It’s an ill wind… Temporarily prevented from performing in Verbier by tendonitis in his left shoulder, Evgeny Kissin suddenly has time on his hands and is in a mood, I’m told, to give an interview. So I jump straight in, because this is a man who normally does his best to avoid giving any interviews at all. What has triggered this volte-face?
I get the answer before I’ve had the chance to ask my first question, as he launches into a diatribe, eyes blazing with fury: ‘We’re here in Switzerland, and this morning I read that this beautiful country has refused to treat wounded Ukrainian soldiers, citing its traditional neutrality.’
‘I have always hated giving interviews, but I want to share what I’ve observed in Russia’
A few hours later it emerges that Switzerland will row back on that prohibition, but Kissin’s rage encompasses all democratic countries which don’t put their shoulder to the wheel in the Ukraine war. He very much approves of Britain’s support for Zelensky, but thinks Britain should press on militarily even harder, until Ukraine wins the war and Putin is defeated.
He then offers a detailed catalogue of
