Putin’s cynical «Direct Line»

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (December 16−20)

Mutation of the «Bears»

Andrey Pertsev explains how the «United Russia» party is changing under the leadership of Vladimir Yakushev

Putin in Search of a Magic Wand

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (9−13 December)

Putin’s ultra-optimism

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (December 2−6)

Promoting Oreshnik missile

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (November 25−29)

Karaganov’s Magic Potion

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (November 18−22)

MPs as Putin’s watchdogs

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (November 11−15)

Putin’s Message to Trump

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (November 4−8)

Putin toys with the nukes

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (October 28 — November 1)

Putin’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (October 21−25)

Medvedev and the «United Russia» party

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (October 14−18)

Kadyrov’s Blood Feud

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (October 7−11)

The Rise of Artyom Zhoga

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (September 30 — October 4)

The penultimate nuclear warning

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (September 23−27)

A Shooting Near the Kremlin

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (September 16−20)

Chasing the Records

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (September 9−13)

Putin-the-Scheherazade

Andrey Pertsev sums of the week (September 2−6)

The Peculiar Case of Mr. Durov

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (August 26−30)

Telegram Under Attack

Andrei Pertsev explains why popular Telegram channels loyal to the authorities were now labeled as «foreign agents»

Putin Ignores Kursk

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (August 19−23)

The Anatomy of a Rumor

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (August 12−16)

Ukrainian Breakthrough in Kursk

Andrey Pertsev sums of the week (August 5−9)

The Great Swap

Andrey Pertsev sums of the week (July 29 — August 2)

The «Putin Center» for posterity

Andrey Pertsev explains why the Kremlin is building a model of virtual Russia for perpetuity

Kadyrov’s as a fixer versus Kremlin’s protection racket

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (July 22−26)

Putin Discovers and Unveils His Achievements

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (July 15−19)

Federation Council is in anticipation of «has-beens»

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (July 8−12)

Defense Ministry: a motley crew, not a team

Andrey Pertsev explains how Putin prevented the Defense Minister from forming his own team, and what it might lead to

The Triumph of E-Voting

Andrey Pertsev sums of the week (July 1−5)

Terror is Back

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (June 24−28)

Iron Commissar: the New Image of Andrei Belousov

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (June 17−21)

A patchwork quilt

Andrey Pertsev explains how reshuffling in the cabinet and the presidential administration reflects the balance of interests of Russia’s elite groups

The multiplication of conflicts

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (10−14 June)

Putin’s One-Man Show

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (June 3−7)

Putin Fails His Star Student

Andrey Pertsev explains why Vladimir Putin has exiled Andrey Turchak to Altai

Passions Are Running High Around the State Council

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (May 27−31)

Fog of War

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (May 20−24)

Smitten by Belousov

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (May 13−17)

Putin did not surrender Shoigu

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (May 6−12)

A Second Front in the Fight Against Migration

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (April 29 — May 3)

An inconvenient case of Shoigu’s Deputy

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (22−26 April)

A Chance Favorite

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (April 15−19)

Parties in a coma

Andrey Pertsev explores the bleak prospects of the Russian systemic opposition

A Conveyor Belt For the Mass Production of Loyalty

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (April 8−12)

A Triumph for Mishustin and Volodin

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (April 1−5)

Conversations Before the Execution

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (March 25−29)

Revenge crossroads

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (March 18−22)

Vote or You’ll Walk Away Empty-Handed

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (March 11−15)

The Party Deadlock

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (March 4−8)

Political bloc without borders and boundaries

Andrey Pertsev examines Sergey Kiriyenko’s empire

A Message From the Lobbyists

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (February 26 — March 1)

Russian opposition in search of a leader

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (February 19−25)

The Death of Alexey Navalny

Andrei Pertsev sums of the week (February 12−16)

Patriots against Carlson

Andrei Pertsev sums of the week (February 5−11)

Playing the Presidential Campaign By the Ear

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (January 29 — February 2)

Putin is the New Brezhnev

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (January 15−19)

Putin’s princelings waiting in the wings

Andrey Pertsev runs through who among Russia’s elite «youth» could one day take the place of Vladimir Putin

Chukchi cucumbers for Putin

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (January 8−12)

Putin will never have enough

Andrei Pertsev sums up the first week of 2024

Carrots and Sticks to Promote Collectivism

Andrei Pertsev explains how the presidential administration is trying to make 'collectivism' one of the organic 'staples' of society, holding it together

Rules of Conduct With Many Unknowns

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (December 25−29)

Yekaterina Duntsova: The Danger of High Expectations

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (December 18−22)

Direct Line With No Money

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (December 11−15)

Art Under Control

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (December 4−8)

Rituals around Putin

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (November 27 — December 1)

Operation «legitimization»

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (November 20−24)

The market of loyalty to Putin

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (November 13−17)

Empty hopes for a «big reshuffle»

Andrei Pertsev explains how and why the main engine of Putin's system of power will run of its fuel

Putin’s two campaigns

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (November 6−10)

The Nine Lives of Vladimir Putin

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (October 30 — November 3)

The Heresy According to Vladimir Putin

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (October 23−27)

The casting for successors

Andrey Pertsev on what kind of resources can help Vladimir Putin’s successors to come to power in Russia

Doping for Putin

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (October 16−20)

The Triumph of Hierarchy

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (October 9 -13)

Toying with the nuclear mushroom cloud

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (October 2−6)

Putin swore an oath of allegiance to Kadyrov

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (September 25−29)

Lightweight structures

Andrey Pertsev on what the choice of chairpersons for the «parliaments» on the annexed territories says about Kremlin’s plans for these territories

Putin as le Roi Soleil

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (September 18−22)

Putinism without Putin

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (September 11−15)

Patriotic startups for Putin

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (September 4−8)

Russia’s September elections mark a return to Soviet-style regional management

Andrey Pertsev on how September’s elections mark a turning back of the clock in Russia’s regional power vertical that comes with major governance risks

Putin’s head of guard

Andrei Pertsev shows why Viktor Zolotov has not become Russia’s most influential law enforcer despite his growing influence

Prigozhin will live on

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (August 28 — September 1)

Prigozhin’s Fall into Oblivion

Andrei Pertsev sums of this week (August 21−25)

Stability for the poor

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (August 14−18)

Khakassian nullification of Putin’s power vertical

Andrei Pertsev sums up the week (August 7−11)

A veteran crack along the frontline

Andrei Pertsev shows how the Kremlin provokes a split in Russian society by singling out war veterans as a privileged group

Putin vs. the elite

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (July 31- August 4)

Mobilization versus elections

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (July 24−28)

Russia’s broken Television

Andrei Pertsev on how and why the main instrument of Russian propaganda is struggling

Adapting to War

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (July 17−21)

Loyalty In Spite Of

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (July 10−14)

Riddle News week: Waiting for the TNWs

Andrey Pertsev sums up the week (June 19−25)

Don’t run too fast, Sergei Sobyanin

Andrey Pertsev on how and why the Kremlin weakens the Moscow mayor before the elections

The outcry of the ultrapatriots

Andrey Pertsev reflects on why Russian radical nationalists will not be able to unify a «club of angry patriots»

Putin’s New Pet Bureaucrat

Andrey Pertsev on how Marat Khusnullin has leveraged the war in Ukraine to became one of Putin's favorite bureaucrats

From digital paradise to digital GULAG

Andrey Pertsev on how the Russian state destroyed one of their most successful projects in one day

Anxiety teeth

Andrei Pertsev shows how the news spread by the Russian authorities became frightening and disturbing to society

Outreach Department for Believers

Andrey Pertsev discusses how the war has transformed Patriarch Kirill and his entourage into propaganda workers

Star Wars

Andrey Pertsev casts light on why and how the Kremlin is fighting artists who do not support the war

Kiriyenko’s War

Andrey Pertsev on how Sergei Kiriyenko and his subordinates have adapted their work at the presidential administration to the war in Ukraine

Russia in 2023: A return to party politics?

Andrey Pertsev on why Russian party politics showed signs of a revival at the end of 2022. Should this be taken seriously in 2023?

Kudrin @Yandex

Andrey Pertsev on why Vladimir Putin made Alexei Kudrin the head of Yandex

Vladimir Putin’s Telegram hawks

Andrey Pertsev on how Telegram became the main information platform for Russia’s hawks and their alternate reality

Russia’s public outing

Andrey Pertsev on the five myths painstakingly created by the Putin regime and exposed by the war

An amateur variety revue in battledress

Andrey Pertsev analyses Russian authorities' attempts to invent a military pop aesthetic

The Ministry of Happiness

Andrey Pertsev discusses how the Kremlin's political bloc is creating a new class of propagandists

‘We stand with Russia’, but why?

Andrey Pertsev on why the Kremlin is unwilling and unable to come up with an ideology for plebiscites in Ukrainian lands

Outpost state

Andrey Pertsev on why Kremlin is forming a modern version of service-class people in Donbas

Playing by new rules

Andrey Pertsev on how Russia’s siloviki and civilian elites have begun to change Russia’s system of power

A mad printer: An updated version

Andrey Pertsev looks at how Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has been trying to win Putin’s favours back

Back in the USSR

Andrey Pertsev on how and why the Russian elite is restoring a Soviet-like state

Sergei Kirienko’s new sphere of influence

Andrey Pertsev looks into how the head of the Kremlin's domestic political bloc profited from Russia’s Ukraine invasion

What is the Russian party of war like?

Andrey Pertsev on the key characteristics and goals of Russian public policy hawks

From Kremlin courtiers to propaganda serfdom

Andrey Pertsev looks at how Russia’s ruling elite are under pressure to show loyalty to their boss through regular outbursts of propaganda

What does the Russian war «Z» stand for?

Andrey Pertsev on how the «Z-campaign» in Russia testifies to the ideological emptiness of the Ukraine invasion

Search