What did Winston Churchill say about Russia?
Olivia Hensley
Updated on February 24, 2026
Famously, Winston Churchill defined Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma," and his words in 1939 spoke eloquently to the Western sense of Moscow as the "other" - an inscrutable and menacing land that plays by its own rules, usually to the detriment of those who choose more open regulations.