On Ukraine, NATO and more, Russia’s Vladimir Putin lives in an alternative reality. How did he get there?
January 21, 2022 | THE GLOBE AND MAIL
The Russian leader’s personal background and thirst for wealth offer clues to his state of mind – and the things he could do next – as his armies amass on Ukraine’s borders. Read full article>>
Never the West’s business? Why pressuring Russia is so difficult
September 10, 2021 | TLS
What a difference a year has made in Russia. Last summer, the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was travelling around Siberia urging people to vote against the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party in the September regional elections. Read full article>>
Anti-Putin Campaigners: It’s Time to Sanction the Large Adult Sons of Oligarchs and Cronies
March 02, 2021 | THE DAILY BEAST
As Biden announces his first punitive measures against the Kremlin, Russia’s anti-corruption campaigners say it’s time to stop cronies evading Western sanctions via their families. Read full article>>
Putin Says He Doesn’t Know Anything about the Billion-Dollar Palace Russia Built Him
January 27, 2021 | THE DAILY BEAST
Facing growing national protests over his treatment of anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, the Russian president is backed into a corner over Navalny’s latest exposé. Read full article>>
Will Russians heed Alexey Navalny’s call to action?
January 21, 2021 | THE GLOBE AND MAIL
If Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words are to be taken at face value, Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny is politically insignificant. Read full article>>
Why Russia’s Overseas Spies Keep Getting Caught
January 19, 2021 | THE DAILY BEAST
Spy rings keep getting busted and a massive hack of U.S. government departments has been exposed, but Russia’s spooks keep blundering on. Read full article>>
The Poison Trail That Led Straight to Putin
December 17, 2020 | THE DAILY BEAST
The Russian president was forced to admit that FSB agents had been trailing Alexei Navalny before his poisoning by the deadly nerve agent Novichok. Read full article>>
What is Putin’s Endgame With Americans Detained in Russia?
November 26, 2020 | THE DAILY BEAST
The investor Michael Calvey and former U.S. Marines Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed could prove to be valuable bargaining chips for Russia under a Biden administration.Read full article>>
Putin Is Facing the Toughest Fight of His Presidency as Former USSR Goes up in Flames
October 08, 2020 | THE DAILY BEAST
Holed up in isolation President Putin is facing the gravest crisis of his regime as domestic and foreign threats to his authority stack up faster than he can crush them. Read full article>>
Navalny Had Many Enemies in the Kremlin—but Who Wanted Him Dead?
September 10, 2020 | THE DAILY BEAST
Putin and the Kremlin elite must be nervous about the improbable survival of the gadfly who exposed their corruption. Read full article>>
The Trump-Alfa Bank Server Mystery Resurfaces
September 02, 2020 | JUST SECURITY
The recent release of the final volume of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian 2016 election interference and two new lawsuits by Russia’s Alfa Bank have brought back into the spotlight the puzzling lack of an explanation for the mysterious communications between the bank and the Trump Organization during the last presidential campaign. Read full article>>
What’s Really Behind Putin’s Vendetta Against Americans?
June 30, 2020 | THE DAILY BEAST
Most important to Putin and his cronies is their desire to share in the pillaged wealth of post-Soviet Russia, and their hatred of anyone who would hold them accountable. Read full article>>
The Kremlin’s ‘Little Dragon’ Goes After Coronavirus Victims—and Reporters
April 21, 2020 | THE DAILY BEAST
Ramzan Kadyrov is president of the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation, and Vladimir Putin’s most dangerous protégé. How’s he fighting COVID-19? With fear. Read full article>>
Can Putin Survive His Bungling of Coronavirus?
April 15, 2020 | THE DAILY BEAST
A month ago, the Kremlin was gloating about Russia’s handling of the pandemic. No longer. And the disaster now threatens Putin’s autocratic ambitions. Read full article>>
The Secret Files of the Soviet Union
January 16, 2020 | THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
Vladimir Bukovsky, who gained world renown as a leader of the Soviet human rights movement, died of congestive heart failure in Britain on October 27, but his legacy lives on. Read full article>>
The Real Steele: The Ex-MI6 Spy Looms Large in the New DOJ Report—and a Big Best Seller
December 10, 2019 | THE DAILY BEAST
Republicans hope problems in “The Steele Dossier” can discredit the well-documented Russian plot against U.S. elections. But that’s only if you refuse to look at the evidence. Read full article>>
Will the CIA’s Former Top Spy Fall Prey to Putin’s Murderous Mole Hunt?
September 10, 2019 | THE DAILY BEAST
The Kremlin is painting a target on the back of a former insider who reportedly was a key CIA source before the agency “exfiltrated” him from Russia to the United States in July 2017. Read full article>>
Poking The Bear
June 11, 2019 | THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Amy Knight considers alternative views of modern Russia. Read full article>>
The Crime of the Century
March 21, 2019 | THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
Last November The Economist took President Trump to task for dismissing the probable involvement of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi: “Mr. Trump’s glossing over the murder of a peaceful critic is an alarming departure for America…. Previous presidents have sought to balance moral values and national interests.” Read full article>>
American Murder-for-Hire Plot Has Kremlin Connections
February 08, 2019 | THE DAILY BEAST
Leonid Teyf allegedly put out a contract on his wife’s lover and said he’d rub out the man’s whole family. In short, he acted like he was still in Putin’s Russia, not Raleigh, N.C. Read full article>>
The Sex Worker Who Could Hold Keys to Mueller Probe Freed From Moscow Jail
January 22, 2019 | THE DAILY BEAST
Nastya Rybka may not know as much as she claims about a sanctioned Russian oligarch and Paul Manafort. But if not, why did the oligarch try so hard to keep her in prison? Read full article>>
Maria Butina’s Boss Alexander Torshin: The Kremlin’s No-Longer-Secret Weapon
December 15, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
In addition to advocating gun rights, Torshin wanted to strengthen the Russian criminal code to include forced castration for pedophiles and life sentences for drug dealers. Read full article>>
Putin’s Mouthpiece Is Center Stage in the Mueller Investigation
December 06, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
According to Michael Cohen’s latest pleading, Dmitry Peskov was right in the middle of Trump’s efforts to build a tower in Moscow. So, who is this guy? Read full article>>
Russian TV Under the Gun in American Court for Its Litvinenko Murder Allegations
September 06, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
When Putin’s people murder opponents abroad, they’re backed up by a campaign of lies in Russian media blaming others. Now one of those they’ve accused has brought suit. Read full article>>
This Russian Spy Agency Is in the Middle of Everything
August 08, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
Only a few years ago, the GRU looked like it might be dissolved. But Putin found new uses for it: covert war in Ukraine and ‘active measures’ that helped Trump get elected. Read full article>>
Back on the offensive
Putin, the West and the competition over values
August 03, 2018 | TLS
Few would deny that relations between Russia and the West have been on a downward spiral for several years. Read full article>>
Did the Kremlin Really Lose Control of its Deadliest Poisons?
July 09, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
The real question is where does the Russian criminal state end and the criminal underworld begin, and how do they work together in what amounts to a new murder incorporated? Read full article>>
Vladimir Putin’s Billionaire Buddies Are Getting Scared, and Not Just of Sanctions
April 16, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
Some of the oligarchs now face major U.S. sanctions, while others are getting arrested on the Kremlin’s orders. Is Putin’s circle of the shameless rich beginning to crumble? Read full article>>
Why Mueller Named a Russian Oligarch in Court
April 06, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
The Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury on Friday may not be the only ones who interest Mueller as he looks for ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Read full article>>
Russian spy poisoning: Has the Kremlin crossed the red line?
March 16, 2018 | THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Emboldened by Trump’s weak response, Putin and his cronies are saying: ‘You know we did it, and you know and we know you’re not going to do anything about it. Read full article>>
Vladimir Putin’s Re-election Strategy: Nukes and Assassins
March 8, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
Emboldened by Trump’s weak response, Putin and his cronies are saying: ‘You know we did it, and you know and we know you’re not going to do anything about it. Read full article>>
The Magnitsky Affair
February 22, 2018 | THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
Last May, a money-laundering suit brought by the United States against Prevezon Holdings Ltd., a Cyprus-based real estate corporation, was unexpectedly settled three days before it was set to go to trial. Read full article>>
Was This Russian General Murdered Over the Steele Dossier?
January 23, 2018 | THE DAILY BEAST
The notorious dossier on Trump that Republicans want to discredit may well have been credible enough in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eyes to get at least one person killed. Read full article>>
The life of a Kremlin critic is a life of danger
October 25, 2017 | THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Monday’s shocking stabbing of Tatyana Felgenhauer, the young deputy editor-in-chief of Russia’s independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, is yet another reminder of the dangers faced by Russian journalists and politicians who criticize the Kremlin. Read full article>>
It’s a life-or-death matter to run for president in Russia against Vladimir Putin
September 22, 2017 | LOS ANGELES TIMES
With the Russian presidential election coming next March, the political atmosphere for Kremlin critics has turned hostile, even downright dangerous. Earlier this month, Yulia Latynina, one of Russia’s most prominent journalists and a fierce detractor of Vladimir Putin, announced she had left Russia with her family and would not be returning anytime soon. Read full article>>
Here’s my president
June 28, 2017 | THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
In his four-hour documentary, The Putin Interviews, conducted with the Russian President between July 2015 and February 2017, Oliver Stone provides us with only a few insights into Vladimir Putin as a person. Read full article>>
