Lucy Ash

BBC World Service - The Documentary Podcast, Kentucky’s Real People Radio WMMT radio in Kentucky reaches some of the least heard communities in America

I loved this tribute to the power of radio. Listen to this perceptive portrait of Appalachia scarred by opioids, unemployment and carcinogenic coal dust, yet united by Kentucky bluegrass and a deep sense of community. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... nice work @mariamargaronis.bsky.social

Russia: The Price of ‘Treason’ State security agencies are amplifying warnings to enemies of the state using compliant pro-Kremlin Russian journalists.

An alarming piece from @andreisoldatov.bsky.social and Irina Borogan on young enemies of the Russian state. From the age of 14 you can be held criminally responsible and jailed for 14 years. cepa.org/article/russ...

Tell The Government: Strengthen UK-EU Environmental Cooperation Climate change and environmental problems don't respect borders. The UK and EU must work together to protect our shared environment, tackle the climate crisis, and preserve biodiversity for future gen...

Sick of filthy rivers and sewage on our beaches? I just signed this petition calling for better cooperation with the EU on the environment. Will you add your name, too? www.europeanmovement.co.uk/uk-eu-enviro...

«Токсичная взаимозависимость Кремля и Русской православной церкви отравляет российское общество», — журналистка Люси Эш Люси Эш — британская журналистка, проработавшая на BBC четверть века....

libertasfidei.org/ru/oskorbite...
My interview for the Kyiv based think tank Libertas Fidei which analyses the weaponisation of religion. Ukrainian version coming soon!

Excited to be in conversation with @keirgiles.bsky.social next month for @authorsinoundle.bsky.social. Putin described his invasion of Ukraine as a "holy mission" - we'll ask why the Russian Orthodox Church has slavishly backed it. www.authorsinoundle.co.uk/aio-event/lu...

Konstantin Malofeev, owner of Tsargrad TV & Orthodox oligarch says Russia could protect Greenland all that Europe has to do is to agree "to end the war in Ukraine on Russian terms — with Kyiv's capitulation" .://english.pravda.ru/news/world/165421-greenland-us-annexation-russia-response/

Arms production is coming back to Berlin as Germany doubles defence spending. I spoke to locals angry about a repurposed weapons factory in the northern neighbourhood of Wedding. www.bbc.com/audio/play/p...
#Germany #DefenceSpending #Berlin #Wedding #Europe #ArmsIndustry

RUSSIA: Peaceful clergy statements "can become the target of prosecution" In a series of administrative prosecutions, a Krasnodar Region court fined Orthodox priest Fr Iona Sigida on 18 December for allegedly expressing "overt disrespect" for society, state bodies, and stat...

www.forum18.org/archive.php?...
So much for Russia's holiness and trad values. This priest, who is also a monk, was dragged out of his church in Krasnodar by armed men, beaten, shocked with a stun gun and forcibly shaved. He is charged with disrespecting the “military glory” of the Fatherland.

What Pussy Riot did next Thirteen years after the ‘punk prayer’ that saw her jailed, Maria Alyokhina’s new book details how the art collective continues the fight against Putin

Thirteen years after the ‘punk prayer’ that saw her jailed, Maria Alyokhina’s new book details how the art collective continues the fight against Putin

✏️ @lucyaash.bsky.social

Thank you Martin - much appreciated!

Delighted that @edwardlucas.bsky.social has reviewed paperback of The Baton & the Cross today @thetimes.com If you want to know more about why Russian clerics promise eternal life to those who kill Ukrainians, I'm at Stanfords Travel Books in Covent Gdn 19th November.

I was at Sherborne Historical Society this week to talk about the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and why on earth its leader unstintingly supports Putin‘s war. Paperback of The Baton & The Cross out this week @iconbooks #HistoryBooks #UkraineWar #NonfictionReads #PoliticsBooks

Russian Orthodox Priests Don’t Practice What They Preach - The Moscow Times Opinion | A video of a bearded man wearing headphones and repeatedly firing a pistol at a shooting range recently triggered a frenzy on social media.

www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/11/07/r...

The Kremlin’s spiritual phishing Click on ‘traditional values’ and get kidnapping, torture, murder

How the Kremlin hijacks the Orthodox faith for its own ends - a must read from Fr Andrey Kordochkin who supports priests forced into silence, jail or exile: compass.icwa.org/p/the-kremli...

Talking to Sergei Medvedev last week about a new report he co authored new report, ‘War with the Anglo-Saxons: How Britain became Russia’s enemy number one’. At least that is how the FSB sees it. More details here: nestcentre.org/war-with-the...

Russia’s Gen Z Is Singing Back On TikTok And In The Streets, Young Russians Are Finding Their Voice

Songs which make Kremlin sycophants reach for the handcuffs.
open.substack.com/pub/zygaro/p...

Really enjoyed meeting fellow authors who have written on an astonishing range of topics at last night's event for shortlisted authors for the @britishacademy.bsky.social Book Prize. thanks to everybody who came and bought our books!

In our fall issue, @lucyaash.bsky.social writes about Ukrainian artists & the ongoing war: ip-quarterly.com/en/ukraines-...

How Vladimir Putin’s history rant in Alaska nudged Donald Trump closer to Ukraine Fraught summit in Anchorage marked a nadir that reshaped how the presidents approach each other

This is a good piece about Trump's reaction to Putin's crash course in medieval history - in short it pissed him off. on.ft.com/47ln9ou

Enjoyed meeting @jenstout.bsky.social about The Baton & The Cross at Wigtown Book Festival. We talked about how Patriarch Kirill glorifies Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now going to hear George Robertson on NATO & future of defence.

YouTube video by BBC World Service Kharkiv War Diaries: Stories from a City on the Edge - BBC World Service Documentaries

I have only just caught up with this brilliant film - a year of video diaries featuring the lives of people under fire in #Kharkiv. Hope someone makes Trump watch.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alrr...

How Charlie became a Russian propaganda hero Pundits, spokespeople, and even Putin’s so-called ‘personal confessor’ warn of U.S. civil war, cannibals, and more in the wake of Kirk’s murder — Meduza The assassination of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk on September 10 and the subsequent political fallout have dominated news headlines across the U.S. and reverberated globally. Kirk beca...

Charlie Kirk has become a poster boy for the ultra right Orthodox in Russia. Putin's 'confessor', Metropolitan Shevkunov, heaped praise on him as a Christian missionary who "dared to swim against the tide" when "the truth dies in a sea of political correctness." meduza.io/en/feature/2...

The many faces of Tikhon Khrennikov who controlled the Soviet Union of Composers for 42 years. On @bbcradio3bot.bsky.social I map his influence over decades of cultural control. Can music ever be apolitical in a dictatorship? Listen here from Sunday evening: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Promotional image for The British Academy Book Prize 2025 shortlist, featuring a diagonal divide with various book covers displayed on a teal and dark blue background.

The British Academy Book Prize 2025 shortlist is here!

Each book offers a new perspective on issues of global importance, driven by rigorous research and an ability to tell powerful stories in an engaging and compelling way.

📖 Discover the full list here:

https://bit.ly/4glo8Jo

Immortal Putin How the Promise of Forever Became a Russian State Enterprise

open.substack.com/pub/zygaro/p...
This is beyond creepy

A Bureaucrat’s Death The Kremlin’s New Social Contract with Its Own Elite

open.substack.com/pub/zygaro/p... fascinating glimpse into the machinations which led to suicide of former Kursk governor.

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, 100 Years of Mein Kampf John Kampfner read the world’s most notorious book so you don’t have to.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... on air now - the story of the notorious book published à century ago.

Why is the Orthodox church so supportive of Putin's war? In conversation with Lucy Ash Podcast Episode · Reading Our Times · 17/06/2025 · 45m

He understood the church could bring a sense of dignity to these humiliated parts of Russian society but pretty soon there were icons appearing in the cockpits of bomber jets & every army division battalion would be named after a saint @lucyaash.bsky.social on Kirill tinyurl.com/jexnt8hk

Great that @thetimes.com selected my edition of In The Studio on BBC world service as a must listen this week: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Why is the Orthodox church so supportive of Putin's war? In conversation with Lucy Ash Podcast Episode · Reading Our Times · 17/06/2025 · 45m

Why is the Orthodox church so supportive of Putin's war? This was a great conversation with @lucyaash.bsky.social about orthodoxy, Putin, Kirill, Ukraine, history and theology. tinyurl.com/jexnt8hk