In Moscow's Shadows

We pundits have done more than our fair share speculating on whether, how, when and with what consequences there could be peace or a ceasefire in Ukraine, but instead it seems a good time to see what various research projects suggest about what ordinary Russians and Ukrainians think. This is something that is actually harder to ascertain than one might assume, but it important, not least for condi...

Outright prediction may be a mug's game, but what are some of the people and processes I will be watching in 2025? For those who get lost in the flow, they are: PERSONALIA ·       Elvira Nabiullina ·       Ramzan Kadyrov  ·       Alexander Khinshtein  ·       Alexei Dyumin  ·       Sergei Naryshkin  ·       Nikolai Patrushev  ·       (Not Mikhail Mishustin/Anton Vaino) INSTITS ·       Securit...

Sabotage under the Baltic, a grudging apology, a possible attack on a Russian cargo ship, firebombing ATMs, energy blackmail in Moldova... what connects them beyond a sense that, having changed his rules of engagement abroad in 2024, Putin may find this coming to bite him in 2025. Either way, it looks like the coming year will be a bumpy one, to say the least. The podcast's corporate partner...

What can one learn from Putin's 4½-hour-long end of year press conference? Essentially, his message to his people is that - however they might feel - everything is fine and they should stay the course. Meanwhile, over Ukraine if anything his line may be hardening: he may talk of 'compromise', but is trying to define the terms of any future peace. Anyway, I listened to 4½ hours, and...

We tend to focus on the big challenges facing Russia: war, sanctions, the struggle of authoritarianism vs the remnants of civil society. Maybe it is time to look at some of the less often discussed problems that nonetheless characterise the emerging Russian 'polycrisis': demographics, the mephedrone epidemic, and crumbling transport infrastructure: sex, drugs and rocky roads. The OSW rep...

So Bashar al-Assad's blood-drenched regime has fallen. Hurrah. But what now for Russia? Is this a terrible geopolitical defeat, or actually something that perversely frees it from a commitment made in 2015, yet less relevant today? What are the likely knock-on effects for Russia's position in the Mediterranean and Africa? The hottest of hot takes. That Q&A with Sam Heller and Aron Lu...

President Zelensky's suggestion that military attempts to retake the occupied territories could be abandoned in return for rapid NATO membership for Ukraine does mark a change in tack. What is driving this political-diplomatic adaptation? And, in the second half, I draw on four books that speak in different ways to how Russia has managed (and sometimes failed) to adapt to the military and eco...

Schrödinger's Defence Minister, at once busy and visible yet strangely inconsequential and intangible, what can one make of Andrei Belousov, his rise and his chances of achieving anything in his current role? The entry page for the Conducttr online crisis exercise on Russian sabotage I mentioned is @ https://www.conducttr.com/russian-sabotage The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor i...

'Strategic culture' means the underlying cultural assumptions about threats and options that informs a nation's specific strategic choices, and Russia's has been strikingly continuous for centuries. As I discuss, it reflects the underlying circumstances and challenges of the country, and while not a straightjacket -- Gorbachev and Brezhnev were products of the same culture -- i...

It's impossible to avoid talking about the potential implications of Donald Trump's election, even as its difficult to know for sure what he intends and almost as hard to say anything that hasn't already been said. I have a go, though, after considering Putin's hour-long speech and epic (or exhausting) 3-hour Q&A on the 'polyphonic' world order at Valdai. The podc...

I use reviews of three books to consider the risks and limitations of personalistic explanations of power under Putin, and whether a medieval concept of clan and family actually makes more sense... The books are: THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN by GIULIANO DA EMPOLI (Pushkin Press)   THE KREMLIN’S NOOSE. PUTIN’S BITTER FEUD WITH THE OLIGARCH WHO MADE HIM RULER OF RUSSIA by AMY KNIGHT (Icon Books and Cor...

(It seems to be obligatory to use a weak BRICS/bricks pun, so I felt I had to follow...) The BRICS summit in Kazan (a smart place to hold it) gives all the appearances of being a propaganda win for Putin. However, I think it emphasised that in a new 'multipolar' world, he only has the friends he can afford to rent -- and some day the bill will become due. In the second half, I question w...

Released to Patrons yesterday, a bonus mini-pod on the claims that North Korean combat troops are heading to fight in Ukraine and what the media discussion also says about the current discourse. The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr , which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, civil affairs and similar situati...

An all-spook episode, as I try to piece together the rise of FSB First Deputy Director Sergei Korolev, who seems the most likely figure to succeed current agency chief Bortnikov. Corruption, clientelism, feuds, the power of the St Petersburg clique, and the implications if Korolev does rise. The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr , which provides software for innovative and...

At times it does look as if the emigre liberal opposition to Putin is in such a mess that it looks like a soap opera. So what are some of the recent plot twists and why are they so divided -- and, ultimately, is it necessarily such a bad thing? In the second half, should Russians have collective guilt for Putin and the war? I don't think so, and explain why -- and why it matters. The podcast&...

The appointment to the Security Council of Alexander Linets, head of the Main Directorate of Special Programs of the President of the Russian Federation (GUSP), is a suitable moment to look into this, the most secret of Russia's security agencies. Is it about more than just bunkers and the continuity of governance in an apocalypse? Is there any truth that it is the final 'watcher over th...

Putin's at it again, raising nuclear fears to unsettle the West. Or is the new revision to Russian nuclear doctrine more than just a bit of sabre-rattling? I suggest it is, with bearing on potential Ukrainian endgames. But we ought not to become too fearful: as I discuss in the second half, there are good reasons for him not to use his non-strategic nuclear weapons. The podcast's corpora...

While the Security Council itself is having its time wasted with trivia, new Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu has been busy. How has he survived (is it the shaman connection? It is not), and what do his goals seem to be? And, with President Zelensky about to unveil his 'victory plan', are the two sides beginning to contemplate possible endgames? The podcast's corporate partn...

I still haven't decided how/if to continue with these mid-week quickfire podcasts picking up on some news stories that catch my eye, but in the meantime, there's a divorce/business shootout in Moscow, more traffic fines (it matters, believe me) and another general under arrest. The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr , which provides software for innovative and imme...

What may a misadventure from 17th century Russian imperial history tell us about modern Russia? Why, about the perils of information logjams and public-private empires! Details of the Pushkin House event I mentioned are here , and the Pertsev article is here . The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr , which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exercises in hy...

As promised, a quickfire interim episode covering some of the past week's stories, from drones over Moscow and reactions to the US presidential debate to regional elections and planning for babies... The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr , which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, civil affairs and simil...

I spin off two recent books, Elena Kostychenko's, I Love Russia. Reporting from a lost country and Sergei Medvedev's A War Made in Russia , both of which are excellent in their own terms, but also demonstrate something of a tendency for Russian intelligentsia to despair at their own country and people and fixate on the very worse. This is perhaps understandable but, as I suggest, neither...

Empty rumours of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's death on the internet yesterday, got me thinking about his shrinking role, and the twilight of Russia's technocrats. Besides, he is already politically dead, so it’s in a way not too early to deliver his obituary and use that to consider some of the dilemmas and characteristics of senior figures who are technocrats, not Putin cron...

After another armed hostage taking by inmates (and bloody response), I consider what’s going on in Russia’s prisons, and what it may tell us about what’s happening in Russia as a whole. And in the last segment, I consider attitudes to Prigozhin, a year after his death. The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr , which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exerci...

As Ukraine's Kursk incursion rumbles on, what does it tell us about the political processes in Russia behind the warfighting? From how Russians really aren't apathetic and however low their expectations of their government may be, and do have a breaking point, to how Putin depends on and betrays his men on the spot, rumination about some wider developments and an historical parallel with...