Philippe Legrain

Interviewed on CNBC’s Squawk Box on 16 April 2014

One of the casualties when Russian tanks rolled past Gori was the beguiling “Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention” proposed by Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist: “No two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other.” Alas, you can buy Big Macs in both Moscow and Tbilisi, […]

My old friend Edward Lucas has written an excellent call to arms, The New Cold War, about the dangers to the West and Russia itself of the country’s fascist turn under Putin. For Europe, in particular, the risks of becoming dependent on a hostile Kremlin through its growing dominance of gas supplies to the continent […]

– Garry Kasparov on the beatings of peaceful pro-democracy protesters by Putin’s riot police

So much for the pretence that Putin is a democrat.

Last year it was gas piped through Ukraine, now it’s oil through Belarus – how many times does Russia have to cut off Europe’s energy supplies before we wake up to the risks of being dependent on the Kremlin to keep the lights on?

I’ve just read The Times’s leader on Alexander Litvinenko’s death, and it captures what I wanted to say much better. Read it here. My friend Edward Lucas’s comment piece on how to respond to Russia is superb.

I don’t usually write about such matters, but I am so shocked and outraged by the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in London that I feel compelled to comment.