The Russia Guy

In this episode, Kevin spoke to Nataliya Vasilyeva, who works as a Moscow correspondent for the Associated Press. Nataliya is one of the most talented reporters working the Russia beat today, and you’ve probably reading her work, maybe without even knowing it. Last December, she managed to obtain a copy of a 47-page contract between a firm linked to Evgeny Prigozhin and Syria’s state-owned General...

In this episode, Kevin spoke to Neil Hauer, an independent analyst and journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia, who focuses on Syria, Russia, and the North Caucasus, to learn more about the chemical weapons attack in Syria that provoked the latest tensions between Washington and Moscow. He discussed evidence and the military situation that led us here, as well as Russia’s threat to shoot down America...

Today Kevin looks at some wild draft legislation just submitted to the State Duma that would give Russia its latest unenforceable Internet regulations. The draft law in question is actually a rewritten version of legislation introduced last summer that was supposed to require social networks to delete any “illegal content.” The new version of this law is basically the same thing, with some added p...

Howdy, folks! On today’s episode of The Russia Guy, Kevin interviews Andrew Roth, The Guardian’s new Moscow bureau chief, and a reporter who’s written previously for The Washington Post and The New York Times. In this interview, you’ll learn how Andrew Roth got into the business of reporting on Russia. I asked him about his upbringing, his education, and especially about his early days as a journa...

This episode of The Russia Guy focuses on trash and the nightmare it’s created in towns surrounding Moscow, where locals have been staging protests on and off for weeks and months in different places, in response to an apparent ecological disaster that seems to be spiraling out of control. What are you going to learn on this episode of The Russia Guy? Kevin reviews “garbage riots” in six districts...

In today’s episode, Kevin spoke to Ben Noble, a lecturer in Russian politics at University College London in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, who researches legislatures in non-democracies. In this interview, Kevin asked Ben what he means when he says Russian members of parliament “can serve as pawns in proxy skirmishes between non-legislative actors.” Ben also talked about how he...

In this episode, Kevin spoke again to friend-of-the-show Alexey Kovalev, an investigative journalist in Russia. We discussed the latest developments in the scandal surrounding State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky, who was exonerated this past week by the Ethics Committee, despite accusations by multiple women journalists who say he sexually harassed them at different times over the past several years....

In this episode of The Russia Guy, Kevin discusses a new Meduza-OCCRP investigative report about the secretive groups funding Vladimir Putin's re-election campaign. Questions asked and answered in this episode:* What does it mean that Putin’s re-election campaign is funding itself through nonprofit foundations affiliated with United Russia? Is that any different than how he’s always done it?*...

In this episode of The Russia Guy, Kevin spoke to investigative reporter Alexey Kovalev to learn more about Russia’s upcoming presidential race, voter mobilization efforts, voter apathy, and Vladimir Putin’s pre-Election Day media blitz. In this episode, you'll hear an except from Fabrika's pro-Putin pop song “Vova Vova.” You can watch the NSFW music video here: https://www.youtube.com/w...

On March 7, following the controversial overtime defeat of the ice hockey team Severstal Cherepovets by SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL conference quarterfinals, sports writer Slava Malamud penned a 21-tweet thread arguing that not just the game or the series, but the whole KHL season has essentially been rigged by Vladimir Putin’s cronies to ensure that his hometown team wins this year's Gagar...

Sexual harassment allegations are gaining steam against Leonid Slutsky, the unbeautifully named head of the State Duma’s committee on foreign affairs. In this episode of The Russia Guy, Kevin asks and answers the following three questions:*Who exactly has accused Leonid Slutsky of what exactly?*How have Slutsky’s colleagues in the legislature responded to the allegations?*What legal recourse do jo...

The Russian Federation Council’s Commission on Protecting State Sovereignty and Preventing Foreign Interference published its first major report on March 5. Much of the 83-page document is a digressive look at America’s history of meddling in various countries’ domestic affairs over the past half century. In their introduction, the commission members write that this study is an “objective analysis...

On March 1, Vladimir Putin gave his annual state-of-the-nation address, devoting a significant part of his speech to a presentation of Russia’s latest weapons, including nuclear missiles. “Nobody listened to us before. Well listen up now,” the president said. Meduza asked several Russian political and security experts to explain why Putin demonstrated all these weapons and what the speech means fo...

Two sources have confirmed to the independent TV station Dozhd that a former “troll factory” manager is now living happily in a suburb outside Seattle, Washington. This episode of The Russia Guy asks:* What’s the evidence of this woman’s connections to the troll factory?* How did she end up in the United States?* Why isn’t she in handcuffs or witness protection?* What does it matter if a former Ru...

Today's episode looks at a series of flashy viral ads that have appeared on YouTube recently, advertising Russia's upcoming presidential election, asking: *What are these viral election ads? What are they about? How do they use humor to try to get people to vote?*How does the advertising industry get involved in this kind of work?*What’s the Kremlin’s role in all this? And don't for...

After almost two months, The Russia Guy is back! Here's the outline for today's episode:Who is Vitaly Serukanov and how did he end up betraying Alexey Navalny? How did the political strategist Andrey Bogdanov end up working with Serukanov? How does Serukanov justify double-crossing Navalny like this? And don't forget to read Meduza's report on this story, which is my source for...

In this episode, Kevin discusses “Going Vertical,” a new Russian blockbuster film about the USSR's 1972 Olympic basketball defeat of the United States, which was both an upset and upsetting to the Americans, who refused to accept silver medals, arguing that the game ended unfairly. This episode features audio clips from the film and from the actual game. Meduza also spoke to several of the 19...

In this third installment of The Russia Guy's interview series with professionals in the expert community specializing on Russia, Kevin spoke to Kimberly Zenz, a senior international threat intelligence researcher at the Deutsche Cyber-Sicherheitsorganisation (German Cyber Security Organization) who's spent more than a decade working on Russian cybercrime. If you're a student of Rus...

Behold the second guest in The Russia Guy's new interview series: Nina Jankowicz, an expert in disinformation and democracy promotion in Eastern Europe. Kevin found out how she got into Think Tank Land and asked her just what it means to work toward democratic aims, both abroad and at home. You can follow her on the Twitters here: https://twitter.com/wiczipediaShe also runs a whole newsletter...

Today's the first in The Russia Guy's new interview series. Kevin sat down (remotely. don't read too much into that word) with Aric Toler, one of Bellingcat's top analysts and the lead Eastern Europe digital researcher at DFR Lab, to find out how he got into the Russia expertise biz, and what life is like in the open-source intelligence world. Follow him on Twitter, y'all....

Kevin discusses three stories in this episode:A conspiracy theory says the FSB leaked a hacker's confession to incriminate the U.S. government in the DNC hack! https://meduza.io/en/feature/2017/12/12/new-information-about-russian-officials-orchestrating-the-dnc-hack-could-be-designed-to-pin-the-cyber-attack-on-the-u-s-governmentRelated to this story, see Ellen Nakashima's WaPo report: ht...

Kevin commits Internet treason by criticizing his own country, moaning about Washington's inability to live up to its own word about FARA registration not interfering with media outlets' work. Then he moves on to moaning about the Russian Orthodox Church's weird obsession with an old and ugly conspiracy theory about Jews murdering the Romanovs in a “ritual killing.”How the U.S. says...

Kevin's back and he's talking about four stories today:Russia's Security Council tells the government to develop a separate Internet for the BRICShttps: //meduza.io/en/news/2017/11/28/russia-s-security-council-tells-the-government-to-develop-a-separate-internet-for-the-bricsThe Russian Investigative Committee's ‘Jewish problem’ https://meduza.io/en/news/2017/11/29/the-russian-i...

In this episode, Kevin reviews Oleg Kashin's recent op-ed savaging the Western media's coverage of RussiaGate stories, which he says has robbed the country's young political culture of a celestial constellation (deep, right??). Kevin also reviews the hilarity of Russia Today's foreign-agent registration documents in the U.S.Kashin's op-ed, in Englishhttps: //meduza.io/en/f...

After several weeks of silence, Kevin is back with a look at Evgeny Prigozhin, “Putin's favorite chef,” to talk troll factory, procurement deals, and American shortsightedness. He's also going to gab about two very fine pieces of original reporting — one very long, and the other not as much. For background about Mr. Prigozhin: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2016/06/13/evgeny-prigozhin-s-ri...