In Moscow's Shadows

This week's conversation between Finland’s Alexander Stubb, Norway’s Jonas Gahr Støre and Vladimir Putin certainly ruffled some feathers. Setting aside the did-he-didn't-he fluff about whether Putin delivered another of his historical lectures (anonymous sources say so, but I'm willing to believe the on-the-record denials from Stubb and Støre), it's a useful start (and no more...

A peace deal is easy to sketch and brutally hard to land. The latest reported shape of US-led talks offers some promise, especially with the talk of genuinely solid security guarantees for Ukraine and European involvement, although the last portion of the Donbas remains a seemingly-insuperable roadblock. Nonetheless, at least the announced ceasefire around Oleshky sounds like a little good news am...

A mid-sized gang in Chelyabinsk should not be front page news, and that is exactly why it is so useful. When the Artakovsky criminal group is rolled up, the details point to bigger trends in the Russian underworld: how gangs recruit, Chechen criminal 'franchising,' the AUE threat, how they govern themselves, and how the state is learning to prosecute them with sharper tools. The podcast&...

Donald Trump's diesel deal is, of course, in effect a birthday present for Putin, explained by The Donald’s transactional self-interest and hunger for a headline before the midterms, not baroque theories about hidden loyalties. Even if not a single barrel of diesel ever ships, though, this is undoubtedly good for Moscow. Maybe some revenue (if need be, Putin can starve domestic markets to exp...

The annual shindig of the Valdai Discussion Club is one of those Kremlin set pieces that invites two equally lazy reactions: treat it as sacred insight into Vladimir Putin’s mind, or wave it away as pure Russian propaganda. It's a bit of both, but does give an insight into Russia's changing foreign policy priorities, as much from who is invited as what is said. (And a side-note on the qu...

A fat, smug bear sits at the heart of Russia’s politics right now and it is not just a party logo. The State Duma election has handed United Russia - whose logo is the bear - its biggest ever share of seats. Of course, the vote was rigged, but what does Putin do with this mandate now? A quick look at the state of the Ukraine war (where it's heading to be a nasty winter) then leads to a few wo...

In Russia’s elections, the ballot box is no longer a measure of consent but rather a tool for manufacturing it. It's only two days into the three days of elections to the State Duma, but I catch up on the latest and consider what to look for, before addressing the growing concern/hysteria about the Russian threat to the West (no, Putin didn't try to kill Boris Johnson), mobilisation and...

I start with a round-up of current news stories: the Witkoff-Kushner peace mission that is likely heading nowhere, Zelensky's apparent threat to civil aviation that was likely more psyop than serious, and the SCO summit in Bishkek that was likely more significant than either of the above. (And medieval counterfeiting, for good measure...) In the second half, I look at Russia's drone stri...

Everyone keeps diagnosing Putin’s mood, not least given the CIA Director’s visit to Moscow. Putin is angry, he's frightened, he's desperate -- that seems to be the standard Western talking point these days, and hence the fear that he might do something dangerously escalatory. But is he? Things might actually look rather more encouraging from his perspective. So, in this episode, I try an...

The war seems to be getting (even) nastier, in part perhaps - and this may be over-optimistic - as both sides seen an endgame almost in sight, as well as out of growing desperation on both sides. The desperation even extends to digging up Prince Dmitri Donskoi's bones for propaganda purposes. Then again, in the second half this gives me an excuse to talk about a couple of archaeological stori...

When the Kremlin changed its mind and decided to ban the opposition party Yabloko (Apple) from running in September's elections, it demonstrated its concern that this could become the new vessel of the 'coalition of the fed-up.' After all, this seeming no-hoper party was suddenly being boosted by a guerrilla meme campaign and looked as if it might even cross the 5% threshold to get...

Ukraine’s long-range campaign against Russia is no longer just about spectacular refinery fires. When Kyiv pivots towards softer targets like logistics hubs, it can hit morale, prices, and everyday life in ways that pure military targets do not. It is also a reminder of the innovation cycle in the war: Ukraine shifts tactics, Russia adapts, and both sides hunt for the next gap in air defences and...

Zelensky sacks a defence minister, then removes his commander-in-chief, and suddenly the question is not “who is better?” but “who controls the politics of war?”  I use this as an opportunity to explore the systemic warfighting capacities of Ukraine and Russia defined not so much in military but political terms: political focus, generating and motivating soldiers, and learning. Russia can concentr...

Putin is being pressed by some within the elite to call it quits and freeze the war on the current front line, by others to step up and try and impose a quick military solution. His natural impulse is to put off decisions, but Kyiv's campaign against Crimea may make that impossible. He seems determined to hold out for the last bit of the Donbas, so he has to escalate. With other options, from...

“Russia is run by the spooks” is a satisfying line, but it is also a lazy one. Despite talk of a 'Chekistocracy' run by the intelligence and security services, the FSB, SVR and GRU are better understood as competing institutional actors than as a single all-powerful caste pulling every lever in the Kremlin.  In that context, "power" itself is a complex phenomenon, and I outline...

A collection of stories to discuss, but all of which in one way or another come down to endgames: the death of Sergei Ivanov, the "drone siege" of Crimea, the debate over the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons, and a shell-shocked soldier threatening mutiny. How far, to put it fancifully, does what feels like the increasing the emergence of all kinds of false prophets, end is nigh doom...

A 74-year-old port magnate known in the underworld as Antikvar is arrested by an FSB team, hauled into Moscow’s Basmanny Court, and suddenly the ghosts of St Petersburg’s wild 1990s feel very alive. Ilya Traber's career took him from from antiques monopolies to oil terminals, in the murky interface between “authoritative business” and outright organised crime. And much of it thanks to his rel...

Peace gets talked about as if it is a destination we can spot from the front line, but the closer we look, the more it feels like a mirage. Ukraine’s mid-range strikes and tactical gains tempt commentators into declaring a decisive shift, and then into assuming peace is near. Real progress matters, but overconfident stories can set the public up for disappointment and push policymakers towards sho...

Russia still talks about the “Near Abroad” as if the map never changed, but the region is changing anyway. After a quick touch on Zelensky's open letter to Putin and the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, I dive into the relative trajectories of Armenia, currently at the polls, and Belarus, emphatically not. Despite its continued use of this problematic, imperialist term the "Ne...

A Russian drone hits a Romanian apartment block, two civilians are injured, and suddenly a stray weapon becomes a case study in how Putin’s Kremlin handles bad news. Why does the Kremlin’s crisis management default to a belligerent, self-sabotaging sequence that turns a manageable incident into a wider political problem? It comes down to the priorities of an insecure, personalistic authoritarian s...

After Putin's Beijing visit - long on rhetoric, short on results - I look more broadly as Asia: the limits of the "friendship with no limits" with China, heding with India, and the ebbing of hegemony in Central Asia. In short, everyone is a transactional pragmatist, behind the talk of "all-weather partnerships" and "eternal friendships." But then again, isn'...

First, a round up of some current issues: Putin heading to China, two governors out (and two men with Ukraine war connections in), party politics and the jostling for second place, and how the Council of Europe is implicitly encouraging Putin to stay in power until he dies... In the second half, the opening episode of a series of alternative history (the rest will be available to paying Patrons) e...

No tanks, great camera work. Victory Day is supposed to be Russia’s most unshakeable story, the moment when the state proves its strength, its allies, and its confidence on Red Square. Yet watching this year’s parade, I can’t escape the sense that the symbolism is working harder than the reality: fewer troops, no heavy hardware in Moscow, and security concerns hanging over the whole performance. ...

A battlefield setback in Mali sparks a much bigger question: what kind of power is Russia now, and what kind of power can it afford to be? Is it a superpower? No. Is it a great power? It depends what you mean. It certainly is not just the "gas station with nukes" of the cliche.  Putin’s language of “sovereign civilisation” recasts greatness as resistance rather than dominance, especially...

Putin didn’t pick a battlefield hero to run Russia’s Defence Ministry. He picked Andrei Belousov, an economist with a planner’s instincts and a technocrat’s patience. Thats what the Kremlin thinks it needs most right now: a 'Quartermaster-in-Chief,' who wouldn't tangle with Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov, but instead focus in procurement that works, production at scale, drones...