In Moscow's Shadows 38: The topic I never thought I'd address: Sport
A brief, single-segment podcast on the distinctive roles of sport for today's Kremlin. Not a topic that I'd usually expect to discuss... The journal article I mentioned on RT is ‘Russia isn’t a count...
12 Jul 202119min
In Moscow's Shadows 37: Direct Line and the Politics behind Politics; and Wars in Afghanistan Compared
The main reasons for the annual ritual of Putin's Direct Line phone-in encounter with the Russian people is to allow him to present himself as the caring father of the nation, savvy chief executive an...
3 Jul 202141min
In Moscow's Shadows 36: Good News/Bad News: The Geneva Summit and Coronavirus on the Rise
The Geneva Summit: frankly, as good as one could expect, with Biden offering a shrewd carrot and stick - Russia can feel itself more like a great power, if it plays more by the rules. No step-change b...
18 Jun 202131min
In Moscow's Shadows 35: Crackdown, Belarus, HMS Defender and the Putin-Biden Summit
A bit of a grab-bag: what to make of the continuing crackdown in Russia, is there scope to undermine the cohesion of the security forces in Belarus, should HMS Defender be heading into the Black Sea, ...
12 Jun 202138min
In Moscow's Shadows 34: Belarus, of course
A spur-of-the-moment, off-the-top-of-my-head take on what's going (wr)on(g) in Belarus: the Russian connection or rather the absence of any evidence of one, Lukashenko's motivations, and above all wha...
27 Mai 202144min
In Moscow's Shadows 33: The Russian Orthodox Church PLC; and No Country For Old Securocrats
Is the Russian Orthodox Church a spiritual community, a political institution, or a business empire? The truth of the matter is that it has become all three, and I toy with the idea that we should thi...
23 Mai 202159min
In Moscow's Shadows 32: Victory Day and Memory Politics, and the Kremlin in WW2
Today (9 May) is Victory Day, and the sad truth is that this also inevitably means claims and counter claims of 'memory wars' over the Great Patriotic War. So what can and should we do about this? An...
9 Mai 202136min
In Moscow's Shadows 31: Navalny, Patrushev, Orban, and more [RELOADED]
A mysterious glitch silenced the first, Navalny-related part of this podcast. This has now been fixed, and the full, uncensored version is now up - should now be up. From why the Kremlin fears Naval...
1 Mai 202152min
