I’m really excited that my book on the history of Russia’s “illegal” spies comes out soon. It’s taken me years of work and covers a century of Soviet/Russian history...

Below, a short thread about the book, as well as info on how to pre-order a copy. The illegals training programme lasted years and took place in secret apartments in Moscow or Kyiv (I got some amazing files from the Ukrainian archives). The operatives spent years crafting their language and mannerisms to impersonate foreigners.

It's Russian illegals season at the moment...

After a flurry of arrests of the deep-cover spies in the US in 2010 and a few knock-on arrests, there hasn’t been any exposed illegals in the past decade.

Then in the last year we’ve heard of minimum six.

A short thread: 1. Suspected GRU illegal Sergei Cherkasov, who posed as Brazilian Victor Muller Fereira for a decade & got close to infiltrating the ICC in the Hague. Over the week, US releases 46-page charge sheet full of bananas detail on his legend/shoddy tradecraft.

theguardian.com/world/2023/mar…

My analysis on Putin's angry anti-West speech, and comparison with his speech in the same place eight years ago when he annexed Crimea.
theguardian.com/world/2022/sep… “Nobody knows what happens next, it’s clear there is no grand strategy,” said one Moscow source, a well-connected political insider. “If one thing doesn’t work, we will try something else, and nobody knows where it will lead. Decisions are taken in the head of one man.”

“The other nuclear states need to say very firmly that as soon as Russia even thinks of carrying out nuclear strikes …there will be swift retaliatory nuclear strikes to destroy the nuclear launch sites in Russia,” Zelenskiy advisor told me in Kyiv today theguardian.com/world/2022/sep… Russia “enters UKR territory, starts a war, seizes territory, and then says this territory is now ours and if you try to take it back we’ll use nuclear weapons. It looks absolutely absurd, and furthermore it destroys the whole global system of nuclear deterrence,” said Podolyak.

Story / thread on schools in newly Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, and the decisions teachers are making on resistance or collaboration. Very clear that education is one of the key pillars through which Russia wants to reshape Ukraine to its liking.
theguardian.com/world/2022/sep… I focussed on one occupied town where headteacher gathered his staff in early summer and told them: “Ukraine has abandoned us and the Russians are making us offers. If we don’t accept, they’ll send new people from Russia. It’s better that we stay here and try to take care of it.”

.@PjotrSauer and I spent a couple of days on the phone to people in occupied Kherson. We found a total lack of enthusiasm for the Kremlin's planned referendum or joining Russia, and a lot of people who are nervous about what the next months might bring:

theguardian.com/world/2022/aug… Russian tactic here is targeted intimidation rather than full-scale terror of Bucha etc. They are attempting their version of a hearts-and-minds operation: offering free university for all, promising a future of more cash and bright future, signing up collaborators.

A piece I've been keen to do for a while, on the grim ideological (and physical) transformation of Dmitry Medvedev, and on the parallel reality where Medvedev got a second term.

Was it a lost opportunity or did it never exist?

theguardian.com/world/2022/aug… In 12 years Medvedev has gone from almost charmingly awkward schoolboy vibe, excited to tweet and meet Steve Jobs, to a puffy-faced husk spewing genocidal rhetoric

No idea why, but today I remembered one of the most quietly sinister episodes of my Moscow reporting life.

A short story:

It was 2016, and I got a call from London that an upcoming report would suggest Alexander Litvinenko may have been murdered on the orders of Viktor Ivanov Ivanov was a Putin confidant, formerly KGB, who at this point was the head of the Russian Drug Control Agency. As a formality, I drafted a fax to send to the agency asking for Ivanov's comment, knowing full well there would be no response, but at least we could say we'd asked.

Wrote this on language, identity and feelings towards Russia in east Ukraine (mainly in Kharkiv) theguardian.com/world/2022/jun… Also features bonus appearance from an MP who was Medvedchuk’s right hand but now disowns his mentor and says “Ukraine is my homeland, Russia is an aggressor and Putin is the main criminal of the 21st century.”

Novyi and Staryi Bykiv. Sleepy twin villages, combined population: 2000.

Some came back to family here on first day of war; they thought it would be quieter than Kyiv.

A reasonable expectation. But on 27 February the Russians arrived.

Thread:

theguardian.com/world/2022/apr… In the first hours, most locals hid in cellars. Bohdan Hladky and Oleksandr Mohyrchuk popped outside to smoke. Oleksandr’s wife went up to check on them after some time.

A neighbour came running from across the street. “The Russians have taken your boys,” he said, breathlessly.

In the Ukrainian village of Novyi Bykiv, the Russians set up their base in the local school. The whole place is totally wrecked now, just two years after it was renovated.

But the messages they left behind and the way they behaved are quite revealing. Thread: Every classroom was smashed up and littered with discarded food, ration packs and other rubbish

Me and photographer @anastasiatl spent two days in Trostianets after it spent 30 days under Russian occupation.

Systematic looting and violence has left people in this sleepy town close to Russia furious and disgusted with their neighbours.

Story here:

theguardian.com/world/2022/apr… I met so many people whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed in the space of a month to violence, shelling and looting. I really hope humanitarian aid makes it as far east as towns like this. It’s enormously needed.

Can’t stop watching this TikTok This one also good (via @B_Diril)

The few people who didn't leave Irpin were mostly those too old and to frail to walk.

For them, the last month has been hell. Death, illness and frayed nerves, a few miles from Kyiv.

I found it difficult to listen to these stories & keep it together.

theguardian.com/world/2022/mar… This photograph (Vadim Ghirdă/AP) about sums it up. This woman was so old, so utterly confused and shocked, it was almost impossible not to burst into tears.

Thread: Yesterday I interviewed Kharkiv governor Oleh Synehubov about the city's plans in the event of a Russian invasion.

Kharkiv is a city of nearly 1.5 million people, mainly Russian speaking, and sits just across the border from Russia. Troops are massed on the other side. He told me that at the first sign of “anomalous” activity at the border, he would be called into the office and an operation would start to warn citizens of a Russian attack.

A few close-ups of today’s decision makers (nb only the final one made the decision)

Putin is running this Security Council meeting like a Netflix drama. Starts by saying basically we're all going to decide the fate of Ukraine today, then lots of plot filling from the others before we get the answer.

Extraordinary way to find out the future fate of Europe. Dmitry Kozak, who grew up in Ukraine, is now engaged in a choreographed back-and-forth with Putin about the Minsk agreements. He doesn't look hugely happy.

Ukraine claims OSCE monitoring mission has become biased towards Russia after UK, US, Canadian monitors were evacuated by their govts.

Sources in mission say that's false, but there's anger at the withdrawals, leaving mission low on staff at key time.

theguardian.com/world/2022/feb… “They can look at things very one-sidedly. They don’t go where they know they will find proof of shelling of civilian buildings, but they are very happy to look at our military installations, and this creates a big question for us,” Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai told me.

There seem to be four possible scenarios for Putin now:

1. Full invasion and regime change as per US predictions.

But how would they hold the country without a sustained occupation? 2. Major invasion to capture new territory in the east

But that’s a lot of effort, bloodshed and sanctions for a fairly questionable gain.

The best Putin massive table memes spotted on Twitter, a short thread:

https://twitter.com/55privet555/status/1493239537321095169/video/1