Bryan MacDonald

As a rule, Western correspondents covering Russia – either by necessity or design – often use extreme or fringe voices to fit their reporting agendas. One of the most frequently cited may have finally jumped the shark this week.

For a few weeks it seemed British and American media had decided to tone down its usual Russia-bashing while the country grappled with the coronavirus pandemic. Sadly, it was too good to be true.

US President Donald Trump was elected on a promise to “drain the swamp.” Almost four years later, the Washington think-tank racket is as murky as ever, and the gravy train keeps rolling.

NATO’s self-described mission as an expression of the Transatlantic community’s “common democratic values” has always provoked eye-rolling in Moscow. Now a former US ambassador to the alliance has confirmed Russian assumptions.

We need to talk about the Western media’s coverage of Russia’s battle with Covid-19. Rather depressingly, it seems many outlets, and hacks, are rooting for the virus against “the Russians.”

One of the curious things about Western media coverage of Crimea since 2014 has been the consistent narrative that Russia's reabsorption of the peninsula was carried out against the will of locals.

So now we have NATO’s propaganda wing defending Ukraine’s neo-Nazi ‘Azov Battalion,’ using a piece written by a man who once literally organized rallies to keep the US-led alliance out of Crimea. You couldn't make this up.

So it's official now. A month after it was first leaked, the Kremlin has confirmed that Vladislav Surkov has left the building. There are divergent views on his legacy, but nobody will accuse him of being boring.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's Friday visit to Ukraine was so uncomfortable he may as well have arrived in Kiev to the tune of Bob Dylan’s ‘Positively 4th Street’.

Last week, the IMF issued a stark warning about the global economy. While most large Western states are vulnerable to a new crisis, Russia has prepared its defenses.