Lucy Ash

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

Fibre optic drones: The terrifying new weapon changing the war in Ukraine The BBC reports from Donetsk where swarms of fibre optic drones give Russia the edge as Ukraine defends towns behind the front line.

My dad was a pioneer of fibre optics - he would be so horrified to see how that technology is being used today. Great piece by @yogital.bsky.social www.bbc.com/news/article...

Russia takes over a second Orthodox church in Nice The courts have ruled in favor of Moscow, which claimed ownership of the French Riviera church that had been managed for more than a century by descendants of White Russian émigrés. Representatives of...

Heartbreak on the Cote d'Azur: why are the courts siding with a rogue state against a French association that has existed for over a hundred years? www.lemonde.fr/en/france/ar...

Thanks Kriszta! It was a memorable trip…

A Christian nationalist TheoBro church is coming to DC Its leaders see "many strategic opportunities."

The "TheoBros" are opening a church in Washington D.C.

The leader of this mission? Doug Wilson, a pastor known for saying that women should never have been given the right to vote.

Hours after the first Russia-Ukraine peace talks in 3 years, Russian forces attacked a civilian bus, killing 9 people and injuring 4 more, Ukrainian National Police report. Hardly a signal that Moscow is seeking an end to its war.

I am over the moon that my book on the Russian Orthodox Church has found its way onto the Orwell Prize shortlist in the company of some brilliant authors.
www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-p...

‘Migration is not always a story of suffering’: the Dutch museum telling the full story of global diaspora Set to become a major cultural destination, Fenix Rotterdam shows the harsh realities of the migrant experience alongside esoteric art – giving a necessary and nuanced view of the subject’s fraught po...

At a time when all the talk is of closing borders, Rotterdam opens a new art museum inspired by stories of migration. Definitely worth a visit. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Russia’s orthodox church is converting Americans to the Kremlin’s view of the world. Some converts have hundreds of thousands of followers online & push narratives that Russia is the world’s last bastion of “true”Christianity. Hear @lucyaash.bsky.social podcast from Texas 🇺🇸

Why did "a soft, timid intellectual" call for Alexei Navalny’s murder ? What turned many smart, well educated and independent minded journalists of the 90s into Kremlin stooges? Read @andreisoldatov.bsky.social and Irina Borogan's brilliant new book about their former Moscow mates.

Magic Circle welcomes back woman expelled for the ultimate deception Sophie Lloyd was ejected from the society of illusionists for duping them into believing she was a man — its first female chair convinced her to come back

NEW: The woman thrown out of the Magic Circle for pulling off the ultimate illusion, disguising herself as a boy, has been found after The Times sparked a campaign to track her down

Sophie Lloyd was readmitted to the club

“A wrong was made right," she said

www.thetimes.com/article/456c...