Behind the Lines with Arthur Snell is a new geopolitics podcast. Every week we give the listener access to the best informed people to help you understand this turbulent world and get a feel for the things that will matter in the future.

This week, for our first episode, we have an emergency podcast in the light of the apparent assassination of Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose private jet fell out of the sky on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg on 23 August 2023. I was delighted to be joined by Owen Matthews, former Moscow bureau chief for Newsweek and author of "Overreach the inside story of Putin's war on Ukraine", just out in paperback. Owen is a native Russian speaker and knows more about the country than almost any other British journalist. Owen now sees Russia as a "failed state”, but this does not mean, in his view, that Putin is at risk of being toppled.

You can follow Owen on Twitter here @owenmatth and see his article on the Prigozhin killing here https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/yevgeny-prigozhin-dead-man-walking/

I am on Twitter @snellarthur and you can read some of my thoughts on world affairs here https://arthursnell.substack.com/

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@snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank.

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