Two quite big topics this episode. First of all, the restrictive new rules on 'Foreign Agent' status that, if applied, would make it almost impossible to discuss military, security and even space topics. They are as much about drawing sharper lines - are you with us or against us - as encouraging self-censorship.

Then, after the break, some rumination on 'hybrid war' - why it's not that helpful a term, and why, when we talk about Russia, there is no one notion of 'hybrid war' but three.

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I confess at this stage I couldn't think of much to say about the Russian elections that wasn't obvious, or hadn't been said, so instead I recorded a 'magazine' episode covering a range of other topics:

• Team Navalny's latest video (here), this time on the corruption of Foreign Minister Lavrov, and why the opposition needs a new big idea
• The Zapad-2021 exercises and their political significance (coverage by Mike Kofman here and Konrad Muzyka here)
• Three stories that went under-reported in Russia: on AUKUS, on Putin's health (my Spectator piece is here) and Sputnik V
• Rumours that Sergei Shoigu is being sent to Siberia - in a good way.

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A shorter episode that looks at a vicious criminal's end in a prison riot in Kamchatka, and after talking a little about prison realities in Russia, considers some possible lessons for Russia as a whole.

I mention the vexed issue of police numbers, something I discuss here and here.

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Sometimes it's worth digging into what look like less important stories, to see what lessons the offer about the big picture developments, so I tackle three - who's likely to be the next ambassador to Cape Verde, why airfare hikes contribute to street violence, and why Naryshkin is now claiming to be a long-time mate of Putin's - and see what I can make of them.

For those figures I threw out, the proportions of staff of different Presidential Administration departments estimated to be current or former security officers are:
63% Security Council (SB) Secretariat
28% Foreign Policy Directorate (UVneshP)
19% Expert Directorate (UE)
71% Directorate for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (UMKSZS),
62% Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation (UPS)

For the share of one-to-one or one-to-few meetings with the President in 2019:
1% Kostyukov (GRU)
5% Zolotov (National Guard(
5% Kolokoltsev (MVD)
11% Naryshkin
17% Bortnikov (FSB)
23% Shoigu (MoD)
29% Patrushev
9% Other

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There may be a little schadenfreude as America abandons Afghanistan and the Taliban sweep into Kabul, but Moscow is worried, above all about the country's three traditions exports: terror, refugees and opium.

The fate of the Afghan regime - and the way the 1991 August Coup caught the West by surprise - are also reminders of the problems in trying to predict the future...especially when it comes to Russia.

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Having long relied on it as a stalwart of the ‘systemic opposition’, the Kremlin now seems to be treating the Communist Party (KPRF) as if it were a real opposition party. Might this push it into real opposition? I build off a recent piece I wrote in the Moscow Times. The previous podcast I mentioned is here.

And in the second half, I indulge myself musing about occultism in Russian politics, from the search for Shambhala to 'red battle magician.' But is occultism perhaps really the best lens to understand it, after all?

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Is PM Mikhail Mishustin thinking long-term? His vision for Russia seems to be technocratic, maybe even techno-authoritarian, but it is interesting - and maybe implicitly subversive.

In the second half, I look at Russian-Ukrainian relations over the Donbas, public lunacy and private pragmatism. There's all kinds of silliness - including a case Moscow is taking to the European Court of Human Rights - but maybe the very tone actually reflects the resigned pragmatism new Donbas 'curator' Dmitry Kozak is bringing to freezing the conflict.

The Fabian Burkhardt article I mention is here, and my previous podcast on Putin's Ukrainian article is here.

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Another short, single-segment episode, this time looking at 'On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,' Putin's latest venture into the role of amateur historian (available in English here). Equal parts history, polemic and paranoia, it says more about VVP's state of mind than anything else, in my opinion.

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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 country of Putins!’: How RT bridged the credibility gap in Russian public diplomacy during the 2018 FIFA World Cup' by Rhys Crilley et al, here.

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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 and watchful tsar. However, there is also a less-understood dimension: how the Kremlin uses it to gauge the mood of the masses. If it leads to genuine concerns being addressed, even in the name of keeping an authoritarian kleptocracy in power, is that a bad thing?

In the second part, I briefly draw some comparisons - differences but also similarities - between the Soviet and US/Coalition wars in Afghanistan.

The Raam op Rusland article I mentioned is here. The podcast which talks about polling by the FSO is here.

For more on my research on Afghanistan, the book of the PhD is Afghanistan - the Soviet Union's last war (Routledge)

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