In Moscow's Shadows 239: Wars Foreign and Domestic

Wars, foreign and domestic, or to put it another way, the current conflict in Iran and potential conflict within the Russian underworld.

Hello, I'm Mark Galliotti, and welcome to my view of Russia in Moscow Shadows.

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Hello, and before I get started on talking about the Iran War, I just had to share something I noticed in yesterday's muskowski cum simoleates that I think must have been their absolute dream headline.

A Brazilian transvestite mercenary of the Ukrainian armed forces was killed in Kupiansk, I mean from their point of view, it has everything.

A little touch of racism, some anti-transphobia, the fact that it's the degenerate Ukrainians who are hiring as a mercenary, and the fact that also it ended with the person's death.

As I said, someone must have loved that bit of news. But anyway, let's move on to Iran.

And I want to start with this acclaims account was in the Washington Post that the Russians have been sharing intelligence targeting intelligence with the Iranians.

Now, once you'll always start with a certain degree of caution for these kind of stories, which are just simply sourced to anonymous insiders, particularly because I have a feeling that well, my sense is the Washington Post can at times be a bit of a stench.

Another stenographer for deliberate strategic leaks from the American intelligence community, or certain corners, shall we say, of the administration that want to put their word out.

So some degree of caution, but on the other hand, it's not at all implausible.

Now, in that context, I mean, first of all, I was astonished at the furore from certain quarters of the American particularly political establishment about how awful this was and how dare Russia do so.

It was an astonishing display of clueless and sanctimonious hypocrisy, considering that America has for years not simply been providing the Ukrainians with targeting data, but also the weapons in order to carry out the strikes and knowing certainly suggesting that the Russians are doing the letter.

So, you know, there is a degree of self-awareness needed here, but in any case, from the Russians point of view, I think this represents, I would have thought, a fairly safe compromise option.

After all, they don't want to look as if they're completely ignoring the plight of one of their strategic partners, but on the other hand, they neither can nor want to actually get directly involved.

So this is something that they can actually provide, and it's probably things like satellite information, maybe some electronic intelligence gathering.

The sort that, yes, will help the Ukrainians do some targeting, and also the crucial but often ignored issue of battle damage assessment.

In other words, actually working out what your last salvo actually did, so that you know if you need to launch another salvo or you need to slightly correct your aim or similar.

And this is absolutely useful for the Iranians, but not totally crucial. And therefore, again, it's a sort of thing which can probably go under the radar.

I mean, I noticed that White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt said that this was irrelevant, which is an interesting way of saying, it may well be true, but we don't want to act on it.

And she's also added that Trump was unlikely to abandon the Ukraine negotiations because of it.

And likewise, one of the testosterone font Secretary of Defense, sorry, Secretary for War, Pete Hegseth also assured the country that Washington wasn't concerned about this.

It's worth dwelling on in this for a moment because I have a suspicion that a similar pattern would also apply in the...

Still unlikely, but perhaps getting a little bit more likely, scenario of China making a move on Taiwan.

China would obviously pressurize Russia to provide some degree of assistance.

Though Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary's Mark Rutte's claim that Xi Jinping would just simply ring up Putin, tell him to invade Europe in order to distract NATO, and Putin would meekly do it, is of course nonsensical.

But on the other hand, exactly the Russians would really not want to get kinetically involved.

So I suspect that they would find that all of their ships are, you know, needing maintenance or lost at sea or whatever else.

But on the other hand, this kind of indirect assistance, jamming, electronic intelligence gathering, all that kind of thing, is something they could try and provide it simply as a stop to Beijing.

So that's why I think it's worth noting this.

But I don't think it says again how a significant political impact.

Of course, the economic impact is already visible, prices are up.

Again, as I mentioned in the past, I don't think the Russians are counting their chickens quite.

They feel this conflict really needs to go on for several more weeks for it to have a substantive long-term impact.

I mean, they'll happily make whatever profit they can in the short term.

More striking is that in response to the global crisis, which is going to have all kind of knock on effects, you know, it will be an inflationary event.

The United States has temporarily waived sanctions on the Indians buying oil from Russia.

And I think this is something a pattern week we are going to see.

Of course, India said, well, they didn't need to have American permission.

Thank you very much.

But again, it's a sign of the degree to which even the Americans have to recognize a certain degree of indispensability of the Russians within the global economy.

So remember that next time someone talks about, well, why don't we just totally cut the Russians off?

But of course, this is America's special military operation.

And in that context, the Russians, I think, are...

Well, at once a little incredulous and at once a little gleeful about what's going on.

I mean, certainly there is a degree of cautious and amazed anticipation at the growing sense that there may be an American ground forces deployment in Iran.

Now, look, I really don't know or think that that's especially likely at the moment.

But the very fact that what was initially absolutely being ruled out, that this was going to be a purely aerial operation,

now we're beginning to see more discussion of some kind of possible ground forces component,

even though early suggestions that the CIA was going to arm the Kurds has been sort of backed away from,

not least because both Iraq and above all Turkey would be deeply, deeply hostile to that notion.

But anyway, what are the Russians thinking about this idea of American deployment of ground troops?

Look, some degree of anti-Americanism here, that sense of ho ho ho,

they're going to be sucked into another quagmire, kind of Iraq, Afghanistan, you name it 2.0.

And it's worth noting that this conflict is boosting a certain degree of anti-Americanism in Russia.

It's not a really powerful palpable force yet, I don't think, but nonetheless, it's there.

But there is also a rather more cerebral response, which is of course that not only is this going to leave the United States distracted,

but also willy-nilly Europe, that Europe will be dragged into this.

And to some degree, we can already see this, for example, with the British,

no, you can't use our bases.

Oh, yes, you can use our bases after all, but only for defensive strikes.

Be aware, by the way, in war, it is almost impossible to draw a nice neat sharp legalistic division

between offensive and defensive operations.

So it's a clumsy and ugly fudge, and I say this as someone who likes fudge.

So, you know, already we're getting that sense that, and now that Britain has sort of pledged itself

to send not only a warship, but also an aircraft carrier, into the Mediterranean, that Europe may well get involved.

Now, whether it really will, I mean, one could look at, for example, the very strong pushback we had from Spain,

I'm not going to totally convinced, but remember, view this through the Russian's own prism,

or when I say the Russians, the Kremlin's prism.

Now, for them, NATO is still essentially America's Warsaw Pact,

and therefore, when it comes down to it, they do feel that if America gets sucked into a ground war,

and if America is looking to spread the pain and the burden, then it will demand some kind of deployments,

or some kind of at least sort of second order support from its European allies,

and all or most of them will be forced to comply.

So, you know, from their point of view, there is the prospect that this will drag Europe in its wake.

And remember, Europe is the country that is providing the most assistance to Ukraine,

and which is very much seen as increasingly the force behind the continuation of this war.

If Europe is also dragged into yet another American Middle East of Adventure,

not only is this can provide absolutely fruitful grounds for Russian propagandists and political technologists,

looking to widen fault lines and divisions between and within European countries,

and along the Atlantic Ocean, but also it just simply creates issues of just practical capacity.

How many conflicts can Europe get involved in at once?

But speaking of the inevitable parallels, and it's worth noting that that whole special military operation and peace

meme is now getting circulated again.

One particular parallel with the Russian war in Ukraine is that I was going to say the declared American war aim,

but maybe I should be a little bit more accurate and say the current declared American war aim,

because it does have a tendency to shift rather quickly.

Anyway, the idea is that this war will continue until Iran is no longer able to threaten the United States.

And I can't help but feel that that formulation is in some ways the equivalent of Putin's claim

that the special military operation continues until the completed denarcification of Ukraine.

First of all, both of these terms are sufficiently ambiguous, that they can be defined as the invading power decrees.

So in other words, it is easy for the Americans to say after a certain point of having degraded so much of Iran's military, political and coercive apparatus.

They can just simply say, well, Iran is now defanged, they can no longer threaten us, therefore mission accomplished we can all go home.

And likewise, denarcification. I mean, on one level, of course, it can have, and I'll come onto this in a moment,

very, very dramatic implications about regime change and the like.

But it can also be essentially declared at any point, because Ukraine is not a Nazi state.

So they can just simply say, you see, Ukraine's not a Nazi state. That's thanks to us, as if at some point it had been.

So a certain degree of room for constructive ambiguity, but also that it implies regime change without making it explicit.

I mean, it is clear that Trump wants to see regime change in Iran. He has said himself that it should select a leader that he is willing to approve,

astonishing degree of hubris there, but again, path of the course. But at other times, they are saying that this is not for the Americans to introduce regime change,

but also what does regime change mean? You know, it can mean popular revolutions sweeping away all aspects of the governing system,

or it could be Venezuela style in which the same regime survives, but with a different person that it's head,

and a certain degree of different more conciliatory policies adopted, even if only temporarily, to allow Trump to be able to claim, again, mission accomplished.

So very, very ambiguous war aims. And on one level, that's a good thing for the United States in that it provides it with that degree of maneuvering room for when it says that the war has gone far enough.

But it's also problematic in that clearly it's hard to really develop a serious strategy when you don't really know where you want to get to, or rather when I say hard, it's actually impossible.

What else can one say about the Iran war? Well, I think that there's some problematic lessons for Russian diplomacy.

I mentioned anti-Americanism before, and I really should stress that I don't think there is any kind of a strong anti-American feeling within Russian society as a whole.

They remain avid consumers of American films and TV, and there is that sense of a certain sort of commonality of the citizens of great powers and such like.

However, there is, I would suggest, a kind of, let's say, professional anti-Americanism evident within the expert and policy making classes in which they clearly regard America.

And this predates Trump as hard to read unpredictable problematic course and antagonist.

And certainly, what's happened in the last week or so has emphasized this degree to which Russians are being told we cannot trust America.

Now, to a degree, this is rhetorical. To a degree, this is just simply a handy propaganda line. It fits in with Putin's whole notion of Russia as a beleaguered fortress, therefore everyone must pull together and any kind of descent is tantamount to treason to the whole nation.

But I do think it is more than just simply rhetorical. I think there is a certain degree of shock and dismay that in the midst of negotiations, and I really would underline that.

And fine, maybe these negotiations weren't going to get anywhere, but still in the midst of negotiations, the Americans joined with the Israelis in launching massive and catastrophic airstrikes and basically starting a war against Iran.

And so there is that sense that negotiations with the Americans should be treated very cautiously because from the American perspective, they may well all be a gambit in order just to set the other country up for a surprise attack.

But it's worth noting I don't actually think that this was some sinister plan by the White House. I'm not convinced the White House has it in itself at the moment to carry out long term complex plans.

I think it was, as we've heard, essentially driven by the Israeli time frame. The Israelis were going to attack and therefore the Americans felt that they had to join in.

But still, from the Russian point of view, they find it hard to believe that Israel really is in a position to pull the great United States around by the nose.

So one of the light motifs of Russian commentary at the moment is a degree of outraged caution, shall you say.

I hit a couple of quotes that will be familiar to my patrons from the last government Moscow press monitoring bulletin.

But in last Sunday's muskowski comes some all-ets, for example, there was actually a large article which was headlined.

It's time for us to wake up. Negotiations with the United States always end with missiles fired at the Capitol.

And likewise, we had Fyodor Lukyanov, who is one of the highest profiles foreign policy experts and commentators.

He was saying in the government newspaper, which is worth noting, Recyzga Gazieta, what conclusions will those who are engaged in diplomatic negotiations or who will be draw from this?

Trust nothing at all, rely only on yourself and your own strengths.

Now, Lukyanov is certainly not one of the rabid hawks of the scene.

I mean, he clearly is not a maverick peacenick.

And he's the person who, after all, at the annual Valdei conference, he's the guy who, year after year, gets to interview Putin on stage.

He, you know, trades a very, very fine line. But nonetheless, I think it is clear that he would be not be saying this if he did not feel that it was a line that was...

at the very least acceptable to the Kremlin.

So, I think it's worth noting that it's not just within the Middle East that Russia, sorry, that United States is, I think, burning some of its diplomatic credibility.

And finally, having talked about lessons for Russian diplomacy, it's worth noting about the lessons for Russian military.

The war in Ukraine is providing a huge amount of new insights, new operational examples, and of course, is leading to massive levels of tactical innovation in the field.

However, as I've mentioned in the past, what I don't see is any kind of clear widespread sense of how the Russians are metabolizing this experience into creating a sense of how they think

the future of war in the next few decades is going to be. And that is absolutely crucial for any kind of military reconstitution.

You know, are they just simply going to try at the end of the war and rebuild a pre-February 2022 army with a few extra drones?

Or are they going to look for some rather more dramatic reimagining of the Russian armed forces?

Is it going to be geared for mass war, in which case we will see divisions and similar larger formations very much at the heart of it,

or will it be much more again going back to the previous model, which is imagining that Russia will be involved in small-scale interventions,

in which case the old battalion tactical group notion might well get revisited.

And the thing is that at present, the issue seems to be that the Russians don't know.

The people at the very top of the system are either uncertain of the lessons that are there to be learned.

You know, they're uncertain if what Ukraine is showing is how war in the future will be,

or just simply is a particular war because of particular circumstances.

I mean, yes, of course, there's going to be drones and everything else, but you know, is Ukraine's war?

This war of infiltration and small-scale operations, really the picture that they should be following.

And in part, let's be honest, people like Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov, who is an after a tank man,

you know, he doesn't want to see the idea of a war in which tanks are increasingly irrelevant.

So at the moment, a combination of a lack of imagination at the very top of the Russian military,

a lack of clear understanding of the lessons being learned from Ukraine,

the conservatism, many at the top of the system, including particularly within the General Staff Academy,

which is the kind of the main intellectual engine, which would be driving these kind of doctrinal changes,

is making it hard for them to really see away through.

And obviously, this war provides a whole new set of experiences and observations.

And in particular, it is leading to a sort of dusting off of the concept developed by Major General Vladimir Slipchenko,

who came up with this notion of for the current military revolution, non-contact war.

The idea that it really war is going to be fought through long-range stand-off attacks with precision-guided munitions,

rapid kill chains, in other words, moving quickly from spotting a target to actually be able to hit it,

which requires what they call the reconnaissance strike complex.

And he said, fundamental concepts such as front, rear and forward line are changing.

They're now passe and being replaced by just two phrases, target and non-target for a high precision remote strike.

Now, on one level what's going on in Iran would seem absolutely to vindicate this.

You know, we had the Americans and the Israelis able to launch with, frankly, a high degree of impunity,

these very accurate, very powerful long-range strikes, which have not just killed the supreme leader Ali Hamenye,

but also a whole slew of other senior figures, essentially sunk the Iranian navy, blasted away so many of their defensive and offensive locations,

and so like, you know, it would seem to be a real vindication of this kind of non-contact war,

which has also been to a degree visible in Ukraine, although not as Slipchenker had envisaged.

So the question is, is Iran going to tip the Russians that way and show the value of this kind of non-contact war?

Although, will it actually show that these kind of operations can damage the enemy, but not destroy them?

Again, so much will depend on whether it actually works.

Whether, for example, the Iranian Islamic regime does indeed collapse, whether it has its force to sue for peace,

or whether it really can get into a defensive crouch, hunker down, strike back against a whole variety,

not just American, but American allies targets, and hope that diplomatic pressure begins to build against Washington,

and just simply outlast the American capacity and the Israeli capacity to actually be able to deliver these strikes.

I mean, these are incredibly expensive weapons in many cases.

Not the drones that the Americans are using now, so called Lucas, low cost ones, but certainly all these highly precise attacking and defending missile systems.

So, we wait and see, but whatever happens in Iran, it certainly will also have quite an impact on how the Russians imagine a future war,

and therefore the shape of military reconstitution.

Anyway, so that's Iran. Now, a break, and let's turn to matters domestic, and my old friends, the Russian gangsters.

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So, I've mentioned in the past that there are tensions rising within the Russian underworld.

And a status quo that has lasted really quite some time, and to a degree which the state has also sought to preserve, is increasingly under pressure.

And I've tended to talk in more general terms about shifting smuggling routes, different commodities, that kind of thing.

Well, I think it's about time to perhaps put some faces, put some human stories into this general thing.

And in that context, talk about some rivalries at the very top of the system.

At the end of last year, Lili Acherina, the editor-in-chief of the Prime Crime News Agency.

And actually, I must stop briefly to mention this.

PrimeCrim.ru website is this astonishing source for all kinds of news, and often gossip about gangsters.

And it's one in which it's so fascinating that one can almost see, I hesitate to call them fanboys and fangirls.

But certainly, people who are, you know, shall say civilians, people who are not directly involved, they're not criminals, they're not journalists, right about criminals or whatever.

But just simply who will opine and pass on snippets of information, ranging from who they saw eating at their local restaurant, to what they actually think about, what's going to happen next, about this criminal or that.

And as a source of information about the Russian underworld, it is extraordinary.

But as an anthropological dig into the continued fascination with gangsters that one finds within Russian society, it is no less worthy.

So that's PrimeCrim.ru. But anyway, to return.

So Karina was interviewed in Lienta, Lienta new service, and she observed 2025 had been relatively quiet within the Russian underworld.

But not because everything was fine, but because there was this tense balance of terror.

And she said, the thieves conflict has reached a deadlock, and it's clear there's no way to resolve it.

The one who survives the longest will be the one who stays in the right.

And yes, this deadlock is worth talking about. And it's there for a variety of reasons.

First of all, as I say, especially since 2022, there have been these growing tensions within the underworld.

One of the key factors was of course the sudden sundering of the up to that point, amazingly harmonious criminal relationships between the gangsters in Russia and the gangsters in Ukraine.

Their countries may have been at de facto war, but the underworld was just happy to cooperate and make a lot of money.

And therefore Ukraine was an absolutely crucial stop-off point in routes carrying drugs, guns, people, counterfeit goods, you name it into Europe.

That all ended suddenly people were scrambling to find new routes, criminal gangs which had become very prosperous by sitting on these routes and being able to in effect tax them were suddenly now desperately looking for new sources of income or just simply on the slide.

Other routes such as through the South Caucasus particularly Armenia were becoming more important and therefore the gangs which could control that were able to extract more revenue.

So new routes, new commodities inevitably that means new winners and new losers.

And under normal circumstances one would have imagined that that would have led to a whole variety of conflicts which need not actually involve guns in the street.

Sometimes these conflicts are fought by persuasion, intimidation or just simply payment.

But there was a sense to agree to which both the criminal hierarchy and also the state didn't want to let change happen.

There was a feeling that allowing minor changes, minor revisions to the status quo, would make the whole system unravel and lead to violent chaos.

So there was attempted to basically damp things down to control the situation.

There was also an artificial lack of social mobility, particularly within the more traditionalist criminals who still crave the title of Vordava Zakonya.

Thief within the code literally thief within the law but that doesn't really make sense.

That is the old style sort of highest rank of criminal godfather.

Frankly I would suggest that it's increasingly artificial, especially the Russian Slavic criminals don't really care so much about that title but it's still very much prized by criminals from the South and the North Caucasus, Georgia in particular actually.

And generally speaking it matters to be considered a Vord, even at least amongst your own circle.

Now the thing is there had been an essential moratorium on approved new what they call coronations of Vordava Zakonya for pretty much a decade.

And what that meant was that the rising wannabes, the new bloods were feeling increasingly unhappy with the status quo.

And meanwhile the state's just trying to keep everything quiet.

And the key figure in all this remains the most powerful gangster in Russia still.

Not like as if he actually runs everything in Russia.

But nonetheless the individually most powerful criminal is the Georgian Russian Vordava Zakonya, Zakharika Lashov,

who's more widely known by his underworld teach guy, his nickname, Shakoro Malodoy, Shakoro the Younger.

Yes there was a one to one a time, a Shakoro the Elder.

He is nonetheless I would say increasingly resented both because of this moratorium and also for his autocratic ways, especially in Moscow itself,

which is not whole of the Russian underworld, but it is still the wealthiest hub of activities.

Nonetheless Shakoro Malodoy is no insignificant figure, he survived at least ten assassination attempts throughout his career.

And he's now 72.

Many are frankly waiting for his death or for him to withdraw from power for reasons of ill health.

But although there are rumors of serious health problems and everyone's always saying,

oh Shakoro Malodoy is going to be dead soon, so far his health seems rather fine.

And he has no clearly identified successor.

By the way does this all remind you of anyone?

I mean it is fascinating that there was the old hermeneutic principle as above so below.

And I can't help but feel that in this respect Malodoy is or Shakoro rather is the Putin of the Russian underworld.

But anyway that's just a little sideline.

The thing is, Shakoro knows how to work with the authorities.

For example he absolutely crucially shifted public opinion, so I would say opinion within the underworld on fighting in Ukraine.

And remembering 2022 it was the Wagner mercenary army that began trying to recruit in the prison camp system.

And initially it faced quite a bit of pressure, particularly push back from within the traditionalist criminal community who said that no,

you should not be going and fighting in this state's war.

That's not what we do.

Because after all there was a long tradition which frankly did break up in the so-called bitches war of the late forties and 1950s.

But the old tradition of the Vorovskoy near the criminal world was that you never ever cooperated with the authorities and that included fighting in wars.

So at one point you actually did have the traditionalists who are a minority, a small minority, frankly within the professional criminal community.

But one that has unexpectedly high levels of cohesion, but also kind of a wider influence within that encapsulated social world of the prison camp system.

And then Shakoro Molodoy turns up and he encourages convicts actually to sign up in a statement that was then broadcast on prison television.

In the Vladimir Kostroma, Magadan and Novosibirsk regions immediately after Putin's new year address, I mean that was a very telling thing and obviously the word went out more generally through the criminal grapevine.

And that very much I think shifted opinion and unblocked way for a lot more convicts to feel that it was wise or acceptable at least to go and sign up.

So you know he knows when he has to make a deal with the authorities.

Nonetheless, Shakoro certainly is facing pressures.

The obvious remaining rival to him is another Georgian, Badri and Berkiewicz Koboashvili, who is more widely known as Badri Kutaiski, Badri from Kutai.

Now, Badri is a slightly younger, distinctly more a bane, albeit certainly by no less dangerous figure.

Another word of a zakornier since Soviet times.

And his relationship with Shakoro is a complex one.

About, I'm trying to think we've been 15, 16, 17 years ago now.

Anyway, Badri felt a foul of Diet Hassan, whose real name was Aslan Usoyan, who in his day, and he was assassinated in 2013,

in his day Hassan was one of the key figures within the Russian underworld, maybe even the key figure.

And at the time, it was Shakoro who intervened, argued Badri's case to Hassan, and essentially got the beef settled.

So, Badri owed Shakoro, and he rose steadily, became the second most powerful thief.

I'm using the word thief because the Russians use it as a sort of overall term for organized crime figure.

Anyway, second most powerful thief in Moscow.

And when, in 2018, Shakoro was convicted on a slew of charges and sent to a maximum security penal colony.

It was Badri, who ended up being what in underworld terms is his smatriashi, his watcher.

So, in other words, his kind of local representative in Moscow.

He was still very much just simply communicating and enforcing Shakoro's will from behind bars, razor wire, high fences and the like.

But the point is, this clearly gave him a very significant position within the overall underworld.

In summer of 2023, though, Shakoro's parole appeal was rejected.

And he apparently began to suspect that it was Badri, who had pulled strings to keep him in,

I.K. 2, Dvorbratsky, in Krasnodar territory, precisely because he was unwilling to see the throne of Moscow to its rightful owner as one newspaper article put it.

Oh, incidentally, there's another website I'll mention, F. Atlas, F. Hypen, Atlas.ru.

That lists Russian prison camps and the like.

Their addresses, their governors, how to transfer money to inmates, all that kind of stuff.

That also even allows people to leave reviews.

And in that context, I.K. 2, Dvorbratsky just gets one star out of five.

So, obviously, not a particularly fun place.

Nonetheless, Shakoro got out in 2024.

And while he was kind of mustering his resources at first things seemed quiet.

But then, again, he needed to spend a bit of time just sounding out what the situation was, making sure that he had his loyalist and so forth.

In 2025, at a gathering of criminal kingpins, there actually had been assembled by Badri because he had a particular dispute with some others.

Shakoro expressed his lack of confidence in him.

In effect, kind of sacking him as the boss of the Moscow underworld.

Now, you'd think that this would mean war.

But Badri knew that he was in a bit of a tough spot.

That Shakoro had been able to repair and he hadn't.

Conversely, Shakoro was no longer certain that he would survive a war with Badri.

So, there was a sense of mutually assured destruction at work.

And also, the authorities were able and had been able to work with both.

And they definitely wanted everything calm.

And so, they made it clear in some ways that whichever one of them throws the first punch or rather fires the first shot,

it will be the state that fires the last one.

And essentially, whoever starts the war will lose it.

And so, now we're in a situation in which they still coexist relatively peacefully.

I imagine with gritted teeth at hands on holstered pistols.

But I do wonder what's going to happen if and when one or the other looks vulnerable

or the wider context the status quo starts to destabilize.

And that brings me to the last development in this tale that I want to recount.

Recently, a 38-year-old Vova Zakonya, Pyruz Kavlelashvili, known within the underworld as Pyro-Domaniski, visited Moscow.

Because again, he wanted to serve notice to both Shakoro and Badri that he had a dispute with Levan Sinzadze,

whose his underworld name is rather a simple Kostya.

Anyway, both Pyro and Kostya have been Vova Zakonya since 2012 when they were crowned in Greece

during the chaotic interregnum between Yedhasan's murder and Shakoro's release from a Spanish prison,

which is a whole other story there.

They've long been daggers drawn, in part, I think because they are widely regarded as variable.

And both of them can entertain thoughts of one day being the next big beast when it's their generation's turn.

But there's another wrinkle.

Pyro is in effect a free agent who has cooperated perfectly amicably with Badri in the past,

though I wouldn't say he's Badri's man as such.

On the other hand, Kostya is definitely Shakoro's man.

And Shakoro had entrusted him with a number of sensitive jobs and negotiations for him.

And it's an open secret, frankly.

The Shakoro would love to see him take Badri's place.

So like it or not, this conflict is going to become a kind of proxy conflict between Badri and Shakoro.

And obviously like all proxy conflicts, it brings with it the risk that the principles will be sucked in directly.

And then, well, there's one last wrinkle to this.

Shakoro is 72, Badri is 61.

There's going to be a generational shift at some point.

But almost certainly in that case, well, someone like Badri has got more years in him,

unless someone ensures that he doesn't.

But meanwhile, there are other contenders.

Like 64-year-old Lasha Shoshanashvili, Lasha Rostavsky.

Now, he's operated in his native Georgia, as well as in Russia, Ukraine, Western Europe.

He was a close associate of the lead late Dietkassan.

And although genuinely in poor health, certainly he was seen in a wheelchair in a recent court appearance,

he still can't be overlooked.

So there are all sorts of contenders.

But what's striking is, they are all essentially Georgian.

Now, why is that? Well, firstly, look, there was a long tradition of Georgian organized crime operating within Russia,

even going back to Soviet times.

But also much more specifically, in 2005, the Republic of Georgia passed,

actually turned out to be a very effective law against the so-called Kanonye Rikurdebi,

who was their term for the Vordi Vizakonia, which actually criminalized the status.

So in other words, you didn't actually have to be convicted of carrying out a specific crime,

you could just be convicted on the grounds that you were a Vordi Vizakonia.

And this, predictably enough, led to a great diaspora of gangsters out into, you know, all over the world.

I mean, you see them quite a few of them are in Europe, it's worth mentioning.

But of course, a huge number went to Russia because there they could operate, they already had their connections and such like.

And this exacerbated an existing trend of a sort of bifurcation of the Russian underworld between the Russian Slavic figures

and those who really hail from the wider Caucasus region.

So everyone from Chechen, to Armenians, to Georgians.

And this is precisely where the old culture of the Vorovsky Mir and the importance of being a Vordi Vizakonia is so important.

And the tensions between these, I would suggest, are rising.

Not so much because of kind of specific beefs, but just simply because they have very different approaches.

For the Russians, they're less interested in the old traditions and the old mindset.

And increasingly, they are rather dominated by the more commercially minded so-called Aftoritieti authorities,

who are criminal businessmen, who will carry out crimes, but also get involved in regular business.

They don't really care, they just want to be rich and safe.

And although in December, Shakaro attended the funeral ceremony for Avera, that's Viktor Averin,

who was the leading figure within the massive and powerful Sonsiver organized crime network,

who drowned in a boating accident, which probably was indeed an accident.

Nonetheless, there is this growing tension.

And, you know, Russian gangs like Sonsiver are increasingly, I think, looking at scants

at the disproportionately powerful position that the Caucasus gangs and the Vordi Vizakonia have within the underworld.

I mean, if one looks specifically at the crowned Vordi Vizakonia, there are some 400 of them worldwide.

And, okay, there's only certain amount you can actually base it on, but if you're looking at their surnames,

only about 44 of them have clearly Russian surnames, and half of that 44 are in prison.

So, you know, it gives a sense, again, treat that figure with some caution because surnames only tell you a certain amount,

said Mark Galliotti, who does not sound like your average Italian.

But nonetheless, it does give a sense of the disproportionate way in which the traditional Vordi Vizakonia are not on the whole Russians.

And, it doesn't mean that there aren't Russian kingpins, they just operate within that different criminal culture.

Particularly because after the success of the Georgian law in 2005, the Russians brought in Article 210 clause 1 of their own criminal code,

which likewise criminalized being a Vord.

So, there is this sense of a gathering storm.

One could see a whole variety of different triggers.

That's a nasty mixing of metaphors, storms don't get triggered, but anyway.

We could see trouble start in the provinces, or even abroad, and a destabilization that then spreads to Moscow.

And in particular, I do think that this conflict between Pirol and Kostya could absolutely be quite such a trigger.

Or we could see this, for example, if Kadirov dies in Chechnya, and the Chechen criminal diaspora is sucked into a wider power struggle,

in which each side looks to activate its own allies.

Badri may well get impatient, as I say, he's 61, you know, he wants to be enjoying position at the top of the Pyramid at the moment.

Indeed, so might perhaps with even more reason, Lasha Shushanashvili, whose health is providing a much more clear sense of a ticking clock.

Shakhro, feeling power ebb away from him, may well feel that he's never going to be in a better position to strike,

and therefore better take a gamble now than actually risk it being a much, much longer odds gamble in a year or two years or three years or whatever.

Or, of course, Shakhro may die, in which case all bets are off.

In theory, the state might, for example, throw its weight behind Badri, just simply thinking better the devil, you know.

But even then, I think that would be unlikely to be a neat and even transition of power.

And in any of these cases, and there's probably more scenarios I haven't outlined, all bets would be off.

I suspect that the Russian and non-Russian gangs would be highly unlikely to agree on a neat replacement.

The Russians may well feel that this is their chance to actually assert themselves over the Caucasians,

which again would be a problem for Badri.

But more to the point, just all of these pent up tensions would risk being released.

Unless, and frankly, even if the state tries to step in in a very muscular way and assert itself.

And so this is just one more thing on the overall agenda, if one is looking at what are the potential problems facing Russia in the mid-near to mid-term future.

And just to kind of widen this out right at the end.

I mean, this for me is the central light motif of my sense of Russia's mid-term prospects.

It is not imminently facing collapse or disaster, ignore all those YouTube videos with the dramatic headlines and such like.

On one level, one can say that what Russia faces is stable but managed decline.

But almost irrespective of what happens in Ukraine.

But at the same time, there is a sense of brittleness.

There is a growing flock of black swans visible on the horizon.

From, yes, renewed turmoil within the wider Russian underworld to what happens if you get a coherent force of angry politicized veterans of the war.

From the potential for labor unrest to what could happen in Chechnya after Kadeerov.

Now, most, maybe all of these black swans will never end up fluttering toward Moscow.

But they could. That's the point.

I think this is a growing age of uncertainty and anxiety for Russia.

That there are all of these potentials.

And the problem with that is you don't know what you have to prepare for.

Because in many ways, these all actually require very different solutions and solutions mean resources.

That's the bottom line of government.

And in that context, it's a question of how do you create sufficient resilience that you can deal as well as possible with whatever black swan comes your way.

And that's something that a lot of Russia's technocrats know perfectly well.

Putin, I'm not so sure.

Well, that's the end of another episode of the in Moscow shadow podcast.

Just as a reminder, beyond this, you can follow my blog, also called in Moscow shadows.

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