Show Notes
A 74-year-old port magnate known in the underworld as Antikvar is arrested by an FSB team, hauled into Moscow’s Basmanny Court, and suddenly the ghosts of St Petersburg’s wild 1990s feel very alive. Ilya Traber's career took him from from antiques monopolies to oil terminals, in the murky interface between “authoritative business” and outright organised crime. And much of it thanks to his relationship with Putin in and since the 1990s. Traber's name has run through the bloody annals of 'Band...
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A mid-sized gang in Chelyabinsk should not be front page news, and that is exactly why it is so useful. When the Artakovsky criminal group is rolled up, the details point to bigger trends in the Russian underworld: how gangs recruit, Chechen criminal 'franchising,' the AUE threat, how they govern themselves, and how the state is learning to prosecute them with sharper tools. The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis ...
Donald Trump's diesel deal is, of course, in effect a birthday present for Putin, explained by The Donald’s transactional self-interest and hunger for a headline before the midterms, not baroque theories about hidden loyalties. Even if not a single barrel of diesel ever ships, though, this is undoubtedly good for Moscow. Maybe some revenue (if need be, Putin can starve domestic markets to export), but above all a political gain. Washington is again at odds with an angry Kyiv, while Europe is ...
The annual shindig of the Valdai Discussion Club is one of those Kremlin set pieces that invites two equally lazy reactions: treat it as sacred insight into Vladimir Putin’s mind, or wave it away as pure Russian propaganda. It's a bit of both, but does give an insight into Russia's changing foreign policy priorities, as much from who is invited as what is said. (And a side-note on the questioning of Ian Proud, host of the Peacemonger podcast, on his return to the UK.) Of course, the keynote i...
A fat, smug bear sits at the heart of Russia’s politics right now and it is not just a party logo. The State Duma election has handed United Russia - whose logo is the bear - its biggest ever share of seats. Of course, the vote was rigged, but what does Putin do with this mandate now? A quick look at the state of the Ukraine war (where it's heading to be a nasty winter) then leads to a few words about the threat the Russian bear poses Europe: not a direct military one, but increased and poten...
In Russia’s elections, the ballot box is no longer a measure of consent but rather a tool for manufacturing it. It's only two days into the three days of elections to the State Duma, but I catch up on the latest and consider what to look for, before addressing the growing concern/hysteria about the Russian threat to the West (no, Putin didn't try to kill Boris Johnson), mobilisation and the BRICS summit. In the second half, I use Dmitry Medvedev’s striking line that Russia is “either a great ...