Ukrainian nationalists - aren't you going to run out of 'bad' Soviet Ukrainians soon? photo-lviv.in.ua/u-lvovi-demo... "activist Oleg Radik... scrupulously researched the biography and work of the director, claiming that her activities were fully integrated into the Soviet cultural context"

Current Reading: Maria Gunko, "Nothing there. A small Armenian town between disappearance and endurance"

Current reading: Crypto in Russia: "Well, not to say anything out loud, let’s call it some kind of intensification of relations between different states. They can make it so that at some point I will be left without the main source of income. Then I will have to do it [invest in cryptocurrency]"

Our annual Russia and Eurasia issue is out! Featuring @jeremymorris.bsky.social on Russia’s compliant war society, Olena Strelnyk on Ukraine’s wartime gender equality turn, @nelbek.bsky.social on Belarus’s post-2020 transformations, Florian Mühlfried on mistrust and protest in Georgia…

Re-Reading Conrad and always struck by his eternally contemporary relevance: the British are 'a people which has made a bargain with fate and wouldn't like to be rude to it.'

We did an author meet and book exchange yesterday in salubrious surroundings. Bonus was the cosplay Peaky Blinders bloke. From some angles he looked like Lenin.

Well overdue article: "The elephant in the lecture hall: Russian intelligence and Western academia" by Sanshiro Hosaka

The dangers of pundits and self-congratulatory analysis.(Yes, this is an Ian Bremmer subtweet). In reality, imports of Russian fuels to EU are only 1% less in volume from 2023, and in 2024 surpassed the Eur19bn of aid sent to Ukraine. Total earnings from fuels since 2022 is close 1 trillion Euros.

Re-upping because the algo punishes links. Saturday coffee/other beverage reading about how postmodern authoritarianism is not about hard coercion or regime ideology but far more insidious.

Comfort is maintained by a neocolonial service class. But it’s also about the ‘doxa’: the naturalized and inevitable order: everyone has their labour price, and if yours is low, it’s the Red and White for you. postsocialism.org/2025/09/19/s...

The responses to this on the 'other site', whether critical or responsive are pretty poor. Is mass, public housing near to jobs and transit better than a world of intentional scarcity and financialized private housing? Yes, even if it's a bit shitty. Funny that these aren't even bad examples here.

Did a post - on how values-based or ideological approaches to regime legitimacy in Russia have a big blind spot postsocialism.org/2025/09/12/c...

"the sanctions regime looks like it has been outsourced to an intern with no language skills or subject-matter expertise, who spends their days surfing Twitter, looking for outrage du jour. Even as symbolic effort, Chechnya and Ukraine deserve better." newsletter.threatologist.com/posts/the-in...

Colleagues often criticise my argument that the most salient discourse in Russia is Social Darwinism. But even people from exile do it 'automatically'. Like this for the Telegraph. Link in next post. [and I'm presenting on this Saturday for anyone in Sofia BG]

A great sociological genre. Russian upper-middle class woman goes to live in Argentina without knowing anything about it. Kholod does an almost sublimely unreflexive piece. 'imports are not established there'.

Journo: 'Are there signs of the beginning of genuine elite infighting now in Russia (S. Markov saga) like in the 30s #Stalinism?' Shulman: 'Signs of the beginning is putting it mildly to describe the historical moment we're entering. There's highranking intraelite repression'... 🧵

Found an ad for a dream job. Looked at the salary. Went, 'hmmmm'. Looked at living costs. Closed the tab. SAD!

Reading a revisionist account of Ukrainianization in Soviet Ukraine, against the standard narratives of Russification in 70s-80s. This was published in 2002. I'm thinking about the reception this approach would get today on indigenisation. (link in next post).

95% of the clips of this gaffe on Twitter are sourced from Russian media (all expressing outrage, many from dodgy accounts). Makes you think that the EU Commission's media office is just not fit for purpose in an age of immediate weaponization, regardless of what you think of Kallas.

Russian Academy of Sciences sociology centre just published polling which shows highest concern about cost of living since..... 1993. Bonus (because I don't have a better graphic): statistically significant rise over time in people saying end of USSR a 'self own' (47%)

Great to see this conversation with Denys Gorbach!

Really poor article, even by Snyder's public intellectual standards. Projection (post-truth politics is a US export); ahistoricism (focus on the proximal 'mad bad man' rather than structural causes of the war); pandering to Ukrainian historical mythos. Standard Snyder. FT, do better!

Great to see Ian Bruff on here. Give the man a follow!

Some nice quotes from Stephen Hutchings in this piece today: "[Countries outside the West are] very fertile territory intellectually, culturally, and ideologically [because of their] residual anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-imperial sentiments,"

Anyone fancy a roundtable on my book or a related topic at #BASEES 2026?

Prigozhin's mother interviewed in Fontanka today: I told him: “Zhenya, you will only be supported on the Internet. No one will go with you. People are not like that now. No one will go out to the square.”

Investigating information collapse of self-trained AI models and the recognized lack of quantitative accuracy of modern LLMs.

Thoughtful review of my book by maarchiaar.bsky.social in Jacobin: jacobin.com/2025/08/russ...

"Britons aren’t really worried immigration. They are just extremely insecure with their own reality and future prospects. That’s why they’re lashing out at migrants." James Pearce: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Two stories come across my TL within moments of each other. One posted by ‪@jeremymorris.bsky.social‬ on X left Jeremy cancelled. The other on putting more AI into the education system. If ever there was a recipe for just making "shit up" then it is the stuff being pushed by Big Tech...

Russian Shorts are a series of thought-provoking books published in a slim, beautifully designed format, providing concise examinations of key concepts, personalities, and moments in Russian historical and cultural studies. #ICCEES2025 bit.ly/4jXT6HF

Universities are always a part of the state apparatus and in conflict with it at the same time. The state must take periodic attempts to humble them. Supported by the employer class because they always resent educational capital.

My latest, a deep dive into the Stewart report into HS2.

"Although Weber used a Gmail address." And then I stopped reading.

Russian telegram already going insane over this because her father may have had Russian/Ukrainian roots. Ru *sources* (obviously seeded) then leap to completely unsubstantiated allegations that this necessarily entails the family betrayed USSR/were connected to SS Galicia. Zero evidence.

Early onset broadsheet dementia

V. Siiutkin: How Do Ordinary Citizens Experience Polarization Under an Authoritarian Regime? A Qualitative Study of Affects and Preferences in Postinvasion Russian Society, in www.soclabo.org/index.php/la...

Last self-publicizing post on the book, I promise. I did a relatively accessible longer write up for Russia.Post in May. I've reblogged it today in case people missed it there and want the definitive: "this is what it covers". postsocialism.org/2025/06/12/t...

OH no, Yuri Dud did a really cringe interview (3 feking hours) with the odious 'liberal journalist' Venediktov. Venediktov is such a loud-mouth, not to mention extremely dubious in his intentions. To Dud's credit he makes it clear he considers many statements by V as absurd.

For Russian speakers, this exchange between people 'outside' and those remaining 'inside' kinda encapsulates *everything* about talking down/moral line-drawing since 2022.

I don’t pretend to know what’s going on behind the scenes, maybe there are military/civilian officials trying to slow roll this, but idk this seems to be happening…so it might be time for some “McMasterism”

Teaching in the Age of AI: if AI is making your assignments worse, it’s easier to change the assignments than to change how students use AI. open.substack.com/pub/hegemon/...

This is the integration Danes crave.

Folks if you do not yet subscribe to my Substack, you should, because I have an utterly hilarious and disturbing report for you on what will happen in Moscow tomorrow, featuring some notable personalities including @AGDugin, Errol Musk & Jeffrey Sachs... open.substack.com/pub/profradc...

Anti-regime opposition leader arrested for public protest. Masked members of paramilitary group linked to ruling clan believed to be behind arrest in an example of what scholars call 'legal dualism' - a repressive strategy of authoritarian states. In this essay...

The answer is, by the way, 21 books with Putin in the title in the 'Putin' bay alone. Probably around 30 in total in the store. That's at least two-dozen too many.

Revolutions always eats their young, especially Maoist revolutions. If only SV techies had studied the humanities, they'd have known that the trauma they took such delight in inflicting was always destined to be visited on them next.

Is Putin the only living person to have his own book section in Blackwells? Guess how many titles name him in the 'Russia under Putin' bookshelf in the pic? In total, there are four sections in this large bookshop with Putin books. Kind of mindblowing when you think about it.

I also got told I'd been using my advisor too long, then when I stopped, was told it looked suspicious I didn't have a letter from him. Academics thinking their weird personal prejudices and imaginary narratives are universal absolute rules is a PROBLEM that ruins people's lives, esp women & POC.