In Moscow's Shadows

Afleveringen

• In Moscow's Shadows 250: Moscow's Comms Playbook (And Why It's So Bad) 31.05.2026 40min

  A Russian drone hits a Romanian apartment block, two civilians are injured, and suddenly a stray weapon becomes a case study in how Putin’s Kremlin handles bad news. Why does the Kremlin’s crisis management default to a belligerent, self-sabotaging sequence that turns a manageable incident into a wider political problem? It comes down to the priorities of an insecure, personalistic authoritarian system that equates any admission of failure with weakness, that regards information as a battlef...
• In Moscow's Shadows 249: Pragmatism in Asia 24.05.2026 53min

  After Putin's Beijing visit - long on rhetoric, short on results - I look more broadly as Asia: the limits of the "friendship with no limits" with China, heding with India, and the ebbing of hegemony in Central Asia. In short, everyone is a transactional pragmatist, behind the talk of "all-weather partnerships" and "eternal friendships." But then again, isn't everyone everwhere, these days? The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for innovative and im...
• In Moscow's Shadows 248: What If? 17.05.2026 44min

  First, a round up of some current issues: Putin heading to China, two governors out (and two men with Ukraine war connections in), party politics and the jostling for second place, and how the Council of Europe is implicitly encouraging Putin to stay in power until he dies... In the second half, the opening episode of a series of alternative history (the rest will be available to paying Patrons) exploring some of the great what-ifs. This time, what if Kyiv had surrendered to the Mongols in 12...
• In Moscow's Shadows 247: Victory Day Without The Victory 09.05.2026 52min

  No tanks, great camera work. Victory Day is supposed to be Russia’s most unshakeable story, the moment when the state proves its strength, its allies, and its confidence on Red Square. Yet watching this year’s parade, I can’t escape the sense that the symbolism is working harder than the reality: fewer troops, no heavy hardware in Moscow, and security concerns hanging over the whole performance. In the rest of the podcast, I look at a leaked report on spinning peace and wonder if it par...
• In Moscow's Shadows 246: Is Russia A Great Power? 03.05.2026 51min

  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? Is it a superpower? No. Is it a great power? It depends what you mean. It certainly is not just the "gas station with nukes" of the cliche. Putin’s language of “sovereign civilisation” recasts greatness as resistance rather than dominance, especially as Victory Day messaging leans on endurance. I argue Russia is a middle power that can pivot, triangu...
• In Moscow's Shadows 245: Belousov And The War Machine 26.04.2026 43min

  Putin didn’t pick a battlefield hero to run Russia’s Defence Ministry. He picked Andrei Belousov, an economist with a planner’s instincts and a technocrat’s patience. Thats what the Kremlin thinks it needs most right now: a 'Quartermaster-in-Chief,' who wouldn't tangle with Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov, but instead focus in procurement that works, production at scale, drones that reach units fast, and a defence industrial complex that can keep up with an ugly, grinding war economy.&nb...
• In Moscow's Shadows 244: The War Word And The Clickbait Trap 19.04.2026 46min

  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: politicians who want public backing for big defence spending, media outlets that live on attention, and all of us who share first and think later. I look at two particular examples: the current fascination in the British press with the idea that Russia may launch an attack using long-range missiles, and a truly insane essay by Konstantin Malofeyev ...
• In Moscow's Shadows 243: Who Controls The Story In Russia? 05.04.2026 48min

  Power doesn’t just seize territory. It seizes the story. I’m using a selection of 6 excellent new books to follow the narrative battlegrounds where modern Russia tries to control what people see as true, normal, and inevitable, and where society still finds ways to push back even when formal protest is risky, whether in framing Harry Potter, or surviving in the occupied Donbas. The books in question are: Alexis Lerner, Post-Soviet Graffiti. Free Speech in Authoritarian States (University of T...
• In Moscow's Shadows 242: Igor Sechin, Sharpening Putin's Pencils for 30 Years 29.03.2026 50min

  Putin reportedly gathered top oligarchs behind closed doors and asked them to chip in to help fill the budget, with the war in Ukraine sitting unmistakably in the background. The idea seems to have been initiated by Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s gravel-voiced boss and one of the most polarising figures in Putin’s circle. After keeping a low profile since 2022, why is he coming back into the news? Because of the 'Prigozhin Syndrome': if you are a crony, not a friend, if you want something from the bo...
• In Moscow's Shadows 241: When Attack Dogs Turn 22.03.2026 42min

  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 secessionist Russian-speaking Estonian “Narva People’s Republic” look like a Kremlin disruption operation: manufacturing attention, stoking anxiety, and forcing journalists and officials into a no-win choice between silence and amplification. Rather more significant is the case of St Petersburg lawyer and Kremlin-friendly smear merchant, Ilya Remeslo, wh...
• In Moscow's Shadows 240: Frankenstein's Putinism 15.03.2026 50min

  Or, 'Team Russia and the Undead Ideology Project' Can you create an ideology that is custom-engineered, poll-driven, focus grouped, workshopped and marketed? The Presidential Administration's Alexander Kharichev is certainly trying, suggesting the Kremlin's concerns about the future. I also discuss Marlene Laruelle's excellent book Ideology and Meaning-Making under the Putin Regime (Stanford UP 2025), and the link to Jeremy Morris's comments on it is here. The podcast's corporate p...
• In Moscow's Shadows 239: Wars Foreign and Domestic 08.03.2026 49min

  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 why not to trust Washington. It's also a laboratory for what one Russian military theorist called "non-contact war," and may help shape Moscow's notions of the future of conflict. Then it’s home to Moscow’s underworld, where a fragile peace holds between Shakro Molodoi and Badri Kutaissky, while younger “thieves‑in‑law” turn old grudges into proxy fights....
• In Moscow's Shadows 238: Bangers and Mish 01.03.2026 52min

  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 give Moscow more opportunities than headaches. Then, from bangers to Mish: decoding Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s annual report to the State Duma. Think of a head butler in a grand house: no say in the party upstairs, every burden downstairs. The technocrats may plan to edge Russia from “gas station” to “supermarket,” but is this viable?...
• In Moscow's Shadows 237: How A 1552 Siege Explains A 2022 Invasion 22.02.2026 1u 1min

  A frozen river swallows cannons in 1550; a traffic jam of armour stalls outside Kyiv in 2022. Different centuries, same lesson: wars are won by planning, logistics, and the courage to listen to people who know what they’re doing. Ivan the Terrible took Kazan in 1552, learning crucial lessons of warfare and statecraft that Putin the Not So Great neglected when invading Ukraine in 2022. Spinning off my new book, Siege of Kazan 1552: Ivan the Terrible breaks the Kazan khanate (Osprey), I look at...
• In Moscow's Shadows 236: What Is Russia? 15.02.2026 52min

  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 Geneva may mean, and why looking for a dubious Russian connection in the Epstein case risks missing the real scandal: how powerful people and institutions tolerated what they knew. Then, to answer the larger question—what kind of country is Russia?—I spin off two books: a long view of survey data that charts a hybrid regime’s rise and fracture after 2014, an...
• In Moscow's Shadows Bonus Minipod: Rebel Russia 10.02.2026 27min

  A mini-episode that paying Patrons heard as part of their Twelve Days of Shadowy Christmas bonuses. Forget the cliché that Russians accept power without protest, I sit down with author and analyst Anna Arutunyan to unpack a more complicated truth from her book Rebel Russia: Russia’s past is full of uprisings and dissent, yet weak social solidarity keeps those bursts of courage from becoming lasting institutions. When no stable forums exist for bargaining between citizens and the state, pressu...
• In Moscow's Shadows 235: From a GRU to a Kill 08.02.2026 52min

  Yes, that's a lame James Bond title wordplay. Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, second in command of Russian military intelligence (technically, GU; colloquially, still GRU) is gunned down in Moscow. Whodunnit, whydunnit, and what will it mean? Of course, I don't know, but I have a stab at these questions. The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, civil affairs and s...
• In Moscow's Shadows Bonus Minipod: How Putin Is Protected 03.02.2026 22min

  A mini-episode that paying Patrons heard as part of their Twelve Days of Shadowy Christmas bonuses, opening the gates on Vladimir Putin’s personal security. From rooftop snipers and sealed manholes to an armoured Aurus limo and a “ghost train” that slips through the rail network without a schedule, the machinery is vast, expensive, and designed to smother threats before they form. The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for innovative and immersive c...
• In Moscow's Shadows 234: PACE’s Picks, Ukraine’s Grid, Russia’s Corruption 01.02.2026 42min

  Four stories with counter-intuitive implications: PACE’s new platform for dialogue with “Russian democratic forces” beg the question of whether a handpicked roster, quota politics, and delegates closely tied to Ukrainian advocacy strengthen dialogue with Russians or hand the Kremlin an easy propaganda win. Does the much-hyped energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine offer little repair time but plenty of room for Moscow to refill missile stocks and plan salvos designed to overwhelm a...
• In Moscow's Shadows 233: News, from Abu Dhabi to Kamchatka; and Chechnya After Kadyrov 25.01.2026 49min

  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 the fore), the Greenland crisis and the perils of Trump's Board of Peace for a Russia that we might consider a 'middle power.' Then, once-in-a-generation blizzards in Kamchatka as a test of state capacity and Putin's engagement. With Kadyrov reportedly seriously ill (really, this time, we think), what prospects for this satrapy? His sons are too young, to...