Mark Galeotti heads the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and is honorary professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the author of some 30 books on Russia. His latest, Forged in War: a military history of Russia from its beginnings to today, is out now.
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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
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‘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,’
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The often dour Vladimir Putin is looking very cheery in China, which has just hosted the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tianjin to the north, and is preparing for a grand parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Beijing tomorrow. Xi Jinping is clearly
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Is Moscow targeting European institutions in Kyiv in the hope of ‘sabotaging peace’ as Keir Starmer has claimed? Putin probably thinks he’s actually doing the opposite. Last night saw another massive attack on Ukraine: 31 missiles and 629 drones, of which five and 66 got through the country’s air defences, respectively. Many hit Kyiv, where
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Will Ukraine’s fate depend on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka? These may not be household names, but they are the four key ‘fortress cities’ in the remaining portions of Donetsk region that Vladimir Putin is reportedly demanding as the price for peace. Although the details are still unclear, it seems that the framework for
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Amidst contradictory leaks and rumours coming from the US administration, no one is quite sure what to expect when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday – not even the Russian press. Nonetheless, they seem rather less convinced that Trump is about to stitch up the Ukrainians than the Western media. On
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Although I suspect few readers’ hearts will bleed for them, it’s been a bad week for Russian elites. There has been a spate of real or apparent suicides and the arrest of a gold magnate as he prepared to leave the country. On Friday, Andrei Badalov, vice president of Transneft, Russia’s largest state-controlled pipeline transport
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At the very time when those warmongering Nato nations are pledging to raise their defence spending substantially, that doveish peacenik Vladimir Putin is promising to reduce his. It’s hard to know which of these two commitments is less plausible, but those anticipating the cranking down of the Russian war economy any time soon are going
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Is Donald Trump’s decision to join attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities an embarrassment, a provocation or an opportunity for Russia? The honest answer is that it is all three, but likely more of an opportunity than anything else, if Moscow is willing to play it cool. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Moscow today
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It seems conventional wisdom by now that the public can only be convinced by hyperbole. As Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte implies that Britain faces a choice between the NHS and Russian conquest, it is worth asking how much this actually damages democracy – and helps Vladimir Putin? The real threat Russia poses is less of
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Is it getting harder for Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić to maintain his balancing act between Moscow and the West? Why else, after all, would Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) suddenly revive a year-old story about covert arms supplies to Ukraine? Back in June of last year, the Financial Times splashed the story that Serbia had
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Ceasefire then talks, or talks then ceasefire? This has emerged as one of the pivotal issues in the diplomacy around the war in Ukraine, even if one could question just how genuine both sides are in their respective positions. The proposed talks in Istanbul on Thursday may help clarify matters, but both sides seem more
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It was almost like old times, but also a sign of the new. Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day parade passed off without a hitch, rumbling and squeaking with armour, untroubled by Ukrainian drones, and watched over by foreign leaders there in a sign of support. Yet the efforts made to ensure the parade ran smoothly, the
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So the on-again-off-again US-Ukrainian resources deal has been signed. It is perhaps appropriate that it was done without fanfare, marked by emailed press release. While its terms are rather better than originally mooted, it still shows not that ‘the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine’
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Even by the elevated standards of Kremlin cynicism, Vladimir Putin’s invocation of a three-day ceasefire across the span of the Victory Day celebrations commemorating the end of the second world war in Europe takes some beating. Putin is well aware of Kyiv’s capacity to embarrass him on this of all days He has announced that
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Friday morning, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik was heading out from his flat in Balashikha, a commuter town east of Moscow, when a car bomb exploded, killing him. There can be little doubt this is an operation by Ukrainian intelligence, another example of their capacity to launch skilful targeted assassinations in the heart of Russia. But
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The unfolding tale of incendiary devices planted in DHL packages across Europe not only highlights the dangers of Moscow’s campaign of direct measures against the West. It also suggests that, contrary to more alarmist claims, it is possible for such threats to be deterred and limited. In July of last year, a package bound for
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There is an odd contradiction in Russian attitudes to the current negotiations with the United States. On the one hand, a sense that the window of opportunity may be closing, on the other no real rush to take advantage of it, or at least to offer Donald Trump any concessions to show willing. Mikhail Rostovsky,
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Sergei Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), is in many ways an uncomfortable and ephemeral spy chief, but an enthusiastic information warrior. In recent talks with the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, he accused Nato of threatening Moscow and Minsk by increasing the size and activity of its forces on the border – or
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Ever since Donald Trump’s now-infamous phone conversation with Vladimir Putin last month, Russia has been buzzing with speculation that Western companies which left the country after the 2022 invasion, especially US ones, will be returning. For some, this is a dream, for others a nightmare. Either way, it seems to be an overblown prospect fuelled
