With talk of ‘holy’ conflict, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church is bringing the institution he heads into disrepute

Following the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) celebrates Easter this weekend – the most important religious festival of its liturgical year. One priest who will not be leading a service is Dmitry Safronov, a prominent Moscow cleric. In March, Mr Safronov presided over a memorial service at the grave of Alexei Navalny, following the dissident’s death in unexplained circumstances in an Arctic penal colony. He was subsequently suspended from the priesthood for three years and can no longer preach or wear a cassock.

Such is the degraded state of the ROC under the leadership of Patriarch Kirill, the theological cheerleader for Russia’s blood-soaked campaign to reintegrate Ukraine into “Holy Rus”. Kirill’s ever more strident backing of Vladimir Putin’s illegal war led Pope Francis to warn him against becoming “Putin’s altar boy”. But his role in sustaining support for the Kremlin’s neo-imperial ambitions, and justifying repression at home, is far more senior than that.

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Commission president, who is seeking another term, took aim at group that includes AfD and National Rally in pre-election debate

The European Commission’s president, Ursula Von der Leyen, has criticised the far-right as “Putin’s proxies”, while refusing to rule out working with other rightwing nationalists, as campaigning began ahead of June’s European elections.

Von der Leyen is seeking a second five-year term leading the commission, in the looming reshuffle of EU top jobs that follows the European elections.

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Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin face at least two years’ jail on ‘extremism’ charges, which they deny, amid continuing crackdown on dissent

Two Russian journalists have been arrested on “extremism” charges and ordered by courts there to remain in custody pending investigation and trial on accusations of working for a group founded by the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin both denied the charges for which they will be detained for a minimum of two months before any trials begin. Each faces a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum of six years for alleged “participation in an extremist organisation”, according to Russian courts.

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Two Polish citizens detained earlier on suspicion of attacking Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov in Lithuania

A Belarusian national has been detained in Poland on suspicion of ordering the attack on a top Russian opposition leader, Leonid Volkov, on Moscow’s behalf, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has announced.

Volkov, a close aide of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was briefly admitted to hospital last month after he was ambushed and attacked outside his house in Vilnius , the capital of Lithuania. The assailant smashed open Volkov’s car window and repeatedly struck him with a hammer, breaking Volkov’s left arm and damaging his left leg before fleeing the scene.

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France says Russia can be represented but president will not be invited because of war in Ukraine

Russia will be invited to send representatives to the international ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-day – but not Vladimir Putin, the French organisers have announced.

The Elysée is reported to have accepted that the country be represented but that its leader is not welcome because of Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine.

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Alexander Demidenko, who guided refugees back to their homeland, was arrested and tortured by Kremlin forces. One of the many he helped recalls his courage and kindness

Lost and disoriented, Olena Primak stood at Belgorod’s train station, holding tightly to her young daughter’s arm. The scorching summer heat and the long journey had left the Ukrainian refugee on the brink of collapse. Primak had been told to wait for a Russian volunteer called “Alexander” who would help her get back to Ukraine .

“Suddenly, a man with the most generous of smiles appeared at the station,” she recalled. With a gentle countenance, warm eyes and grey hair, the 61-year-old Alexander Demidenko approached Primak, offering to take her bags.

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Ex-president ‘could not get his head around the idea that Ukraine was an independent state’, former adviser Fiona Hill tells author

As president, Donald Trump “made it very clear” that he thought Ukraine “must be part of Russia”, his former adviser Fiona Hill says in a new book about US national security under threat from Russia and China.

“Trump made it very clear that he thought, you know, that Ukraine, and certainly Crimea, must be part of Russia,” Hill, senior director for European and Russian affairs on the US National Security Council between 2017 and 2019, tells David Sanger, a New York Times reporter and author of New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West .

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With Slovakia the latest member to elect a Russia-leaning leader, the EU is increasingly open to hostile interference

The victory for Peter Pellegrini in Slovakia’s presidential election is just the latest triumph for the far right in Europe. Even though the role of president is largely symbolic, his win over his pro-European rival, Ivan Korčok, by a comfortable six-point margin, consolidates the power of the prime minister, Robert Fico. The result is one of a growing number of victories for politicians supportive of Vladimir Putin in Europe.

Public support for the far right is sweeping across the continent. In the Netherlands and Portugal , far-right parties have also increased their vote share in recent national elections. Meanwhile, polling ahead of German local elections, and Austrian and Belgian parliamentary elections this year, suggests they are likely to make gains in these countries too. There is a real possibility that Austria’s elections might see a return to power for the far right, Putin-supporting Freedom party, if another party can be convinced to join it in a coalition. There is a sense across Europe that the far right is gathering momentum and expanding beyond its usual core vote.

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The radical right is correct that the west is waning. But it’s rampant capitalism and endless wars that are causing its collapse, not ‘wokeness’

This century has one overarching theme: the fall of the west, that is, the US and its European allies. Every major crisis accelerates the unmistakable trend. The war in Gaza is just the latest manifestation. Western newspapers are now littered with articles full of the panicked realisation that more is buried in the rubble of Gaza than just thousands of unidentified bodies. “The damage to Israel’s reputation,” writes Matthew Parris in the Times, “so much less manifest than shattered hospitals in Gaza, is incalculable.” Yes, but it would be an error to believe that it is Israel’s problem alone. When the former Palestinian negotiator Diana Buttu told me this was an “Israeli-American attack” , she summed up what much of the world sees. That Israel faces a catastrophic strategic defeat and reputational calamity is dawning on even its most ardent supporters; soon it will be widely understood that this applies to its western cheerleaders, too.

The west’s decline long predates this current crime of historic proportions, but it is the radical right which has, to date, monopolised this conversation. For it, the explanations for the downfall are, variously, immigration, multiculturalism, Islam, “wokeness”, “gender ideology”, the disintegration of the nuclear family, and so on. Liz Truss’s forthcoming book, Ten Years to Save the West, raging against a supposedly leftwing establishment blocking free-market innovation, is the latest addition to this genre. In fact, the explanation is really rather simple. In the aftermath of the Soviet collapse more than 30 years ago, western elites became intoxicated with a premature triumphalism. The hubris of the US neoconservative Midge Decter, speaking after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, sums it up well. “It’s time to say: we’ve won. Goodbye,” she stated grandly.

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