In Moscow's Shadows 241: When Attack Dogs Turn

A handful of memes and an online storm can look like nothing, right up until they start steering the news cycle. Efforts to talk up a secessionist Russian-speaking Estonian “Narva People’s Republic” look like a Kremlin disruption operation: manufacturing attention, stoking anxiety, and forcing journalists and officials into a no-win choice between silence and amplification. 

Rather more significant is the case of St Petersburg lawyer and Kremlin-friendly smear merchant, Ilya Remeslo, who has abruptly posted “Five Reasons Why I Stopped Supporting Vladimir Putin”, and then reportedly ended up in a psychiatric ward. A genuine conversion, a breakdown, a trap to catch dissidents, a pretext to shut down Telegram amid internet restrictions, or a very old-fashioned quest for money and status?

Maybe the regime really is under a kind of threat, not from a coup, but a slower, messier dissolution: elite resource fights, regional pushback over internet outages, war weariness, nationalist critiques from different directions. Russian political life is not dead, merely defrosting. 

Details of the event at the University of Chester on 16 April are here.

You can find details of my books, in English and translation, at my In Moscow's Shadows blog page, here.

Tom Adshead's New Kremlinology substack is here.

And if you want to know more about Russians With Attitude, look here.

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Transcript

A Question About Online Outrage

MG 0:00

Can the virtue be actual from an imaginary number of the People's Republic to a patriotic blogger who suddenly attacks Putin? Can online furories actually mean something in the real world? Hello, I'm Mum Galeotti, 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. Before I get 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 programme 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 vojnie, which I think means actually something more like sentenced to war. And I would 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, Homo criminalis, How Crime Organizes the World, everything from Chinese eunuch bandit gangs of the past to how 3D printing can revolutionize 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 about 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 Narva. All more to the point what is not going on in Narva. Over the past month or so, social media accounts have popped up promoting the idea of separating Narva and the surrounding Idaviru County from Estonia and creating a so-called Narva People's Republic. I mean the clear parallel with the Donetsk and Lukansk People's Republic of the Donbass. And look, much of this is really just a sort of mix of internet memes, apparently cat pictures and provocative jokes. But a closer look reveals that, you know, there is this attempt to portray Narva, which is after all the Estonian city that is right on the border, essentially looks across the river at the Russian city of Ivangorod, and is often sort of raised in the I think pretty uh mythical, but I'll come to that, notions that there's a sort of a Narva 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 Narva People's Republic, well, it's clearly there's nothing much there. I mean, there seems to be just enough couple of genuine followers. Uh, one account said aside from the administrator, going by the name N1, and active across multiple chat groups, there was a dock worker from Silamae 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 are curious and following it rather than diehards who are saying no, we need to have a Russian-speaking NABA People's Republic. In part, this is presumably just a bit of Walter Mittie-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 Narva. 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. I mean that is, okay, I'm I'm 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. And you know, there there was there were some grounds in terms of the demand that you learnt Estonian, which I mean if if I was speaking, and do believe me when I say this, this is mainly tongue-in-cheek, but having to learn Estonian does sound like a bit of a human rights abuse. Um 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 uh 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 embattled 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 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 and 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 a 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 again this 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 insofar as there's anything really here, is precisely because Estonians and others make it into a bigger deal than it deserves to be. On the other hand, just a 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 near 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 we have to 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 uh 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. Yekaterina Kuznetsova, director of the House of Ingria in Nava, who is apparently a member of the Finno-Ugric Votian people. And I 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 a there is an interesting um mirror imaging here that just as the Russians are happy to play on often fictional narratives of subnational nationalisms, or just simply embattled and discriminated against ethnic peoples, there's a temptation, frankly, to do that with the Russian Federation. But anyway, speaking of an internet furori, the main story I want to talk about today is the story about Ilyaremeslav. 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 labelled 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's worth saying it hasn't killed millions, and broken Russia's economy. And he said 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 Guardians Piotr 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 Fontanka newspaper reported that he'd been admitted to the city's psychiatric hospital number three, specifically its sixteenth department, which is a ward 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, but I think first of all, let's consider the context. It's fascinating how many Western commentators, online figures, and so forth are suddenly describing Remislo as some kind of key figure. Look, I'll be honest, and maybe this is just my fault, but I had at first 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 in the about him in the past, it was in the context of a series of smears of Navalny. And he had been at the forefront of claiming all kinds 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 was he had been regarded as, from the Kremlin's point of view, a safe pair of hands, or at least pair of lips. In the words of General Abti Aloddinov, 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. I said, might be slightly overgilding the lily there, but nonetheless, this 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's going on? Well look, 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 In Moscow Shadows podcast. Its corporate partner and sponsor is Conducto, which provides software for crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counterterrorism, civil affairs and the like. But you can also support the podcast yourself by going to patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows. And remember that patrons get a variety of additional perks depending on their tier, as well as knowing that they're supporting this peerless source on all things Russian. And you can also follow me on Twitter at MarkGaleotti or on Facebook, MarkGalliotti on Russia. Now back to the episode. So Ilyare Mislo, 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 lays itself out to be, you know, a true epiphany. He has seen the light and realised 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 Remeslaw has until now not shown that strong a moral compass. You know, he he had been in fact previously a supporter of Navalny's, before he'd proven to be happy to take the presidential administration's shilling, or thirty copex, and trash 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 hospitalized, this unit treats newly emerging psychoses characterized 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 just portray him as a rambling madman. But it might actually also be to the Miss Law's advantage. In some ways this is a potentially neat way of dismissing what he said before and providing himself with an alibi. I mean apparently he has after all already been hospitalized 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 a psychiatric hospital. But then we move into the rather more entertaining theories. The third one is that this is the all in fact dramaturgia. 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 Remeslow 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 Valny's 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 Remeslaw going after Putin personally. That opens a far too dangerous Pandora's box. It crosses every red line. I mean I I personally agree. I don't think the deliberate provocation line is credible, because exactly Remeslaw crossed not just a red, but a blood red line when he talked about Putin and his relationship with his children. On Telegram, on Wednesday, he had written Putin is very unbalanced on this issue. It's clear that children need to be keeps 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 Tikanova and Varonzova, 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 an 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, ooh, Ilya, you're really asking for it. So no, the idea that uh you know Kiryenko 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, if it is 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 clampdown on guess what, Telegram. So, given that this is a very hot topic, there's a lot of outrage, and I'll come on to 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 uh internet outages which are affecting so many cities, but in particular about Telegram, which really has acquired 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 twelve million followers, voicing some very rare public criticism of the Kremlin in this very angry and frankly rather um 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. By the as I say, I am removing a lot of obscenities from what I'm what I'm r uh 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 may just about be worth noting that this fearless tribune of the people is a very rich, and B living in Monaco, and C, in some ways like Remess 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 characterizing sanctions against Russia and Belarus as genocide. I mean, at 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 decide that the world needs to know their political thoughts, especially if then someone else will do all the dangerous heavy lifting of protesting and the like. If Bonya 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. Particular has been posited by the political scientist and himself, um, you know, target of some Kremlin ire at times, Sergei Markov, and the polar and publicist Yeh Chormogorov. The idea that this is an orchestrated provocation in order to provide the government with the ultimate excuse to shut down Telegram entirely. So from the Cholmogorov speculated that the hardliners would then use it to say, look, you know, to the president, see what this platform allows. We have to close it down. So in this respect, it could be that Rem Slaw is in a way, once again, acting as an attack dog, even if in a rather riskier way. But maybe it's not all orchestrated from the presidential administration. The fifth theory is the Pragosian 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 had fed him because he doesn't feel that they're feeding him enough. As Vladimir Salavyov, a man who knows about people who feed him, suggested, some people's nerves are failing them, describing Remeslow 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 Vitali Milonov 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 insincerely. 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 Remeslov 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 Prigozin, and surely Remeslaw would have realized 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 Kolmogorov, who is, it was worth noting, absolutely no fool, but he does very much operate in the world of spin and puff, and therefore there is always this 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, what are frankly treasonous statements, he must have been given kind of guarantees of safety, that some powerful figures must have, or at least he 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, Kolmogorov's point of view, this could be the start of what he calls February 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 any powerful figures within the Russian state persuaded Tsar Nicholas II 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 Tsarist 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 insiders 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 Sr. 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 elite's disadvantage, to actually get him to move along. Tom Adshead, in his promising new new criminology Substack, again I'll leave a link in the programme notes, made an interesting parallel here. He wrote This reminded me of the Nina Andreva giant full page broadsheet letter in Sovetska Erasia, a conservative Soviet newspaper, in 1988. This was a bombshell letter that criticized Perestroika 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 that is a fascinating parallel, I would say. And again, not that I necessarily think it is the 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 that MS Law's claim that he's cowardly, anyway, to push him into taking a harder line. Now, Nina Andreva's letter, which was 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 longtime loyal communist having a letter published in a Soviet communist newspaper, well, she was in a much safer position 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 Andreva, seems to have no strong convictions beyond ego, revenue, and maybe vendetta take such a big chance? Whatever else one might think about Remeslaw, he too, I don't think is a fool. I mean 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 Pragogian 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 Fiori. We'll have to wait and see what happens. First of all, some newspapers, to my surprise, like Vidonisti, ran brief and essentially factual stories, simply reporting that the blogger and lawyer. It's quite fascinating. Remember that uh Putin loved to try and denigrate Navalny simply by calling him the blogger. Well, now Remeslaw is now a blogger and lawyer. Anyway, had been they 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 uh you know newspapers like uh Resitzka Kazeta clearly didn't cover it, but nonetheless, it it did not, as I had actually expected, just disappear in in into the void of censorship or self-censorship. So some you know were talking about quite what he had 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 whitelisting on the internet and maybe in the future find 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 that 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 overt challenge. And I think that's what we're seeing here. And in some ways, Remeslaw 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 vigour. We should be mobilizing a million men, throwing them in, we should be levelling the centre of Kyiv with Oreshniks and killing Zelensky, etc. etc. 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 therein, 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 impresarios of the presidential administration. Now, I want to 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 name-checked the Russians with Attitude podcast. Now, if you don't know this, this describes itself as, quote, a weekly podcast by two Russians manoeuvring 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 by no means underwriting their perspective. And 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 uh you know, wants to see activity on the Ukrainian front, let's say, but is 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 barley, 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 I concur with 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 Nabulina's 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 it's still a very high 15%, 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%, 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 a 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 neuralgic points. Things like utilities bills, 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 governor of Bielgorod region, Vychislav Gladkov, saying that he was in absolute agreement when a Belgorod resident sent him a message complaining about the internet disruptions. And he said it 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 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 Donetsk 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 MarkGaleotti or Facebook, MarkGaleotti on Russia. This podcast is made possible by generous and enlightened patrons, and you too can be one. Just go along to my Patreon page, that's patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows, and decide which tier you want to join, getting access to exclusive materials and other perks. However, whether or not you contribute, thank you very much indeed for listening. Until next time, keep well.