Better Than Ever? Russia-China Relations, with Sergey Radchenko
At this week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping seemed determined to show the whole world that Russia-China relations are better than they have ever been. Since ...
4 Sep 202545min
What’s Going On Inside Belarus with Artyom Shraibman
Since the regime brutally crushed opposition protests in 2020, Belarus has rarely made the headlines. Some see the country as a loyal satellite of Russia, stripped of all agency, others overlook it en...
31 Juli 202537min
Back to the Stalin Era? An Inside Look at the Russian Elites, with Farida Rustamova and Margarita Liutova
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, life for Russia’s rich and powerful has passed the point of no return. The recent suicide of Roman Starovoit is the first case in post-S...
17 Juli 202550min
What Was That? The NATO Summit 2025, with Nathaniel Reynolds
This year’s NATO summit was very unusual on multiple levels. Amid the disruption brought by Donald Trump’s presidency, and with Ukraine’s European allies adamant that continuing U.S. leadership is nee...
3 Juli 202530min
A Friend in Need? Decoding Russia’s Position on the Israel-Iran War, with Nicole Grajewski and Arkady Mil-Man
The war between Israel and Iran, Russia’s key partner in the Middle East, is entering its second week, with potential for escalation and worrisome spillover effects. Yet Moscow is not rushing to suppo...
19 Juni 202527min
How Stable Is the Russian War Economy? With Alexandra Prokopenko
At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Western leaders put a lot of faith in applying economic pressure to Russia, and it is now probably the most sanctioned country in the world.But despite the unpr...
5 Juni 202523min
Calculating Russia’s Losses in Ukraine, With Mika Golubovsky and David Frenkel
Soon after the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia stopped publishing official data on its military losses. Despite that, analysts from independent media still manage to extract data from multiple sou...
22 Maj 202541min
Special Episode: Victory Day in Russia, with Arkady Ostrovsky
Russia’s Victory Day public holiday, celebrated on May 9, has undergone a major transformation in Putin’s Russia. Historically, it was a day of somber commemoration, and its main leitmotif was “Never ...
8 Maj 202530min
