Mark Galeotti heads the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and is honorary professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the author of some 30 books on Russia. His latest, Forged in War: a military history of Russia from its beginnings to today, is out now.
When personal sanctions on Russian oligarchs and officials were imposed by the UK, US and EU after Putin’s invasion, the rationale was that this would undermine the Kremlin. In the main, this has failed – and there is still no coherent strategy to encourage those Russians willing to turn against the regime. Wider economic sanctions are slowly grinding away at the
Perfidious Albion is at it again. The Kremlin’s increasingly unhinged obsession with seeing a British hand behind its various upsets has now manifested itself in a claim that the UK is behind the establishment of a death squad operating in Africa. The claim, trumpeted across Russia’s state-run media, is that MI6 is behind a ‘punitive
The hacking of the Electoral Commission’s databases highlights the way that in the interconnected modern world, ‘warfare’ can be as much about undermining faith in a country’s institutions and disrupting its political processes as anything else. The Electoral Commission has admitted that ‘hostile actors’ penetrated their systems in August 2021, in a ‘complex cyberattack’ that
Sir Richard Moore, head of the Secret Intelligence Service – MI6 – follows the tradition of only giving one public address a year, so it is inevitably scrutinised carefully for signs and portents. His speech at the UK embassy in Prague, inviting Russians to spy for Britain, required no particular reading between the lines. After
Despite the inevitable and performative expressions of anger, regret and dismay following this week’s Nato summit, Moscow feels it has reason to be moderately content with its outcome. It has seen Ukraine frustrated in its failure to secure Nato membership – and fractures emerge between Kyiv and the West. Moscow’s contentment, however, may well be
It’s satisfying when a jigsaw piece slots into place. Today we heard that Wagner leader Evgeny Prigozhin met Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin just a few days after his abortive mutiny of 23-24 June. That detail helps clear up some of the confusion of this past week. How come Prigozhin has been at liberty in Russia? We were told he would
When corrupt Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled in 2014, his private estate at Mezhyhirya turned out to contain an ostrich farm, chandeliers worth thousands and and a two-kilo gold loaf of bread. When Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s St Petersburg estate was raided, investigators found cash, guns – and a bizarre collection of wigs.
The brief mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries represented the most serious shock yet to Vladimir Putin’s 23-year reign. No wonder alarmed western governments are considering nightmare scenarios. Yet the outlook may actually be rather more optimistic. When news of the mutiny broke, there were fears of mass defections to the side of
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Fraser Nelson is joined by Svitlana Morenets and Mark Galeotti as Vladimir Putin faces an armed insurrection from the Wagner mercenary group – what could happen next?
It took a characteristically long time for Vladimir Putin to respond to the coup-that-dare-not-speak-its-name launched by Yevgeny Prigozhin, but when his statement came, it was steeped in bitterness. And no wonder, for Prigozhin was essentially Putin’s creation, and we know that Putin’s greatest venom is reserved for those he considers traitors. An ex-con who moved
As Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is once again in court, facing charges that could extend his time in prison by 30 or more years, he is showing that he is not giving up his uneven but unyielding challenge to the Putin regime. When Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021 after recovering from a
Lately Vladimir Putin has been strikingly unwilling to subject himself to any serious debate about his war in Ukraine. On Tuesday, he came the closest yet, spending more than two hours talking to war correspondents working for either the state media or nationalist social media channels. It was hardly an inquisition, but there were some
The Ukrainian counter-offensive has duly started and, needless to say, there is a rush to judgement. It is going to play out over the coming weeks, even months, though, and at present we are still working off partial and often deceptive information. But, while there is relatively little one can say about the events unfolding
According to Moscow, Ukraine’s long-awaited counter-offensive has begun, and has begun badly for Kyiv. Of course, we need to treat the Russian account with all necessary scepticism, but the evidence is that the droney, phony war stage of this campaign season is ending and the real fighting is beginning. The unverified Russian claim is that
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This week: In his cover piece, journalist Mark Galeotti asks whether Putin can be outsmarted by Zelensky’s counter-offensive. He is joined by The Spectator’s own Svitlana Morenets to discuss Ukraine’s next move. (01:08) Also this week: Journalist David Goodhart writes a moving tribute to his friend Jeremy Clarke, The Spectator’s much-missed Low Life columnist who sadly passed away earlier
Has Ukraine’s much-heralded counter-offensive already begun? At the end of last month, defence minister Oleksy Reznikov promised that ‘as soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by the commanders, we will do it’. The past few weeks have seen an upsurge in what the military describe as shaping operations, preparing the
There is a certain perverse cachet in one’s words being wilfully distorted by someone who thinks it gives their argument weight. Increasingly, the Russians are adopting this as a tactic. But the target of their disinformation appears not to be foreign audiences, but Russians themselves. I’ve never really subscribed to the view that being banned
After months of flat denials, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence has admitted that Kyiv is carrying out a campaign of sabotage and assassination inside Russia. But why change the official line now? Even if this is a good cop/bad cop routine, it still risks embarrassing the president, raising questions as to how far he
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the businessman behind the Wagner mercenary army, likes accusing his political enemies of ‘treason’ for not backing him as much as he’d like. Now, though, he appears to have committed that very crime himself – with the revelation that US intelligence reports suggested he tried to cut a deal with HUR, Ukrainian military
Earlier this month, an unarmed Polish aircraft monitoring potential human smuggling and illegal fishing on the Black Sea almost ditched into the sea when a Russian Su-35 fighter engaged it over international waters. It was a reminder that while attention is inevitably focused on the land battles anticipated when Kyiv launches its spring counter-offensive, this
