Mark Galeotti

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When Westerners talk about the conflict in Ukraine becoming a “forever war”, they tend to mean it as a bad thing. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, though, it likely is a goal.

Last week, Putin made the date September 30 an official holiday: the inelegantly-named Day of Reunification of New Regions with the Russian Federation. Marking the one-year anniversary of the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions — even though most were not even in Russian control at the time — it provided an opportunity for Putin to return to one of his current obsessions: that this is a struggle “for the Motherland, for our sovereignty, spiritual values, unity and victory”.…  Seguir leyendo »

There is a certain karmic justice to the brief mutiny staged in Russia by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary group. The most serious challenge to Vladimir Putin’s 23-year reign came as a direct result of the way he has structured his regime—and from a man who owed his wealth and power to the president’s patronage. It has starkly highlighted the growing weaknesses of Mr Putin’s system of power, leaving him more vulnerable than ever.

Mr Putin’s Russia is a peculiar hybrid: an almost medieval court perched atop a modern, bureaucratic state. In this “adhocracy”, power is defined less by one’s formal role than by proximity to the monarch.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with war correspondents and bloggers at the Kremlin on June 13, 2023. Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Reuters

When Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down last week with a mix of official war correspondents and bloggers, he was implicitly acknowledging three things: that the Kremlin is having trouble spinning its war in Ukraine, that unofficial commentators are in their own way as powerful as the state media machine and that the confident official narrative is failing to get much traction.

Of course, all political leaders are having to adapt to an increasingly fragmented media space – tweeting more often than putting out press releases, and wooing online influencers as assiduously as newspaper editors.

However, in Russia there is a particular issue: Russians have long become used to being lied to by their state.…  Seguir leyendo »

Despite some frenzied speculation around Russia’s loss of the occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson this week, it is still too soon to predict when and how President Vladimir Putin will surrender power – whether it will be because he is ousted, retires or simply dies in office.

However, what we can already see are some of the processes which may shape and prompt that departure. More to the point, even clinging on to power, Putin will never live up to the image he had created for himself.

Especially in the early months of the war, there was much excited speculation about his health, with claims that he had everything from blood cancer to Parkinson’s.…  Seguir leyendo »

Récemment, un navire russe a tranquillement fait sa route vers Kaliningrad, enclave russe sur la mer Baltique. A son bord, des missiles balistiques Iskander-M, capables de transporter une ogive nucléaire. Ce déploiement a déjà fait couler beaucoup d’encre dans les médias et certains n’ont pas manqué d’y voir le prélude à une troisième guerre mondiale. A Berlin, plusieurs sources officielles au ministère des affaires étrangères m’ont fait part de leur inquiétude, bien qu’en termes plus nuancés, quant aux implications qu’une telle manœuvre pourrait avoir sur la sécurité européenne.

La réponse est : pas grand-chose, en tout cas pas à court terme.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cuando el presidente Vladimir Putin contemplaba a sus tanques en la Plaza Roja durante el desfile del Día de la Victoria, no estaba mirando más que una parte, tal vez la menos importante, de su arsenal. Dada la creciente vigilancia de la OTAN, las armas más eficaces de las que dispone son sus espías.

Tanto el Servicio de Inteligencia Exterior (SVR), como la inteligencia militar (GRU), como incluso el Sistema de Seguridad Federal (FSB), tienen sus propias redes de agentes en Europa, y por más que en el mundo actual todos espíen a todos, ellos se distinguen por su gran número, su actividad y su agresividad.…  Seguir leyendo »

After five years of brutal fighting and two weeks of a scrappy ceasefire, President Vladimir Putin has suddenly announced that “the main part” of Russia’s forces currently in Syria will begin to be withdrawn. Assuming this is not some public relations stunt (and if it is, it will very quickly become clear, seriously damaging Moscow’s credibility), then it represents a shrewd and pragmatic move.

They will not go quickly, and it is still unclear quite who will be leaving and who will stay. The Tartus naval resupply station will remain in Moscow’s hands — presumably with some security forces — and so will the Hmeymime (Latakia) air base, implying that there will still be some Russian bombers along with their flight and technical crews, guards and commanders.…  Seguir leyendo »

Imagining 2030 is a series in which PS21 writers describe the world as they see it in 14 years time.

The Trans-Siberian Express isn’t just a train, it’s a metaphor. Once, a metaphor for the Tsarist empire’s determination to claim Siberia and the Russian Far East. And now? The double-headed eagle proudly glitters on the bullet-nose of the new, high-speed trains, and the conductors on the Moskovskaya strelka, the ‘Moscow Arrow,’ wear uniforms derived from those of their imperial forebears. But the CRH-49 locomotives are a Chinese design, built in the now Chinese-owned Uralvagonzavod works with a loan from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, running along a new track built by a Russo-Chinese consortium, and largely by Uighur labourers.…  Seguir leyendo »