Madeleine Spence

Assistant Foreign Editor, The Times

[Madeleine Spence @spencemads]

Read it here: https://t.co/crVPPh9QT5

[Madeleine Spence @spencemads]

I also spoke with Boris Bondarev, the Russian diplomat who publicly resigned over the war. "If I continued to stay at work, I thought that would be my total moral collapse and bankruptcy," he told me. Many may agree, few are as brave as Bondarev.

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads Putin wields soft power through Russia’s cultural figures, says Marcel H Van Herpen, author of Putin’s Propaganda Machine — and “soft power is hard power in a velvet glove”

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads “It is precisely because of the support of the most visible figures of Russian culture that Putin gained his unlimited power and is now using it against humanity in this bloody war that is destroying Ukraine,” said Alexei Ratmansky, former artistic director of the Bolshoi

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads The pianist Denis Matsuev sold out concerts all over the West but in 2014, the year he became a Unesco goodwill ambassador, he endorsed Putin’s annexation of Crimea. Until recently, globally fêted ballet dancer Sergei Polunin had a large tattoo of Putin on his chest

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads Netrebko’s saga is a window into the moral panic that rippled through the arts after the invasion. For years Putin supporters had been welcomed by the elites, while oligarch cash found its way into their institutions

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads Though her statements reopened doors in the West, in Russia she was accused of being a traitor. “There is a voice but no conscience,” wrote Vyacheslav Volodin, one of Putin’s inner circle who has since claimed the massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha was staged

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads Netrebko dodged the Putin question until March 30, when she finally wrote on social media, “I expressly condemn the war against Ukraine.” She claimed she had “met President Putin only a handful of times”, and that she is “not allied with any leader of Russia”

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads In 2008 Netrebko was made a People’s Artist of Russia. She has been described by the Russian leader as the pride of the nation, and her name appeared on a list of supporters for his re-election campaign in 2012, though her spokesperson says she wasn’t given a choice

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads But what of Anna Netrebko, the face of New York’s Metropolitan Opera? “I was always aware she was a huge Putin supporter,” director Peter Gelb says, which her spokesperson denies. He told her she must denounce Putin to remain with the Met — but she did not

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads Olga Smirnova, prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Ballet, was one of many to speak out. “I am against war with all the fibres of my soul,’’ she wrote as she fled to the Netherlands. “I never thought I would be ashamed of Russia … But now I feel that a line has been drawn”

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads As Putin’s troops entered Ukraine, a new Iron Curtain came down on the international arts scene. The many prominent Russian ballerinas, conductors, singers and musicians had to make a choice: denounce the war, effectively defecting to the West, or face being shut out

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, a complex web of links between the arts world and the Russian state emerged. Has Putin been using culture to wield soft power beyond Russia’s borders? @spencemads reports https://t.co/wwjioNjfbH

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

@spencemads Read the full story now 👇 https://t.co/wwjioNjfbH

[Madeleine Spence @spencemads]

@pevchikh please follow so I can DM

[alannah travers @AlannahTravers]

“It is possible that the judges in Fitton’s case felt pressured to come down hard on him, given the attention it had received among powerful militias and political parties, says Isshan (Fitton's lawyer).”— By @louiseelisabet @spencemads @MartanyStella
https://t.co/Uykm5EMhlU

[Isabelle Khurshudyan @ikhurshudyan]

Ukraine is covered in unexploded bombs. In Mykolaiv, @nicoletung6 and I followed around a demining crew working amid ongoing shelling. In Kyiv, @maxbearak and @Heidiphotos met with a man who lost his brother after they drove over a mine.

Story: https://t.co/jCm8VSNEuZ

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

AP video journalist Msyuslav Chernov reports from the front line, not knowing if he would make it out alive. As one of the last journalists on the ground, death and destruction surrounds him — and he is being hunted by Russian soldiers

📍 Mariupol https://t.co/ETmdeRKYpH

[Hanna Liubakova @HannaLiubakova]

#Ukraine Irpin. Andriy Kulik is trying to comfort his dog, paralyzed by fear. The dog refuses to walk after shelling.

[Pete 🇬🇧🇪🇺🌍 @thelowse]

U.K. Government policy simplified….😐 #ToryIncompetence