As Mark Galeotti noted, arrests on bribery/corruption normally indicates feuding between 🇷🇺 power ministries.

MoD not seen similar lately. Ivanov became v rich creaming off funds from MoD contracts thanks to Shoigu, blamed by many for SMO failings.

One to watch closely

Some thoughts on how Twitter clips of Russian TV warp our perceptions of Russia and which media Russians actually see, following a couple of discussions on here with Mark Galeotti and Marc Bennetts kotelnaya.substack.com/p/russian-tv-t…

‼️📢 Does Putin's inner circle actually think Ukraine was behind the Crocus terror attack?

Don't miss the latest Carnegie Politika podcast, where Alexander Gabuev 陳寒士 sat down with experts Mark Galeotti & Vera Mironova to discuss this and more.⬇️
carnegieendowment.org/politika/92272

Amazin' how lies become truths John Harris 'the shocking condition of our rivers.' England's rivers are cleaner than they've been since perhaps 1600 AD. Certainly since 1850 or so. And much, much, cleaner than 1950 or even 1980. But everyone believes the opposite. Why?

Why is Russia jamming plane signals across Europe?
As I write for Coffee House , it’s hard not to see it as one (quite small) part of generalised political warfare
spectator.co.uk/article/why-is…

Travelling provides an@opportunity to catch up on listening. Most April Fools fall flat imo, but the ⁦The Red Line - Podcast⁩ deep dive into San Marino’s fearsome threat with ⁦James Ker-Lindsay⁩ was inspired podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the…

Monday-morning re-up now that the glitched uploading (which left last week's there) should be sorted: what can discussion of the abortive peace talks tell us about the next, whenever they may be, and why is Zolotov under pressure?

La historia de Rusia condensada en 175 páginas. Gran ejercicio de síntesis de Mark Galeotti 👌Muy recomendable

In Moscow's Shadows 144: Of Talks and Thugs
In the first part, I talk about some of the issues raised by that recent article in Foreign Affairs by Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia whenever they actually happen.
In the second I dig into the

FBK launched a series of FBK-mentaries into Russia's 1990s, investigating how the system that brought Putin to power came out to be.
In a nutshell it is a criticism of those that were called liberals in 1990s.
First episode is out.
youtube.com/watch?v=-_wMvL…

This is an interesting observation from Giorgio Comai - I think it will turn out that the various nationalist media outlets (also Tsargrad, for eg) essentially laid out a buffet of ideas and ideologies from which the Kremlin could take its pick. Pre-prepared and pre-packaged

SCSS#7, 16 April 2024 “Russia End State: Unravelling of Empire?” 
The summary of the latest George C. Marshall Center online workshop is now up on my blog; participants were me, Dmitry Gorenburg, Pavel Baev, David Lewis, Dr Elizabeth Buchanan and Graeme Herd chairing
inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/scs…

Foreign Affairs published today the results of a most fruitful collaboration between Samuel Charap and yours truly, an article on the failed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine (March-April 2022). foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/talks-….

Monday morning podcast re-up: money, ideology, compromise, ego - these explain intelligence recruitment, do they also help us explain national and individual susceptibility to Russian influence?

Good (dawning) morning!

In Moscow's Shadows 143: Of MICE and Man

Why are some individuals, parties, even countries still so willing to believe (or at least affect to believe) Putin's nonsense? To try to explain it, I turn to the intelligence recruitment acronym MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise and

Mark Galeotti And (c) claiming these clips provide insight into what the Kremlin ‘thinks’. I gave up paying attention to the frothing ages ago.

This is a really important point; there is something of a cottage industry in curating barking mad clips from Russian TV (of which, in fairness, there is no lack) and suggesting (a) this is the norm and (b) everyone is tuning into this nonsense.
Yes, it's horrific that there are

„Putin versucht mit Macht, die Geschichte zu überschreiben“: Der britische Russland-Experte Mark Galeotti über die unheimliche Rationalität des Kreml-Chefs – und die wahren Gefahren für den Westen. #ukraine #SZPlus sz.de/1.6534703?utm_…