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Andrew S. Weiss Profile picture
Andrew S. Weiss
@andrewsweiss
Vice President for Studies & James Family Chair @CarnegieEndow. Graphic novel out now! ACCIDENTAL CZAR: THE LIFE AND LIES OF VLADIMIR PUTIN https://t.co/zf76DeFTUP
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Nov 17, 2023 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
1/ My colleague @eugene_rumer and I have published a new essay in @WSJ calling for Western leaders to abandon magical thinking about Russia and to develop a credible, long-term strategy for supporting Ukraine and containing an emboldened, revisionist Russia. Image 2/ All too often, policymakers have clung to the belief that “something”—a Ukrainian breakthrough on the battlefield, a Russian financial meltdown, fractures within the Russian elite, etc—will upend Putin’s strategic calculus about the war.
Jun 26, 2023 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
🧵So much breathless commentary about how Putin has been badly damaged by the #Prigozhin "coup, not coup."

I am reminded of something he said in 2010 about whether it's possible to micro-manage a country like Russia. 1/x Kremlin PR has long portrayed Putin as a larger than life figure, latter-day incarnation of Stalin etc. But even before 🇺🇦 war, there were plenty of indications that the heavily personalistic regime and formal state institutions that he presides over are rickety as hell 2/x
Feb 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
💯

1/2 This masterful May 2022 essay by Chris Bort "Why the Kremlin Treats its Own Citizens with Contempt" is the perfect companion piece to Kotkin's interview with David Remnick.

carnegieendowment.org/2022/05/12/why… 2/3 Nearly every single day since this criminal war began, I've thought about what Zhukov told Eisenhower when explaining how the Red Army forced infantry soldiers to walk across minefields:

"Women will give birth to more." Image
Jan 18, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
1/ So many good insights into Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group in this piece by @Bershidsky. His analysis is, thankfully, free of the endless hype and self-promotion that analysis Prigozhin's role in 🇺🇦 normally centers on. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… 2/ I'm especially impressed by the comparison that Bershidsky draws between Putin's current dealings with Prigozhin and his 1990s-era connections to famed Leningrad Vladimir Kumarin who @CatherineBelton chronicled in her book "Putin's People."
Dec 15, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
1/x So many memorable passages in this remarkably candid interview with General Valery Zaluzhny, head of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Take time to read the whole thing. Here's couple of highlights.

@TheEconomist @shashj 2/x Uncannily, Gen. Zaluzhny echoes a senior US military officer: "We are talking about the scale of WW1 [in which the British Army fired a million shells...I was told, “We will lose Europe. We will have nothing to live on if you fire that many shells.” defense.gov/News/Transcrip…
Nov 26, 2022 • 11 tweets • 9 min read
🧵 Can a graphic novel shed light on Putin’s motivations in Ukraine, how he might escalate the 🇺🇦 war & perhaps even use nuclear weapons?

So grateful to @nickschifrin of @NewsHour for our chat about ACCIDENTAL CZAR: THE LIFE & LIES OF VLADIMIR PUTIN.
pbs.org/newshour/show/… 1/ Image .@nickschifrin and I covered several key themes from the book, including Putin’s frequent embellishment of his life story (which was perfectly interesting already!) and self-serving portrayal of Russia’s convulsive history to justify his own actions. 2/ Image
Oct 22, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/x New Kremlin talking points about 🇺🇦 set up a head-on collision with the general public.

Take heed of this major rhetorical shift from Putin's senior political advisor, Sergei Kiriyenko. tass.ru/politika/16127… 2/x Kiriyenko spoke at length a forum of educators and school administrators. "Russia has always won any war if that war became a people's (narodniy) war. That's how it's always been."
Oct 22, 2022 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
1/x Why does Prigozhin keep doing things that don't make strategic sense like pouring Wagner's fighters into a 4-month-long attack on Bakhmut where the "front line has barely moved in four months of heavy fighting"? washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/… @leloveluck @RobynDixon__ 2/x This bracing account of the battle for Bakhmut reveals how Wagner's actions "have eclipsed all strategic logic" and how "after a disorderly Russian retreat from nearby Izyum, the battle for Bakhmut is no longer part of any coordinated military operation."
Oct 12, 2022 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
1/x Very grateful to @jdickerson for our conversation about my graphic novel about Putin, what Putin's KGB years tell us about his state of mind & why Biden's comments about Putin's nuclear blackmail and his being a "rational actor" don't tell the whole story.

A short 🧵 2/x Biden was trying to do a bit of damage control after his comments that the world is now closer to nuclear Armageddon than any point since the Cuban Missile crisis. BUT his comments to @jaketapper are quite revealing about why the White House is still very worried.
Oct 11, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1/x Couple of interesting nuggets from Putin's photo op with UAE leader MBZ that align with findings of my recent article on the Russian lovefest with Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab states. carnegieendowment.org/2022/10/05/wha… 2/x Putin emphasizes how last week's move by OPEC Plus to cut oil production wasn't aimed at anybody when, in fact, such moves to push prices higher are potentially quite harmful to the wobbly global economy which has more than its share of inflationary headwinds. Image
Oct 5, 2022 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
1/x Russia and Saudi Arabia teamed up today to prop up oil prices, which have slid by roughly 25% since early June.

I dug into the key drivers in their relationship and some of the limitations in an article co-written w Jasmine Alexander-Greene

carnegieendowment.org/2022/10/05/wha… 2/x Personalities matter a lot. MBS and Putin revel in taunting the Biden administration. Unfortunately, the Ukraine war changed nothing.

It always pays to remember MBS's comments about Biden's complaints about the Kingdom: “Simply, I do not care.”
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Sep 29, 2022 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
Really interesting session ...lots of insights on Putin's (mis)calculations in 🇺🇦, WH reaction on nucs & blowback inside Russia to mobilization from @AlexGabuev, @AKendallTaylor & @baunov.

You all should watch the whole darn thing.

Couple of key moments to flag:

1/4 Here's @baunov talking about personal friends in Moscow who are not deeply political but have rushed to get out of the country in the past few days, including across the Norway-Russia border above the Arctic Circle.



2/4
Sep 20, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/x The Kremlin is shouting from the rooftops the rationale & military implications of formally annexing 4 regions that it currently occupies.

Since Feb 24 we've treated people like fmr President Medvedev like random noise generating clowns.

But I would pay attention today. 2/x Medvedev's toxic postings on Telegram about Ukraine 🇺🇦 and Sturm und Drang threats against the West throughout the war have required a very thick stomach. Like many, I've looked away from the whole sad spectacle.
Sep 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
1/ Join us later today for the rollout of an important paper by @AndrKolesnikov and Denis Volkov of @levada_ru explaining why landscape of Russian public opinion on the war in Ukraine is more complicated.
📺 carnegieendowment.org/events/7935 2/ In their paper"My Country, Right or Wrong," Kolesnikov & Volkov use freshly collected public opinion and focus group data to highlight some important nuances including the widening of important divisions within Russian society.
Aug 31, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1/n More insights from @AndrKolesnikov on the damaging psychological impact of the Gorbachev era on average Russians and the connection to the refurbishing of Stalin's image under Putin.
carnegieendowment.org/eurasiainsight… @AndrKolesnikov 2/5 "Gorbachev gave us the chance to be free. Some people made use of that freedom and were grateful, while others lost control over their own freedom, and now blame Gorbachev for that, when in fact they have no one to blame but themselves."
Jun 11, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
With friends like these…
“Serbian President Vucic has never been sincere in his pompous pro-Russian rhetoric and is even less so today. He has been playing the Russian card in several different ways, depending on the audience.” “At home, he touts Russia as a mighty and benevolent world power, which only he knows how to deal with.”
Apr 7, 2022 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Utterly devastating piece about Russian society's silence about the war in Ukraine by my Moscow-based colleague @AndrKolesnikov Gleichschaltung: the act, process or policy of achieving rigid/total coordination & uniformity by forcibly repressing or eliminating independence and freedom of thought, action, or expression; forced reduction to a common level; forced standardization or assimilation
Mar 23, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
THREAD: Things are not going well for Putin in Ukraine war. But slew of news today should remind everyone that Putin definitely knows how to build and exploit leverage. 1/x Take Putin's unexpected announcement that EU countries will now have to pay for natural gas shipments in rubles, not euros. That move, plus a Russian-directed shutdown of the Caspian Pipeline (1 mln/bpd), are pushing oil prices back to the $120 level today. 2/x
Feb 14, 2022 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
1/x Quick thread on two important issues that came up w @nickschifrin just now:

- Why does the Kremlin lie?
- Why is it so hard to embarrass Vladimir Putin?

Allow me to draw heavily from a recent paper by my @CarnegieRussia colleague Chris Bort.

carnegieendowment.org/2022/01/06/why… 2/x The Kremlin penchant for lying is a fundamental aspect of the #Ukraine crisis. In 2014 Putin kept insisting that Russia wasn't involved in the conflict. Those soldiers without insignia were just locals who had bought their gear at local army surplus shops. Yes, he said this.
Jan 7, 2022 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
THREAD: With COVID cases exploding, how is the Kremlin's vaccine diplomacy faring? @PaulStronski and I have been looking at sales of Russia's homegrown Sputnik V vaccine in parts of the Global South.
Our new explainer highlights why it's fallen short 1/ Image Putin himself is a big promoter of the vaccine. He regularly touts it to audiences at home and abroad, embracing claims that Russia’s vaccine is highly effective and even better than all others, including against omicron. 2/
en.kremlin.ru/events/preside… ImageImage
Nov 12, 2021 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
Why is Putin setting the Biden administration totally on edge about renewed military intervention in #Ukraine? In a new research paper, we look at what has (and hasn’t changed) in the Russian strategic calculus. 1/
carnegieendowment.org/2021/11/12/ukr… In our paper, Eugene Rumer and I trace the shifts in the Kremlin’s position, shedding light on the rationale behind potential precursors of a new phase of the conflict. War may not be inevitable, but we see plenty of reason to think it’s once again a real possibility. Why? 2/