Mark Galeotti

From the modern metropolises of Moscow and St Petersburg to Arkhangelsk on the permafrosted northern coast and Khabarovsk on the Chinese border, for over a week now, Russian cities have been experiencing unprecedented interruptions to mobile internet coverage. Ostensibly for security reasons, the rumour mill has inevitably cranked out all kinds of alternative explanations, from

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says that World War Three has already started. Speaking to the BBC on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion, it’s understandable why he would want to take this line, but he’s wrong. What is striking about Putin is the lack of a messianic ideology On an emotional

Another round of trilateral Ukraine peace talks has wrapped up in Geneva with the ritual claims that they were ‘businesslike’ and ‘productive’. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s president Zelensky took to social media to announce that he doesn’t ‘need historical shit to end this war’ and accused the Russians of doing nothing but engaging in delaying tactics. So

When leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny died two years ago, the only real question was not whodunnit, but howdunnit?  His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, quickly blamed poison and said that his partisans had taken tissue samples from his corpse for examination. Yesterday, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands announced that a combined intelligence operation had demonstrated that he was

It may sound like a rather arcane development, but a change in the command structure of the Rosgvardiya, Russia’s National Guard, offers some clues about both the state of the country and the Ukraine war – and the Kremlin’s fears for the future. Zolotov has been lobbying for some time for the Rosgvardiya to have

The lovefest between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin continued this week. A video call on Wednesday saw the Russian president cooing that, “for Russian-Chinese relations, it’s safe to say that any time of year is spring” and his Chinese counterpart telling his “old, dear friend” that their two countries needed a “grand plan” further to

For years, we have heard rumours that Ramzan Kadyrov, dictator of Chechnya, is mortally ill. Unlike the lurid tales about Vladimir Putin, these rumours appear to be true, and the Kremlin is bracing itself for a potential succession crisis at the very worst time. This week, one of the official news agencies even quietly updated

At the trilateral talks being held in Abu Dhabi, both Kyiv and Moscow are being led by military intelligence officers. These are the newly appointed presidential chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, formerly the head of HUR – Ukrainian military intelligence, and Admiral Igor Kostyukov, head of Russia’s GU – the Main Directorate of the General

It seems to be criminal cosplay season for Donald Trump, as he successively takes on the roles first of kidnapper, then pirate. There is a case, albeit disputed, to be made under the laws of the sea for the legality of the seizure of the tanker Marinera. There is none under international law for the

Russia is still known for a great deal of innovative programming, but one area where there is concern it is falling behind is in AI. Judging by Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s Eve address, there are no grounds to worry, as this year’s was of a such blandness that it could have been generated by a

Are we really on the cusp of a real, shooting war with Russia? If you believe some of the rhetoric, it would seem so – but does anyone really think it? The war drums are certainly beating. Last night, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, called for ‘our defence

One of the crucial obstacles to a Ukraine peace deal appears to be Vladimir Putin’s demand for the remaining fifth of Donetsk region not in Russian hands. Kyiv not only resents the idea of surrendering hard-defended land, it also fears this could be use it as a springboard for future attacks deeper into Ukraine. One

As Moscow and Washington prepare for talks on the latest version of Donald Trump’s peace plan next week, leaked recordings of a conversation with US envoy Steve Witkoff have thrown a spotlight on to senior diplomat Yuri Ushakov. It seems he, not Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, is the prime mover behind Russia’s negotiating position. The

At a time when Western commentators are tying themselves in knots trying to parse the ongoing Ukraine peace discussions, the Russian media is suddenly strikingly united in its coverage. There is a common misperception that, like their Soviet forebears, the Russian press simply reproduces some standard party line, day in, day out. In fact, there

I don’t think it’s accurate or helpful to think of Vladimir Putin as some Bond villain figure – but he certainly does make it harder to hold this line sometimes. In particular, his enthusiasm for ‘wonder weapons’ – often of questionable strategic value – does suggest a certain grandiose vanity. Some have genuine military utility,

Has the world turned upside-down? Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, generally known for his toxic social media posts packed with threat and vitriol, is turning down the volume, while various Western public figures are determinedly turning it up. Yesterday, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, in what he called ‘a sentence that may be a little shocking

Another Russian military exercise is over, and some Western commentators would have us believe that we ought to be heaving a collective sigh of relief that Putin’s legions didn’t use this as an excuse for another invasion. Of course, that was very overblown hype. Instead, what we saw was a Russian military still clinging to

‘Rejuvenation is unstoppable, we will prevail,’ blared the editorial in the Chinese newspaper Global Times. The subject was China’s resurgence, but it looked oddly apposite in light of an inadvertently overheard conversation between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Some Western journalists have mistaken this as evidence of Putin’s hubris and his personality cult ‘Biotechnology is continuously developing,’