President & CEO @CEPA Prof @SAIShopkins former @BrookingsInst Berkeley PhD, Russia, Europe, democracy, tech policy. Views my own. press@cepa.org
May 8, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Putin wants to present a "win" on May 9, but there is no victory to be had for Russia. Putin is destroying his own country as he seeks to destroy Ukraine. And he's losing on all fronts: economic decline, brain drain, huge military losses, and pariah state status. Short thread:
1/ Russia's economy may be muddling through in the short term, but sanctions will have long term effects with sharp contractions on the horizon. reuters.com/world/europe/r…
Mar 10, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Many are asking how to reach the Russian people who have been brainwashed by years of gov disinformation,
as social media is banned, and as people don’t trust Western sources like they did during the Cold War. Some good ideas here (and some from me) 🧵 cepa.org/how-to-reach-r…
1 we have to find the 21 century version of samizdat - the unofficial homemade information and media that Soviet citizens shared among themselves
Jun 29, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Few thoughts on the Russian bounty program in Afghanistan.
1/ Theories that this is retaliation for 2018 US airstrike against the Wagner group in Syria seem far fetched. Wagner is a mercenary group (basically dispensable). nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/…2/ There was no official statement from the Kremlin on the approx. 200 Wagner mercenaries who were killed in that 2018 strike. nytimes.com/2018/05/24/wor…
Important to note a few things: 1. Lutsenko (Ukraine's prosecutor general who on March 20 gives an interview to the Hill) says that he will open an investigation...
2/ "into whether his country’s law enforcement apparatus intentionally leaked financial records during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in an effort to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton."
