Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason. John Harington, British poet. THREAD What is happening is called an "insurgency," although we should call it an "anti-utopia," something akin to the civil war and the collapse of the state.

Putin’s Stalin Phase. My take on the similarities btw Stalin and Putin. foreignaffairs.com/russian-federa… via @ForeignAffairs 1/2 It is not just that Stalin’s iron rule has become a model for today’s Kremlin. Increasingly, Putin himself has come to resemble Stalin in his final years, when the Soviet leader was at his most paranoid and severe.

1/1 Unfortutanely, can't answer to all the requests. Here I suggest some first thesises. 1/2 The decision to partially mobilize is an admission of the failure of a special military operation. The resulting holes are simply plugged with cannon fodder.

My long-read on Gorbachev. Some points. By giving freedom to the citizens of his country, he relieved the citizens of the rest of the world of fear. And the world responded to the Soviet leader with adoration - Gorbymania. 1/1 newtimes.ru/articles/detai… 1/ 2 Mikhail Gorbachev tried to explain himself. To the nation. And to himself. Perhaps the nation did not notice that the door to the world of freedom had indeed opened for it, and it was Gorbachev who did this.

THREAD: Did yesterday's state-sponsored violence on the streets of Moscow, Petersburg and other cities fundamentally change the relationship between the state and its subject? 1/ A new pattern is readily apparent: Navalny returns to Russia after an assassination attempt and gains moral power. Average citizens take to the streets and are beaten. They gain the same moral power. 2/

THREAD Executive Order on Russia’s national development goals through 2030: "reduce the poverty rate by half compared to 2017". Maybe it's better to go from the other side: to create conditions for the growth of the middle class?en.kremlin.ru/events/preside… 1/4 "...to ensure the sustainable growth of the population of the Russian Federation" - it's against all possible demographic trends. 2/4

THREAD.
REHEARSAL of 1937 in 2020. Voting for eternal Putin was a signal for siloviki and for political verdicts and arrests. Today, searches have been carried out on municipal deputy Yulia Galamina and media representatives of Khodorkovsky.1/4 And for doubtful "elites" (who is STILL talking about discontent in this specific community??) the message is the arrest of the governor of the Khabarovsk territory Furgal for ostensibly organized murders. When he was a deputy, nobody cared about that. 2/4

THREAD: The coronavirus has upended Putin’s plans for Victory Day, the public holiday on May 9 marking victory in WWII. In this article, I look at how effectively the Kremlin uses history as a political weapon to mobilize the Russian public. 1/17 carnegie.ru/2020/04/09/ru-… Like the Soviets before them, the Putin regime has made victory over Nazism a cornerstone of its national ideology and Putin's personal legitimacy. But the result is the creeping glorification of Stalin as the man who led the country to victory. 2/17

Thread: Why is it so difficult for Russia and Europe to understand each other? Putin’s irrational politics have caused a deep misunderstanding between Russia and Europe. I outline 7 realities that would help Europe better understand Russia: ceip.org/2yoMznR 1/ The nature of the support Putin enjoys in Russia is no enigma: as the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin, Putin for the majority of the Russians is an eternal leader, a symbol of the country, a flag around which to rally. 2/