In Moscow's Shadows 241: When Attack Dogs Turn

Can the virtual be actual?

From an imaginary novel people's republic to a patriotic blogger who suddenly attacks Putin,

can online furore's actually mean something in the real world?

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

This podcast of varying length, frequency and format yet always reassuringly low production

values is supported by generous and perspicacious patrons like you and also by the crisis exercise

software company Conductor.

It started just a couple of self-serving announcements.

First of all, should you happen to be in striking range of the, really rather lovely,

historical city of Chester on the 16th of April?

I'm giving a talk at the University of Chester, Russia, Ukraine and the Revenge of History.

I'll leave a link in the program notes.

Also, I was glad while in Warsaw this past week to be able to see and promote the Polish

translation of my book Forged in War, out there as, well, I will totally mispronounce this,

Skazani na wojnje, which I think means actually something more like sentence to war.

And I will just note that Forged in War is also now out in Czech, Italian, Lithuanian and

Finnish with Romanian on the way, while my more recent book, Homokliminalis, how crime

organises the world, everything from Chinese, Unica Bandit gangs of the past to how

3D printing can revolutionise the underworld of the future.

Anyway, it is now in Dutch, French and Italian as well, with Portuguese, Romanian, Estonian,

Slovak and Spanish to come. And there's more details of various books and the various

translations on my in Moscow shadows webpage. Anyway, I want to start with looking at what's

going on in Nava. All more to the point, what is not going on in Nava. Over the past month or so,

social media accounts popped up promoting the idea of separating Nava and the surrounding

either Vieru County from Estonia and creating a so-called Nava People's Republic. I mean,

the clear parallel with the Danieck and Lukansk People's Republic of the Donbass.

And look, much of this is really just a mix of internet and memes, apparently cat pictures and

provocative jokes. But a closer look reveals that, you know, there is this attempt to portray Nava,

which is after all the Estonian city that is right on the border. Essentially, it looks across

the river at the Russian city of Yvangorod and is often sort of raised in the, I think, pretty

mythical, but I'll come to that, notions that there's a sort of a Nava next narrative in which

the Russians, after finishing off with Ukraine, decide to move into Estonia. But anyway, this attempt

to promote it as a separate political entity and creating this kind of Nava People's Republic.

Well, it's clearly nothing much there. I mean, there seems to be just a couple of genuine

followers. One account said, aside from the administrator, going by the name N1, and active

across multiple chat groups, there was a dock worker from Silemaay and one more potential rebel from

Tallinn. Now, of course, the actual reach of these social media posts increased dramatically,

but the people who joined were almost certainly journalists or others who were curious and following

it rather than die-hards who are saying, no, we need to have a Russian-speaking Nava People's Republic.

In part, this is presumably just a bit of water-mitty-ish fantasy. In part, it may well be a Russian

propaganda exercise, not because they actually have any intention of moving into this area.

There is no evidence of a desire on the part of Putin. There is no evidence of a desire on the

part of the people of Nava. Yes, they're Russian speakers. Yes, especially before 2014 and the

annexation of Crimea, there was a certain political utility in pushing the we are disenfranchised Russian

speaking Estonians line, because this is what you do in a democracy. You find a fault line issue

around which you can cohere a constituency, and then you use that to agitate for resources from

the centre. That is perhaps slightly caricaturing democracy, but that's basically how it works.

The point is that after Crimea, things got much more real. You could sort of safely play the

poor disenfranchised Estonian Russian card before that point. There were some grounds in terms

of the demand that you learned Estonian, which I mean, if I was speaking and do believe me when

I say this, this is mainly Cheung in Cheek, but having to learn Estonian does sound like a bit

of a human rights abuse, but mainly it was just simply a suitable political issue. Once it got

real though, we actually saw a dramatic decline in any kind of Russian-speaking Estonian sort of

agitation of this camp, because frankly, they had already made a choice. They could be Russian

citizens if they wanted. They have the constitutional right. They could just simply say, no, I'm going

to become a Russian. I'm going to get my Russian passport and move there, but no, they didn't.

They wanted to be part of an economically dynamic, diverse, democratic, European, union state.

But of course, the point is, from the Russians point of view, it's not actually that any such

propaganda campaign is the harbinger to some new special military operation. No,

it's about disruption. It's about creating a sense of, in battle communities, it's about

essentially trying to stir up trouble within Estonia and more broadly. So in this respect, really,

it's the story that is the story. In the sense of, it is just simply about hoping to generate

attention. And of course, in this, it does. And so there is always this dilemma. Should one just

simply ignore such provocations, which means that, for example, the media is therefore not doing

its job, but not actually informing about what's going on. Or does one run the risk that by informing,

by jumping on this story, you actually amplify it far, far more than it deserves.

This also becomes, therefore, a kind of litmus test of what people consider to be good or bad

journalists. And there's a lot of people jumping on the journalists who are kind of running stories

about it by saying, why are you doing this? The point is, though, the journalists who are doing

this are not just simply caught by Russian memes. There is a simple line that just simply says,

oh, well, the Russians start this line. And then gullible journalists fall for it. And because they,

they're looking for clickbait or whatever, they follow it. It's also, frankly, a representation of

the nature of the modern media that everyone needs to be first. Everyone needs to have a more

dramatic story. That's what actually sort of pushes the whole media cycle. So, of course,

it's going to be vulnerable to this kind of activity. So, there's nothing really here.

Or in so far as there's anything really here, it's precisely because Estonians and others

make it into a bigger deal than it deserves to be. On the other hand, just the last point I'd

make is there's an interesting parallel here with the so-called small nations of the Russian

Federation. The degree to which groups in the West who have, and I'm sorry, they have as

new as I can tell absolutely no real constituency at home. There is no strong desire for separation

within the Russian Federation from the various kind of sub-ethnicities outside of maybe Chechnya

and the North Caucasus, but certainly once upon a time. But still, that sense of, well, we have to

give them their voice. And particularly we saw this with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council

of Europe, setting up its recent, as part of its dialogue with the Russian Democratic forces.

The fact that it decided to give the representatives of indigenous peoples and national minorities

a guaranteed stake on this, essentially rather fictional, it has to be said, platform.

So, we have people like, and again, this is no casting of any aspersions on the individual

concerned, but just how much weight they've been given. Yika Therina Kuznirseva, director of the

House of Ingria in Innava, who is apparently a member of the Finno-Ugric Votian people.

And I love this little note, according to the 2021 census, approximately 100 people in Russia

identified themselves as members of this ethnic group. But nonetheless, just simply being able

to self-nominate yourself as some of this group seems to be enough to get yourself considered

to be a suitable candidate, the relative handful of candidates who are now worthy of dialogue

with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. So, I think there is an interesting

mirror imaging here, that just as the Russians are happy to play on often fictional narratives of

sub-national nationalisms, or just simply embattled and discriminated against ethnic peoples,

this temptation, frankly, to do that with the Russian Federation. But anyway, speaking of an

Internet-Furory, the main story I want to talk about today is the story about Ilya Remyersla.

This is a St. Petersburg lawyer and part-time Kremlin attack dog, who, until very recently,

had been considered to be, I mean, he was not in any way top rank, but nonetheless, one of the

various figures who handily amplified and created narratives for the Kremlin. But anyway,

on Tuesday, his 90,000 followers on Telegram received this post, labeled five reasons why I

stopped supporting Vladimir Putin. And he accused Putin of prosecuting a failing war in Ukraine that

had killed millions, I mean, it was saying it hasn't killed millions, and broken Russia's economy.

And he said, it concludes that Vladimir Putin is not a legitimate president. Vladimir Putin must

resign and be brought to trial as a war criminal and a thief. Now, the first thought that people had,

because it wouldn't be the first time, is that his account had been hacked and that, therefore,

some others had decided to put distinctly troubling and troublesome words in his mouth,

but then no. On Wednesday, he spoke with the Guardian's Pyotr Sauer and doubled down. This man,

he said, that's Putin, not Sauer, has destroyed everything he could lay his hands on, the country is

literally falling apart. And, well, so that was on Wednesday, and on Thursday, St. Petersburg's

Fontanca newspaper reported that he'd been admitted to the city's psychiatric hospital number three,

specifically, it's 16th department, which is a war dedicated to treating men, experiencing first-time

symptoms of a psychotic disorder. So, it does sound as if he turned and then the state turned

upon him. Well, maybe people say, first of all, just consider the context. It's fascinating how

many Western commentators, online figures, and so forth, suddenly describing a remistler as

some kind of key figure. Look, I'll be honest, and maybe this is just my fault, but I had at first,

I said, she couldn't even remember who the hell he was. I knew the name, but anyway, I had to

remind myself. So, I think that gives you a sense that he's not exactly a senior figure.

And, frankly, most of the times we'd heard him about him in the past, he was in the context of a

series of smears of Navalny, and he had been at the forefront of claiming all kinds of things about

Navalny, but that was clearly in the days when Navalny was the target. He was one of myriad political

entrepreneurs, essentially pimping themselves out for hire, including but not necessarily exclusively

to the presidential administration, but by no means the most senior. But nonetheless, you know,

he had been regarded as, from the Kremlin's point of view, a safe pair of hands or release pair

of lips. In the words of General Apti Aloudinov, who's the deputy head of the main military

political directorate of the Ministry of Defence, he was considered an absolutely adequate pro-Russian

and pro-presidential person who had very extensive connections in our intelligence services

and the presidential administration. That said, it might be slightly overgilding the Lily there,

but nonetheless, it sounds like a big step for Remeslo to actually decide to bite the hand

that feeds him and the hand that can grab him and send him to all sorts of nasty places.

So, what do I think is going on? Well, there's a whole series of theories, but I think since I don't

want to break halfway through, let's have an interval here and then move on with the Remeslo story.

Just the usual mid-episode reminder that you're listening to the Inmosco Shadows podcast.

Its corporate partner and sponsor is Conductone, which provides software for crisis exercises in

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this purely source of all things russian. And you can also follow me on twitter, at mark galleyotti,

or on facebook, mark galleyottion russia. Now back to the episode.

So, ilia remeslo having for so long been perfectly happy to smear the Kremlin's enemies and

lord the president himself suddenly turns against them. Theory number one is of course that this

is exactly what it seems to be, or what it's laid itself out to be, you know, a true epiphany.

He has seen the light and realized that in fact Putin is not one of us. But look, I mean who knows,

it may well be true, but I have to say, how can I put this? Mr remeslo has until now not shown

that strong a moral compass. You know, he had been, in fact, of previously a supporter of no

values, before he'd proven to be happy to take the presidential administration's shooing,

or 30 kopecks, and attrash him in the most intemperate of terms. So, we move on to theory number

two, which is that this was indeed a mental breakdown. I mean the fsb affiliated life.ru media

channel noted that of the ward in which he is now apparently hospitalised. This unit treats

newly emerging psychoses characterised by delusions and impaired thinking and speech. Well, delusions

and impaired thinking. I mean it does sound like, you know, obviously from the Kremlin's point of

view it's handy to portray him as a rambling madman, but it might actually also be to remislo's

advantage. In some ways this is a potentially neat way of dismissing what he said before and

providing himself with an alibi. And apparently he has after all already been hospitalised in the

past in a different clinic about a year ago. So, this could be an attempt to actually back down,

but it also could be an attempt to evade arrest given that you can't be arrested from inside

psychiatric hospital. But then we move into the rather more entertaining theories. The third one

is that this is all in fact dramaturgya. This is all a charade. It's a sinister,

presidential administration attempt to smoke out hidden dissidents. Watch out for those likes and

retweets guys. So the idea is that remislo breaks cover, says these things, and anyone who then

starts expressing support for him, well they begin to put the crosshairs on themselves.

However, although clearly it's always tempting to see some sinister intent behind everything

that happens in Putin's Russia, it's worth noting that Leonid Volkov, who after all had been

the violinist campaign manager, had been a key figure within the FBI, his anti-corruption

foundation. Well, he tweeted, I find it hard to imagine any arrangements in which someone in

the presidential administration would green light remislo going after Putin personally.

That opens a far too dangerous Pandora's box, it crosses every red line. I personally agree,

I don't think that deliberate provocation line is credible because exactly. And remislo crossed

not just a red but a blood red line when he talked about Putin and his relationship with his

children. Because on telegram on Wednesday, he had written, Putin is very unbalanced on this issue.

It's clear that children need to be kept safe, but moderation is key. The problem is that Putin

is a very cowardly man, and he seriously intimidated his children. Putin's daughters don't

bear his last name, which is completely absurd. Everyone knows who Tikhonorva and Varansova

his daughters really are. Renouncing their father's family name out of fear, what could be more pathetic?

Now, first of all, there's absolutely no reason to believe that they bear these names out of

fear, but rather precisely in attempt to maintain some degree of a private life, which until relatively

recently was a lot more feasible. But the point is, if you're starting to basically make out that

Putin is at once a coward and an ogre terrorizing his children to the point at which they're trying

to disassociate themselves with him, oh, Ilia, you're really asking for it. So, no, the idea that

you know, Kiryanka or one of his minions would say that this sounds like a good idea. I find that

pretty hard to sustain. But on the other hand, Evie Lee's some kind of cunning plan. Well, the

fourth theory is that it's actually about control over the online space. And in particular, you know,

recent controversial ones to do so, particularly with the clamp down on, guess what, telegram.

So given that this is a very hot topic, there's a lot of outrage and I'll come onto this more

in a moment. And a lot of people, even people within the system who are very unhappy,

not just generally with all the internet outages, which are affecting so many cities,

but in particular about telegram, which really has a quite a very powerful role, not just as a

means of communication, but as a means of creating online discussion communities. Well, it may well

be that there are the people who are supporting this, the security agencies and their colleagues

and handmaidens within the political structures are looking for extra ammunition. And in that context,

well, we had just had after all the Russian influencer and TV personality and model Victoria Bonja,

who has more than 12 million followers, voicing some very rare public criticism of the Kremlin

in this very angry and frankly rather expletive bearing social media rant. She said,

amongst other things, this is just a nightmare. What the hell is this? They've already shut down

Instagram, Telegram, YouTube, everything. Basically, they've taken it all away. The internet's been cut

everywhere. But as I say, I am removing a lot of obscenities from what I'm relating. And she

continues, people need to get up. Society needs to stand up and start talking about this. Say that

this is unacceptable. We're not going to stay silent. Now, at this point, it made just about

be worth noting that this fearless tribune of the people is a very rich and be living in Monaco

and see in some ways like the MS law has a rather mixed pedigree, let's say, in 2020, for example,

she was spreading all kinds of deeply problematic conspiracy theories about COVID before doing a

reverse ferret and doing a 180 degree turn in the face of public criticism and publicly announcing

that she'd been vaccinated. Then in 2022, she was characterising sanctions against Russia and

Belarus as genocide. I mean, the best of times that can be a rather overused term, but in this case,

it's ridiculous. But now too, she has apparently seen the light. Now, as you can probably tell,

I have my prejudices about beautiful people influencers who make money off the back of clickbait,

rage bait and paid promotion. And then who suddenly decides that the world needs to know their

political thoughts, especially if then someone else will do all the dangerous heavy lifting or

protesting in the like. If Bonja turns up in Red Square with a protest placard, then I will be

impressed and I will be suitably contrite, but I'm not holding my breath. But nonetheless,

this does show the significance of this online and telegram issue. And thus maybe justifies this

theory that in particular has been posited by the political scientist and himself, you know,

target of some Kremlin air at times Sergei Markov and the polar and publicist Yegor Hormagorov.

The idea that this is an orchestrated provocation in order to provide the government with the

ultimate excuse to shut down telegram entirely. So Hormagorov speculated that for the hardliners

would then use it to say, look, to the president, see what this platform allows. We have to close it

down. So in this respect, it could be that MS lawyers, it's anyway, once again, acting as an

attack dog, even if in a rather risky way. But maybe it's not all orchestrated from the

presidential administration. The fifth theory is the Pythagorean hypothesis, which actually

thinking about it sounds like a good title for a sort of fat airport thriller paperback. Anyway,

the idea is that this is a man turning against those who have fed him because he doesn't feel

that they're feeding him enough. As Vladimir Salavyev, a man who knows about people who feed him,

suggested some people's nerves are failing them, describing Remeslaw as an accidental

companion of the authorities who felt that quote, they did not appreciate him enough, although

he also added, it's spring and mental illnesses are on the rise and they're starting to recruit

our mentally unstable citizens. They presumably being, I don't know, Ukrainians or opposition figures

or whatever. Likewise, though, State Duma Deputy Vitaly Milanov called Remeslaw a project person.

What does that mean? Well, he says, a project person is someone who, if you give them money,

will do their work. If you don't, they stop. They are people without sincere conviction. It's

always clear when someone does something, strikes a beautiful and compelling blow, but does it

sincerely? He went on. He may have been making money as a blogger, but something went wrong.

And since he stopped making money, people stopped reading his blog and advertising on it,

he went into a complete hysteria. So the thesis is essentially that Remeslaw felt

underloved and especially underpaid and decided either to flip or else to affect to do so,

in the hope that this would get the Kremlin to come back and pay him what he thinks he deserves.

Now, it is after all worth noting that right before his disappearance, suddenly he had started

posting bank details and begging his newly acquired followers for donations. So there is some

suggestion that there is a financial imperative at work, but I must say that if this is the case,

I suspect it's going to work as well for Remeslaw as it did for Pregozion, and surely Remeslaw would

have realised that. And then, of course, there is the theory number six, which is that this is

the beginning of the end. Again, to go back to Holmogorov, who is worth noting absolutely no

fool, but he does very much operate in the world of spin and puff, and therefore there is always

a temptation to try and push something further than it really deserves. Anyway, he has also floated

the idea that for a loyalist to write such, well, with our frankly treasonous statements,

he must have been given kind of guarantees of safety, that some powerful figures must have,

or at least he believed that powerful figures must have indicated to him that this was an

acceptable thing and a safe thing to do. And from his point of view, Holmogorov's point of view,

this could be the start of what he calls February, that, this is a difficult word to say,

Februaryist. It really doesn't work very well, does it? Anyway, Februaryist propaganda.

And that is a reference to the February revolution of 1917. Remember, two revolutions in 1917,

the Bolsheviks only came in with the second one, the October one. The February revolution is when

a coterie of, well, they were great, but not necessarily very good, but in a powerful figures

within the Russian state, persuaded Xanicalus the second to step down for the good of the nation,

with the idea being that there will be a neat transition of power to a successor, didn't work out

in effect, the Xara State collapsed, creating the vacuum of power that the Bolsheviks in due course

were able to exploit. But anyway, so the idea is that this is actually inside us beginning to try

and generate the kind of buzz which might allow them to persuade Putin to stand down.

Now, this all fits in with the kind of also the prevailing narrative at the moment on certain

quarters that things like the online shutdowns are actually because Putin fears a coup,

or that he fears an attempt to kill him after what happened to Khamenei senior in Iran.

I don't think I'd really want to take it anywhere as far as that. I don't think there's any

sense of a coup. This is a system which is still very, very resilient against that kind of pressure.

But nonetheless, does this potentially speak to some kind of divisions within the elite

and people who are hoping for a preservationist transfer of power? In other words,

to stop Putin pushing the system to the point where it could break, which is to the whole elites

disadvantage, to actually get him to move along. Tom adds head in his promising new

criminology sub-stack, again, I'll leave a link in the program notes, made an interesting

parallel here. He wrote, this reminded me of the Nina Andreyeva giant full-page broadsheet

letter in Savietskaya Rasiya, a conservative Soviet newspaper, in 1988. This was a bombshell

letter that criticized Pyrrhistoryka and was generally thought of as being promoted by conservative

factions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who wanted to challenge General Secretary

Gorbachev. The tactic was to challenge Gorbachev to take action in retaliation. Gorbachev did,

and it was a key moment in his battle with the backsliders.

So that is a fascinating parallel, I would say. And again, not that I didn't necessarily think

it as a case, but it is just worth considering for a moment. Because in some ways, does this mean

that it is an attempt to try and get Putin to stand down, or instead, is it meant to push Putin,

a wavering Putin, remember Putin, who's not a decisive man, and remember, indeed, the

MS Laws claim that he's cowardly, and it would push him into taking a harder line.

Now, Nina Andreyeva's letter, which is called, I cannot betray my principles, was indeed significant.

And the interesting thing is that it didn't really have any negative implications for her.

Ironically enough, although I don't think that today's Russia yet counts as a true police state,

nonetheless, there is a big difference between in 1988, a long-time loyal communist,

having a letter published in a Soviet communist newspaper. Well, she was going to much safer

than today a political entrepreneur with no real political patrons that we know of,

blowing his mouth off on social media. Why would a figure who, unlike Andreyeva,

seems to have no strong convictions beyond ego, revenue, and maybe vendetta,

takes such a big chance? Whatever else one might think about at MS Law, he too, I don't think

is a fool. But could he honestly believe anyone's promises of protection?

So, after all this, what do I actually think? Let me disappoint you all by saying, I don't know.

I am tempted by the Pregorgian theory that he thought he could raise his value, perhaps by making

a stir and then playing the part of the repentant prodigal son returning to the fold when the Kremlin

met his price, and perhaps even thinking that he'd been given a signal by someone that this

would actually be welcomed, in which case he was played. But I don't know, so I'd really

would rather make some wider observations that are generated by this whole theory. We'll have to

wait and see what happens. First of all, some newspapers, to my surprise, like the Normasty,

ran brief and essentially factual stories, simply reporting that the blogger and lawyer,

it's quite fascinating. Remember that Putin loved to try and denigrate Navalny simply by calling

him the blogger? Well, now at MS Law is now a blogger and lawyer. Anyway, they did report that

he'd been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Others covered it a little bit more. I mean, it's

worth noting that things like newspapers like Recyd's Gate, because yeah, they clearly didn't cover

it. But nonetheless, it did not, as I had actually expected, just disappear into the void of

censorship or self-censorship. So some were talking about quite what he'd done, the fact that he

had said controversial statements and the like, it does reflect that one can't, in this modern

information environment, totally keep the lid on what's going on. So it's worth noting, the Kremlin

cannot totally control the Russian information space. And even as it tries to clamp down and

enforce white listing on the internet, and maybe in the future, by ways of shutting down VPNs

and all the other ways of bypassing its controls, we'll wait and see. Nonetheless, certainly at the

moment, it does not have the kind of control, but even frankly, the Soviet Union had.

Secondly, I really think that we have to back away from some of the excitable talk about

imminent coups and the like. As I say, this is a system which is very good against direct threats.

It's just not necessarily anywhere near as good against the indirect. The slow erosion of

its base, rather than any kind of over challenge. And I think that's what we're seeing here. And in

some ways, the MS law is, I would suggest, more symptom than anything else. I mean, yes, maybe this

is a man who genuinely lost his faith. And if so, he probably actually is speaking for a much wider

constituency of people who have also lost their faith, but don't have the arrogance, foolishness,

conviction, bravery, call it what you will to make this public. So slow erosion rather than

anything else. And that in itself is significant because I regard what's going on as a symptom

of a growing sense of palpable unease within the country, but also a degree of movement within

Russian politics, not necessarily in any particular direction. Because after all, we can see there is

this nationalist critique of Putin that I've touched on in previous podcasts. People who say,

look, the problem with Putin is that he's not brutal enough. And in particular, who he should

be prosecuting the war in Ukraine with much greater vigor, we should be mobilizing a million men

throwing them in. We should be leveling the center of Kiev with Arashniks and killing Zelensky,

et cetera, et cetera. Then there are also obviously people who are just tired of the war and

tired of the economic circumstances that, to a large extent, are generated by it. There is,

in many quarters, a weariness about Putin and all the other old men, that sense that they don't

really have any kind of nuances for the future. There are more over struggles, over resources

between regions, between factions, between institutions, between individuals. There are varying

visions of Russia's future. And again, this ties back with the issue I was talking about last week

with this attempt to almost synthetically create an ideology, which can somehow legitimize the

Kremlin. And the serious problems they're in and the degree to which the research that has gone

into that has highlighted that there are multiple powerful strands of opinion within Russian society

that actually are not necessarily readily reconcilable with each other. To try and come up with one

one size fits all ideology is going to be a serious problem. So there's stuff going on. And stuff

that is not all choreographed and controlled by the political technologists and electoral

impressarios of the presidential administration. Now, I would close by courting controversy. I got into

trouble with some of my patrons, all of whom I thank and cherish, when in a question and answer

that I ran in November, I named checked the Russians with attitude podcasts. Now, if you don't

know this, this describes itself as, quote, a weekly podcast by two Russians maneuvering the hellscape

of American cultural hegemony. I mean, basically it's two Russians sounding off on the news

with an unabashed pro-Russian stance. And sometimes let's be absolutely clear what I would

regard as pretty shocking views on race and so forth. So, you know, I'm certainly in my no means

underwriting their perspective. Now, look, I have no idea if this is some kind of cunning Russian

state disinformation campaign or just as they say, two guys shooting the breeze. But either way,

the reason I listen to it is because I think that, well, I think it's really important that we

don't always stay within our comfort zones, but challenge and maybe inform our perspectives.

And I think this podcast opens an interesting window into a particular variety of Russian mindset,

that is certainly patriotic, certainly wants to see activity on the Ukrainian front, let's say.

But it's not just simply slavishly supportive of every government initiative. Anyway,

let me read from the text introducing the latest of their podcasts.

The era of Putin's stability is officially over. Previously, apolitical Russians are being bombarded

with internet restrictions. And in some cases, actual strikes from across the border. Turns out,

there's only so much a person can tune out. The Ukrainian scammer empire coercing Russian

civilians into terrorist attacks and extracting billions of rubles from them is alive and well.

One of them did get chopped up in Bali, but still. The EU is gearing up for war while the

Kremlin is still desperate to trade with their partners. It all sounds quite bleak,

but I've grown darkly optimistic and not by ignoring any of the above.

Extreme conditions are breathing life into an otherwise inert society. Government branches are

competing again. Even parliament is coming alive. Regions are diverging. Russian political life

long declared dead is creaking back into motion. But most importantly, the Russians are very

fucking mad for real this time. What can it lead to? That's the end of the quote.

So I actually feel that again, although coming from a rather different perspective,

I concur with some of that notion. There have been, after all, signs of life, some interesting

movements. We've seen open disagreements within the government ranging from the wisdom of central

bank chair and a billionaire strategy of trying to bring down inflation by keeping the base rate high,

though she has just brought it down a half point to what's still a very high 15 percent

through to wider issues relating to again the overall direction of progress and the decision to

cut non-essential spending, whatever that means, by 10 percent. Well, that is inevitably

gearing the government up for more conflict over resources. Is parliament coming alive?

Well, maybe that is a bit of a stretch, but the parties, the, again, entirely fake opposition

parties, they're looking teeny bit, teeny bit less zombified than usual. It's worth noting,

after all, that they have started their campaigns for the autumn elections rather earlier this year

than expected and that past practice would suggest. And more to the point, their platforms are often

focusing on what are genuinely new, erratic points, things like utilities bills, as high

utilities bills is a real issue amongst Russians. And in many ways, although I can understand why

they want to push it, because this is exactly how they can get some traction with a rather jaded

electorate, nonetheless, I can't help think that the government would rather these issues not be

highlighted and not be highlighted in for months, what is for months to come. And in terms of

divisions within the elite, I mean, we actually had a governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav

Gladkov, saying that he was an absolute agreement when a Belgorod resident sent him a message

complaining about the internet disruptions. And he said he wasn't just about convenience,

it's also what it meant is people are not getting air-raid warnings and the like. He said,

it's an even greater threat for residents of border areas. The lack of information,

unfortunately, quite often leads to death, injuries and destruction. I mean, that's

coming out sharply against a policy that is clearly being pushed by the security apparatus

and ultimately by the Kremlin. So yes, there is a lot more evidence, frankly, that Russians are

angry, prospects for peace in Ukraine are again receding, especially, frankly, because Putin was

greedy. I still feel that he made a colossal blunder when he didn't grab the initial 20-point

peace plan that had been hashed out with the Americans with both hands. Again, whether it

actually would have in any way been able to be imposed on the Ukrainians, that's a whole other

issue. But in terms of quickly mobilizing the Americans in support of the Russian position,

sure, it meant that he wouldn't have had that remaining 20% of Danyetsk region, big whoop.

He had a huge opportunity and he wasted it. So look, are politics returning to Russia?

Are the regime's days counting down? I'm nowhere near saying anything of the sort right now.

But this certainly is all a reminder that Putin didn't kill Russian political life

and certainly didn't kill civil society either. He first tried to house train it

and then he tried to lock it in the deep freeze. Well, it seems that there's been a power cut

and the freezer may well now be getting a bit warmer. And we're beginning to hear sounds of life

behind that barred fridge door. As maybe, just maybe, it's all beginning to defrost.

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. Follow me on Twitter,

at Mark Galliotti, or Facebook, Mark Galliotti on Russia. This podcast is made possible by

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thank you very much indeed for listening. Until next time, keep well.