Yesterday’s news about Yabloko being barred from September’s Duma elections is obviously bad, but in some ways, there is also a little silver lining to the cloud. A thread 1/ The political technologists of the Presidential Administration had apparently originally planned to let Yabloko stand to provide some minimal legitimisation to the vote, but not let it get close to the 5% threshold to get any deputies 2/

I need to stress up front that I think it is incredibly unlikely Russia would use nuclear weapons, but while Putin occasionally hints at it to scare us, some lunatics seriously advocate it. A thread 1/ Recently everyone’s “favourite” “realist” John Mearsheimer and Sergei Karaganov, the voice of intellectual lunacy in Russia’s strategic community, have talked of the “need” to use a nuke to “reestablish deterrence”
(Please note all those quotation marks...)
2/

Looking at the new UK Defence Investment Plan, with its commitment to shiny new kit, from GCAP to drone mother ships, while scaling back on fixing up soldiers' housing, I can't help but feel there are parallels with Russian military 'reform' programmes. A thread 1/ The most obvious is a focus on teeth, not tail: new weapons are all very well, but without stocks of ammo, spare parts, etc, then their value is limited. I hope I’m wrong (others are much more expert) but this looks more about procurement than investment. 2/

So the threats of Russian false flag ops and the like to prevent #Orbàn’s fall never materialised. They never were plausible, but also Moscow was quite sanguine about the risk. A short thread based on… 1/ …an interesting commentary in Rossiiskaya Gazeta by Fyodor Lukyanov, one of the Russian foreign policy commentariat's main explainers/unofficial Kremlin mouthpieces 2/
rg.ru/2026/04/13/fed…

I'm sure this will be an unpopular opinion, but while the text of the US plan for Ukraine is poorly drafted and incomplete, it is not a simple call for Ukrainian capitulation. As a starting point for something that could stop the killing, it has some promise. A few thoughts 1/ By sticking to acknowledging Russia’s de facto control of the occupied territories, it sidesteps the need for a Ukrainian constitutional referendum or even EU formal acceptance. This doesn’t preclude some peaceful future reunification, Germany-style 2/

Assuming this does convey the real tenor of the current proposals, there is so much that is delusional. Let me just pick on 2 specific elements: the 'line of contact' and the 'negotiations on the governance of occupied territories' 1/

https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1980672315282382853

What 'line of contact'? Just ask all those OSINTers trying to draw their maps. This is a messy, scrappy war, where both sides 'lines' overlap and interpenetrate, because they are often made up of handfuls of guys trying to dodge drones and hold a treeline here, a dugout there 2/

7 October – Putin’s 73rd birthday. I won’t wish him many happy returns, but let’s just spend a moment pondering the dilemmas that will likely face him in the coming year 1/ Obviously, there’s the war. He seems to have chosen to squander the chance to fix the current front line with a deal negotiated through Trump, so the meatgrinder continues. His gamble is clearly that he can get a better deal yet but… 2/

It’s easy (and not wholly untrue) to slam Vladimir Medinsky, leading the Russian delegation to Istanbul as a nobody, but perversely, although I think it monstrously unlikely anything meaningful will come from the talks, the composition of the delegation is encouraging. A 🧵 1/ Putin was never likely to attend, not least as he wasn’t going to allow it to look as if he had been manipulated and dared by Zelensky. Besides… 2/

Moscow is still noncommittal on the Ukraine ceasefire proposal. Why? A short thread 1/ Putin wants Kursk recaptured first. If there is any chance the ceasefire front line ends up freezing as a de facto border, he doesn't feel he can leave any Russian territory in Ukrainian hands. 2/

Leaving #MSC2025 (exhausted!) there’s been lots of bullish comment about Europe getting its act together and “the resistance begins” (how telling that its resistance to the USA, not Russia or China…). But… 1/ How far will it last outside the hothouse atmosphere of the MSC, and the competitive, performative desire to out-bluster the last speaker? I don’t doubt the sentiment it’s that I honestly don’t know what happens when faced with the costs and transposed into the real world 2/

My man Nicky P, Nikolai Patrushev, is giving interviews again (lots of spare time to fill, I suspect), this time in Komsomolskaya Pravda. A thread 1/
kp.ru/daily/27651/50… His key point is that the world is changing (hardly novel) and by implication the old status quo (= current world order) is obsolete: “we are witnessing serious changes in the world. I mean not only the geopolitical situation, but also the state of affairs in the economy, the technological sphere, social and cultural processes. The last time such tectonic shifts occurred was after the collapse of the USSR.” 2/

Putin’s problems build in Ukraine, but he’s finding help in Brussels
The focus isn't so much on what's highlighted in the title, but anyway, here's my roundup of the situation for @thetimes (£) - some quick takeaways 1/
thetimes.com/world/russia-u… On Monday's 'Reunification Day' 'celebrations', Putin asserted the “genuinely liberating nature” of his invasion and crowed that “all the goals we have set for ourselves will be achieved”. Hardly, but at present he has some reasons to be content 2/

It’s interesting how the Russian press is handling the specific case of Vadim Krasikov, the Spetsnaz turned contract killer turned FSB assassin, whom Putin welcomed first at Vnukovo. A thread about how the outlier (positive) coverage is perversely (slightly) good news. 1/ Most newspaper play it straight and low-key: they note the confirmation that he was an FSB’s Al’fa commando, convicted of killing “Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who lived in Germany,” a former Chechen “field commander.” 2/
vedomosti.ru/politics/news/…

Cranking up the Murder Machine?
There has been a steadily-escalating Russian covert ops campaign in Europe over the past year, but the latest news of an assassination plot seems to represent something of a big deal. A thread 1/
thetimes.com/world/europe/a… In short, the claim is that Moscow had plans to kill Armin Papperger, head of the German arms firm Rheinmetall, along with other senior figures in the European defence-industrial complex 2/
edition.cnn.com/2024/07/11/pol…

Col. Gen. Sergei Beseda, head of the FSB’s 5th Service, retires
A thread on what I think this means. 1/
storage.googleapis.com/istories/news/… Just a reminder: the 5th Service, the Operational Info & International Relations Service, has other duties but especially runs agents in ex-Soviet countries and as such was meant to have a massive network in Ukraine, that largely failed to materialise in 2022 2/
rusi.org/explore-our-re…

Rather depressing that new Defence Minister Belousov is sporting a uniform now for Security Council, even if he has the silver stars of a civil servant, not gold of a general. Performative dress does matter though – a short thread 1/ Until Shoigu, civilian defence ministers wore suits – even Sergei Ivanov, who as a former FSB general did have the legit right to go uniformed. Apart from just being less tacky, it also symbolised civilian control of the military 2/

Nikolai Patrushev becomes a Presidential Aide
We were all wondering where he would go - this is an interesting move, sideways and a little downward, but the exact angle of that downward slide remains to be seen. A few thoughts... 1/
meduza.io/en/news/2024/0… The position of Presidential Aide (henceforth PrA) is an ambiguous one. It doesn't mean the person who fetches Putin's tea and arranges his pencils (unless that's what Putin wants done!), so much as once of his general purpose henchmen 2/

At great threat to my mental wellbeing, another dip into today’s Russian press around the Crocus City terrorist attack. A thread. 1/ The high-circulation Argumenty i Fakty (incidentally where Patrushev most often gives his interviews) has no doubts, as shown by this front page. Islamic State? No, it was the Collective West and their Ukrainian puppets 2/

Reading today's government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta in many ways illustrates the key dynamics around the Crocus terrorist attack. A short thread 1/ We have Putin's remote (in every sense) meeting, at which he reluctantly admits jihadists committed the attack but repeats his claim that it connects to "a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country since 2014 at the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime" 2/

Sudden excitement from some quarters: ‘OMG, Russia now admitting war in Ukraine is a war, not a “special military op”’. The truth, as ever, is rather less exciting, but an interesting semantic-political tale 1/ The source is an interview with presidential spox Peskov in AiF in which he does indeed say ‘we are at war…’ 2/
aif.ru/politics/world…

“Start with yourself, Comrade Dugin”
A broadside attack on Alexander Dugin appears in Moskovsky Komsomolets. A couple of quotes and thoughts... 1/
mk.ru/social/2024/03… "People want to have an income, a pension and peace of mind in the future. And they are offered an eternal battle and endless belt-tightening in a dystopian society literally divided along Brahminical lines. There is an elite - and everyone else." 2/