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Russia, behind the headlines as well as in the shadows. This podcast is the audio counterpart to Mark Galeotti's blog of the same name, a place where "one of the most informed and provocativ...
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? I...
Putin didn’t pick a battlefield hero to run Russia’s Defence Ministry. He picked Andrei Belousov, an economist with a planner’s instincts an...
The fastest way to lose your grip on Russia is to reach for the word “war” every time a scary headline lands. The incentives are everywhere:...
Power doesn’t just seize territory. It seizes the story. I’m using a selection of 6 excellent new books to follow the narrative battleground...
Putin reportedly gathered top oligarchs behind closed doors and asked them to chip in to help fill the budget, with the war in Ukraine sitti...
A handful of memes and an online storm can look like nothing, right up until they start steering the news cycle. Efforts to talk up a secess...
Or, 'Team Russia and the Undead Ideology Project' Can you create an ideology that is custom-engineered, poll-driven, focus grouped...
How does the Iran war look to Russia, at once a potential morass for the USA (and Europe) and a case study, many in policy circles feel, on...
First, as the USA, Israel and Iran trade drone and missile strikes, how the war may play out for Russia: my sense is that on balance it will...
A frozen river swallows cannons in 1550; a traffic jam of armour stalls outside Kyiv in 2022. Different centuries, same lesson: wars are won...
In the first half, I look at the latest news about Navalny's death, what a change in the composition of the Russian negotiation team in...
A mini-episode that paying Patrons heard as part of their Twelve Days of Shadowy Christmas bonuses. Forget the cliché that Russians accept p...
Yes, that's a lame James Bond title wordplay. Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, second in command of Russian military intelligence...
A mini-episode that paying Patrons heard as part of their Twelve Days of Shadowy Christmas bonuses, opening the gates on Vladimir Putin’s pe...
Four stories with counter-intuitive implications: PACE’s new platform for dialogue with “Russian democratic forces” beg the question of whet...
First, a look at some of the news as this year starts hard and bizarre: trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi (with military intelligence chiefs to...
A tabloid brands Zelensky’s Christmas address a “black mass,” complete with glassy eyes, hidden codes, and a trance to “hack the noosphere”...
The talk of a military force provided by the 'Coalition of the Willing' to help secure Ukraine after a peace is a non-starter, not...
Before the self-indulgence of a deep-dive into the rise and fall of the Chechen Lazanskaya Brigada in Moscow -- and why there are some worry...
To end the year, instead of the grand sweep of geopolitics, let's look at a collection of people making the news, sometimes whether the...
Putin's latest marathon press conference/call-in show Itogi Goda ('Results of the Year'), once Direct Line, has become an ann...
A demilitarised zone that invites armoured cars. A referendum that can’t be fairly run. A €210 billion pot that solves today’s bills but com...
There's not all that much to say about the Ukraine peace negotiations as delegations head to the USA and Russia, but I cover a few issu...
In the first half of the podcast, I look at the proposed Ukraine peace deal, which is only a foundation for proper negotiations, especially...
From where's Lavrov to whether it's time for Europe to speak to Putin directly, some questions with wider significance raised duri...
We need to talk about post-Putin. It's fruitless at this point to try and come up with names of potential successors -- but maybe we ca...
The forthcoming release of the updated version of my WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT PUTIN gives me an excuse to consider whether and how Putin has ch...
The new Japanese PM wants to conclude a long-delayed peace treaty with Russia - but that will mean selling a thorny territorial dispute. Wil...
Time to look at the spooks again. It seems that the FSB's Military Counterintelligence Department (in other words, the anti-coup squad)...
Putin's 4-hour keynote and Q&A at Valdai gives us at least some insight into his thinking and his assumptions, but the interesting thin...
We spend a great deal of time thinking about Putin's intentions, his strategy. Yet it's hard to argue that this position, mired in...
MiGs in Estonian airspace, military exercises in Belarus, talk of the next war against NATO being prepared. Are we under threat? Well, maybe...
Zelensky said on Friday that "the basic document on security guarantees for Ukraine, and therefore for the whole of our Europe, is practical...
The 1991 August Coup and the 1993 October Coup are oddities, at once still very current in Russia, yet also veiled in myth and self-deceptio...
The FSB is trumpeting its arrests of Ukrainian saboteurs and demanding more surveillance powers. Prosecutor General Krasnov is set to become...
After a brief comment on the frozen peace process, I look at the case of Sergei Markov, voluble Kremlin loyalist, who has just been declared...
Alaska was owned by Russia - was the summit also? Where is the world after the Alaska summit? Putin won, but did Trump really lose (I'd...
So Trump and Putin are meeting in Alaska on Friday. Are we on the brink of peace in Ukraine or another mess? I wish I could be more optimist...
With calls for WhatsApp to be banned and searching for 'extremist' material punishable by fines, there is much talk of a 'Nor...
In the first half, I offer a (rather pessimistic) assessment of not just Trump's 50-day ultimatum but also recent EU and UK sanctions,...
In Moscow's Shadows has crossed the 5 million downloads barrier! This happens to coincide with this being an episode in which I tackle...
In one corner, Azerbaijan's Ilhan Aliev, in the other, Russia's Vladimir Putin, two autocrats locked in an increasingly acrimoniou...
After some thoughts about the recent NATO summit in The Hague, I focus on the perennial challenge of corruption. Even Russian officials are...
There is a range of serious practical problems that an end to the war in Ukraine -- whenever that may be -- will pose for the Kremlin. Howev...
In the first half, I explore what the eruption of open conflict between Israel and Iran means for Russia. Will Putin be tempted to throw Ira...
A pervasive argument is that for reasons personal, political or economic, Putin simply cannot afford to end his war: that he needs the excus...
An IMS on a Thursday? Although I'm still not quite yet over the cold that stopped me recording on Sunday, as I can't record next S...
Negotiations (of a sort) in Istanbul: a real engagement or just a piece of theatre? The answer, of course, is a bit of both. And what can on...
The 200th episode! Hard to believe. After briefly assessing Putin's late-night offer of talks with Kyiv, I dig into the Victory Day par...
General Ivan Popov, once hailed as one of the heroes and rising stars of the Russian army, has just been sentenced to 5 years in a general r...