falling from a window: How Putin’s critics and rivals have met mysterious ends IN FOCUS: Alexei Navalny is latest in long line of Vladimir Putin’s critics who have died in recent years. James C. Reynolds, Gustaf Kilander and Alexander Butler report The Independent UK · Feb 16
Will Ponies Get Renewed For Season 2 After That Cliffhanger Ending? What The Creators Say Giddy up! Cinemablend · Feb 11
I Binged Emilia Clarke's Ponies, And I Have So Many Questions I Need Answered In Season 2 They really left us hanging with that finale. Cinemablend · Jan 28
GOP hawks show contrast with Trump on European allies Remarks form the latest rebuttal from mainstream GOP hawks to Trump’s distancing of America from its traditional NATO allies. Roll Call · Jan 14
Aldrich Ames obituary CIA officer who betrayed western intelligence assets and espionage operations to the Soviet Union and Russia The Guardian - UK · Jan 8
The Guardian - UK · Jan 6 Putin as a Russian James Bond? Jude Law’s Vladimir film seems to have swallowed Kremlin myths In The Wizard of the Kremlin, Jude Law plays Russia’s president as a cool, reluctant leader, a strategist who got the job because he was young, athletic and a spy. This is a creation far removed from the man himself
International Business Times UK · Dec 31, 2025 Producer Claims Rebel Wilson's Minions Used 'Vindictive Smear Campaigns', 'Ghislaine Maxwell' Slur In Row Rebel Wilson's directorial debut The Deb spirals into a legal nightmare amid claims of 'smear campaigns' and harassment. Read the full story on the lawsuits here.
The Guardian - UK · Dec 27, 2025 Six great reads – best of 2025: a deep-cover KGB agent, Zadie Smith on Tracy Chapman, and the boy who came back Need something brilliant to read over the holidays? Here are six of our best pieces from 2025. Look out for part two next Saturday
International Business Times UK · Dec 17, 2025 The Secret Life of Aliia Roza, Former Russian Operative Turning Trafficking Foes into Fashion Icons From elite Russian intelligence operations to global fashion stages, Aliia Roza reveals how a former secret agent reinvented herself while exposing the dark mechanics of manipulation and trafficking.
The Guardian - US · Nov 17, 2025 Chess review – messy Broadway revival wastes catchy Abba songs A 1980s concept album, from Tim Rice and Abba members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, is brought back to the stage with uneven results
The Guardian - UK · Nov 2, 2025 Richard Gott, former Guardian journalist and historian, dies aged 87 Charismatic figure of the left is remembered as one of the most informed commentators on Latin American affairs
Bored Panda · Oct 7, 2025 50 Employees Who Had One Job And Still Managed To Mess It Up Do you consider yourself a curious soul?
Bored Panda · Oct 6, 2025 50 Employees Who Had One Job And Still Managed To Mess It Up Do you consider yourself a curious soul?
Euronews · Sep 19, 2025 Belarus expels Czech diplomat in tit-for-tat move after Prague makes spy ring accusations The expulsion comes after Czech and Polish authorities expelled Belarusian diplomats earlier this month, as part of a wider crackdown on a European spy ring made up of agents from Belarus' KGB state security agency.
The Guardian - UK · Sep 15, 2025 ‘We were being watched by the KGB’: how Scorpions made Wind of Change ‘A guy from our record company told me to take out the whistling. I said no way. When the song went through the roof, he came to me, bent over and said, “Kick my ass!”’
The Guardian - UK · Sep 12, 2025 Dau director Ilya Khrzhanovsky: my ‘pornographic propaganda’ recreating the USSR is more important than ever When Khrzhanovsky’s colossal immersive project on the horrors of the Soviet Union launched in 2019, it caused uproar in east and west alike. Now, he plans to release its ‘mother film’, to expose the ‘huge danger’ the world faces today