1/ Two pieces out this week at @cepa.org taking stock of two years under Andrey Belousov at Russian MoD. The structural changes are clearer now than they looked in real time. My text is a contunuation of previous observations, but now with the full data and visualization. cepa.org/article/put...

A new Cedar analysis maps wave of wartime nationalisation in RU. Its findings reinforce point I’ve argued for some time: this process reflects the heterogeneity of Russian elites, and as a result its limited controllability, including from the Kremlin. 1/ cedarus.io/research/as...

Joined the podcast by Meduza on purges in Russian MoD so far. Discussed how it all started, why cases tend to unfold in waves, what it means for Shoigu — and what the reshuffle under Belousov tells us about changes inside the Russian war machine. In Russian meduza.io/video/2026/...

UPD on Tsalikov case over the last 36 hours. Detaining Shoigu’s longtime No.2 required a rare symphony of 3 security agencies working together — usually a sign the move was cleared at the very top. And yet all this only resulted in his house arrest. 1/ www.kommersant.ru/doc/8496117

Today Russian siloviki detained Ruslan Tsalikov, Sergei Shoigu’s longtime №2 across all his previous positions: Min. of Emergencies, Moscow reg, MoD. Given how MoD purges have unfolded, it looks like the penultimate stop in the chain. The next step can be Shoigu himself www.kommersant.ru/doc/8480988

Today Moscow has announced the restructuring of the Gulag Museum into a “museum of the victims of genocide among Soviet people”, now headed by a war veteran. It perfectly illustrates the last years developments in the Kremlin toolkit for managing urban dissent. 1/ www.mos.ru/news/item/1...

Politico published a story with my contribution on the power transfer in Chechnya if Kadyrov were to die. The timing is telling: amid fresh news about the car crash with Kadyrov's son, whom he is grooming as his heir in opposite to Kremlin's candidate. www.politico.eu/article/ram...

A new piece for @euobserver.com an Novaya Gazeta Europe: we continue tracking, via voting behaviour, how the pro-Kremlin bloc in the EP looks. Bad news: it has nearly doubled since 2024. Good news: it’s still too small to shift outcomes and consist of the newcomers euobserver.com/news/ard633...

My comment for Tagesspiegel looks at Sergei Lavrov’s current position within Russia’s foreign-policy system. He has not been removed — but his centrality is being diluted as Moscow increasingly decentralises the implementation of foreign-policy decisions. www.tagesspiegel.de/internationa...

1/ Together with @Veer_Laine, I’ve contributed a chapter on Russia to the new Routledge volume Competing Visions for International Order (2025). It explores how Moscow imagines the world as a “sovereign state-civilisation” — a moral counterpole to the West www.routledge.com/Competing-V...

1/ The Kremlin’s hierarchy is shifting. The new "The Economist" story with my small contibutions explains how the war in Ukraine has elevated a new class — ultra-conservatives, relatives, and "svp" veterans — while sidelining old groups and technocrats in particular www.economist.com/1843/2025/1...

1/ Russia is quietly preparing a new way to send more men to war — without announcing another mobilization. A new, announced today amendment allows special reservists to be mobilized without Martial law and been sent to fight abroad www.rbc.ru/politics/13...

1/ If you’re puzzled by the recent flurry of asset seizures from Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office — and why Igor Krasnov, on his way to a “promotion,” kept signing new expropriation suits — I unpack it in the recently published commentary for Carnegie carnegieendowment.org/russia-eura...

1/ Russia’s Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, before moving to the Supreme Court, launched a new asset seizure — this time against SPbGUP, the fiefdom of Alexander Zapesotsky. 🔗 www.kommersant.ru/doc/8058267

1/ New @bbcrussian piece with my comments on Russia’s icebreaker fleet and why sanctions hit especially hard in the Arctic. 🔗 www.bbc.com/russian/art...

Continued my annual tradition of writing for @ecfr.eu on Russia’s local elections. The Kremlin uses these votes to test what may happen in the real campaigns In 2025 we saw the growing role of war veterans—now entering regional parliaments and expected to fill the Duma in 2026 ecfr.eu/article/fro...

The rising prominence of veterans of the war in Ukraine will widen Russia’s elite coalition pushing for continued confrontation with the West, writes Mikhail Komin @ecfrpower.bsky.social https://bit.ly/41ZOv1o