In Moscow's Shadows

Is the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad a dangerous Russian bastion threatening the West, a point of vulnerability for Moscow, or a potential point of reconnection with Europe? How about a mix of all three -- and also an example of how even figures from a new 'Putin generation' politician can be technocrats rather than zealots. In the second half, a brief rumination about how  simulation e...

As I'm travelling this weekend, this episode is a compilation of two sets of comparative book reviews already provided to my Patrons. First up, three recent books on Russia that, together, would make up one pretty fine, balanced and comprehensive one... Thomas Graham, Getting Russia Right (Polity) Richard Sakwa, The Lost Peace (Yale) Leon Aron, Riding the Tiger (AEI) In the second half, three...

Barring particularly high-profile developments, we tend to look at Russia through the prism of Moscow (and maybe St Petersburg). How good a picture does this give us? To try and redress the balance, I use a recent Association D'Est report on 'Grassroots Propaganda and Repression in Russia's Komi Republic' to consider some of the wider lessons about protest and resistance in the...

A podcast of two halves. First of all, I look at the dilemmas and limitations facing European (EU and UK) strategy over Ukraine. Why is it so hard? After the break, I consider another of the younger officials sometimes listed as an up-and-comer: Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov. Why do I not really rate him? The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr , which provides softw...

The essence of podcasting and punditry may be to peddle confident certainties, but often we don’t really know. So today I raise some important questions to which I really don’t know the answer, but which, alas, matter. When will Russians' patience run out? What will the next 'black swan' disruptor be? Would a ceasefire in 2024 benefit Ukraine more than Russia? The Foreign Affairs ar...

Russia is still gripped by an egg crisis, after prices rose 46% last year. Now the security apparatus is investigating hoarding and profiteering, the Agriculture Ministry is talking price controls and Lukashenko is having some fun at Putin's expense. At the risk of sounding glib, in this podcast I explain why the crisis explains everything you need to know about Putin's Russia... The pod...

Less whimsical than the last one, the final episode of 2023 looks ahead to the coming year:  the candidates for the presidential elections, the prospects for the war, and - spinning off a deeply-bizarre interview with hawkish academic Sergei Karaganov - whether the Kremlin can find a convincing narrative. The Karaganov interview is here . The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conduct...

Was Moscow nuked in 1812? Have a thousand years of history been made up to conceal the power of the 'Russian Horde'? Was Lenin a mushroom? Are reptiloids trying to subvert Russia with Satanism? Of course not: but these -- and many, many more -- conspiracy theories and mobilised falsehoods remain deeply and depressingly prevalent in Russia, and even in a way shape policy. Why? Join me in...

I felt I ought to cover Putin's combined press conference and online town hall, but it was just so, so boring. And maybe that's the point: tedium weaponised as the new electoral strategy. But what else can we read into the Kremlin's public messaging? To explore that, after some brief thoughts on that 4 hour 4 minute banquet of banality, I delve into the world of Russian tabloids thi...

So, surprise, surprise, Putin's standing for re-election. A few thoughts on how it was announced and the vibe around it, before I look at 'Preventing the Next War,' a report from DGAP, the German Council on Foreign Relations, that believes Russia could rearm within 6 years of the end of the war, and that if NATO has not already armed itself to match by then, it would invade. I'...

There's a myth that authoritarian leaders don't have to worry about public politics: arguably they have to worry all the more. Spinning off from the recent bizarre criminalisation of the mythical 'international LGBT movement' and one or more raids on gay clubs, I unpack how I think Putin's political 'offer' to Russians will emerge over the months leading up to pr...

Has hell frozen over? Left Front leading light Leonid Razvozzhaev is backing the inclusion of ultra-nationalist Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin in unofficial 'people's primaries' for presidential opposition candidates. How is the Russian left different from the West's, and why does this make 'red-brown' alliances with the nationalists more plausible and worrying? And...

After looking at a few recent news stories that caught my eye, on everything from the Ministry of Happiness to a surprisingly subversive economic plan, I look at four conventional wisdoms about Putin. He knows what he wants and it never changes. He doesn't have to care about public opinion. He needs the war to go on for ever. He can't be negotiated with. It's not, in my opinion, tha...

What can we learn from the ugly anti-Semitic riot at Makhachkala airport? Officially sanctioned, foreign-inspired subversion, a symptom of state failure or societal anti-Semitism? I don't think any of these capture the significance of the incident, but instead it highlights some fundamental challenges for Moscow, and reasons why the North Caucasus is almost uniquely problematic for the regime...

In what sounds more like a scene from Armando Ianucci's Death of Stalin , an anonymous Telegram channel tells us Putin is dead, his body stuffed into deep freeze while Patrushev takes over. Credible? Not really, but that doesn't stop many Western media outlets running with the story. So, why this fascination with Putin's health, why does it matter, and what do I think would happen,...

Alexei Navalny has posted a list of 10 questions he thinks all movers and shakers in the Russian (opposition) political scene ought to be asked ahead of the 2024 presidential elections. His questions, and his list of those whom he thinks should answer them, and an interesting bid to remain politically relevant - but also tell us something about his thinking. On the other end of the political spect...

A quick and early episode looking at what roles and goals - if any - Russia has in the current Hamas-Israel war. The bottom line is that Russia was not behind the terrorist invasion, doesn't really know how to respond, is putting out different and even contradictory messages and yet will taken whatever advantage from it that it can. The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conductt...

The Russian police are increasingly under pressure. The National Guard is getting into the mercenary game. There is talk (probably empty) of Wagner being reconstituted under Evgeny Prigozhin's son Pavel. These three apparently separate developments all point to the way Putin is not learning the lessons of past mistakes. In the second segment, another profile of a potential successor to Putin:...

The easy cliche that the Ukraine conflict may become a 'forever war' is a convenient notion for Putin - it may help dismay his enemies, and provides an organising principle for 'late Putinism.' To paraphrase the SF game Warhammer 40,000, in the grim darkness of the present, there is only war. Yet, of course, no war last forever and, in particular, Russians themselves don't...

Is Kadyrov dying? If so, who might replace him - and what may this mean for Russia. If Chechnya again becomes unstable, will Putin be faced with a choice of losing in Ukraine or in Chechnya? In any case, Kadyrov was one of the first and most successful of Russia's 'conflict entrepreneurs,' able to monetise the threat or actuality of war. The invasion of Ukraine is creating  a whole...

As a way of getting away from the perennial talk of Wagner and the Ukrainian counter-offensive, I look at current stories relating to six individuals - Dmitri Medvedev, Anton Siluanov, Sergei Surovikin, Sergei Sobyanin, Valentin Konovalov and Sergei Aksenov - and what they tell us about today's Russia, Nepotism, statism, warlordism, and the limits of Kremlin power... The podcast's corpor...

After looking at Prigozhin last time, this episode I focus on Wagner. Will it survive in Africa (I suspect not), what this may mean for Russia's Africa non-quite-a-strategy, and will we see a 'Wagnerisation' of the Russian military (probably) and society (hopefully not). And why Wagner was like one of the great global football teams... The podcast's corporate partner and sponso...

What can we say about the death of Prigozhin (beyond good riddance?). At the risk of overstating the case, I feel this is a watershed moment, and Putin's willingness to turn on his own, at the expense of his own promises, is both symptomatic of deep decay in the system and also something that will further undermine it. The  Sunday Times article I mention is here . The podcast's corporate...

Marking the anniversary of the second day of the 1991 August Coup, the day when momentum began to shift away from the hardliners behind the seizure of power, a look at how the Putin regime - the spiritual descendant of those same plotters - is getting jumpy, cracking down on critics left and right and unable to win the loyalty of society. An aspect of this, which I explore in the second part, is h...

He may have just been sentenced to another 19 years, now in a 'special regime colony', but the indomitable Alexei Navalny has just produced a broadside against the 'reformists' of the 1990s - whom he considers nothing of the sort, but instead the architects of kleptocracy and authoritarianism. And it's hard to disagree with that. I go through what is in effect his manifest...