The Russia Guy

Elena Chernenko, a special correspondent at the newspaper Kommersant who focuses on cybersecurity, non-proliferation, and arms control, joins the show to talk about arriving at foreign-affairs journalism, navigating Russia's contemporary media environment, and staying sane in an increasingly crazy world. Follow her on Twitter here. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Joey Pecoraro, "Russian Dance"Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы бяки-буки”Support the show...

On today's episode, Kevin speaks to the scholars behind the new book “Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future?” The three authors: Jan Matti Dollbaum, a postdoctoral researcher at Bremen University, Morvan Lallouet, a PhD candidate at the University of Kent, and Ben Noble, a lecturer in Russian Politics at University College London. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Joey Pecoraro, "Russian Dance"Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы бяки-буки”Support the show...

Today's show welcomes back Anton Barbashin, a political analyst focusing on Russia and the editorial director at Riddle, for a conversation about the different schools of thought and general drift and direction of foreign-policy expertise inside Russia. Follow Anton on Twitter here and read Ivan Timofeyev's Valdai Club article here (in Russian), which is cited during the interview. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Joey Pecoraro, "Russian Dance"Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты,...

Today's guest is Dr. Sam Greene, the director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London and the co-author of the 2019 book “Putin V. the People: The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia." Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы бяки-буки”Счастье вдруг (из х/ф Иван Васильевич меняет профессию)Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/kevinrothrock)

Matthew Luxmoore, a Moscow-based correspondent for RFE/RL, discusses his March 2021 article about an amateur researcher in Tomsk named Denis Karagodin who’s spent the better part of a decade compiling archival documents about the execution of his great-grandfather in 1938 by officers in the NKVD. Earlier this year, the local authorities reportedly started building a criminal case against Karagodin on defamation charges filed by the relatives of some of his grandfather’s supposed...

Today's guest is Sergei Khazov-Cassia, a correspondent in Moscow for RFE/RL's Russian Service. In this interview, Kevin asks Sergei about his recent investigative report on industrial-scale oil theft in Russia. Read an English-language translation of the story, “The Great Russian Oil Heist,” right here. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы бяки-буки”Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/kevinrothrock)

Today's guest is Mary Ilyushina, a Moscow-based journalist and producer at CNN who previously worked at RBC. She’s recently worked on stories like the Navalny trial and the protests in Russia, as well as in Belarus, and she was kind enough to come on this podcast to talk about her career, her upbringing, and just generally her life. Follow Mary on Twitter here. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы бяки-буки”Support the show...

Today's episode is a co-hosted news-in-review show with Canadian journalist Neil Hauer about political unrest in Yerevan (where Neil is based), Amnesty International's leaked internal decision to revoke Alexey Navalny's prisoner-of-conscience status, and Team Navalny's efforts to open a campaign office in Dagestan. Follow Neil on Twitter here and support his journalism at Patreon here. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы...

This episode's guest is Anton Barbashin, the editorial director at Riddle, an online publication that focuses on Russian affairs and features some of the sharpest expert insights in the field, particularly from young specialists and scholars. From 2015 to 2018, Anton was a managing editor of Intersection, a Warsaw-based Russian affairs journal, and he's worked as an analyst at the Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding. His writings have also appeared at Foreign Affairs, The...

Reuters special correspondent Polina Ivanova discusses her November 2020 article “The Woman Who Fell From the Sky,” about Star City (the secretive home of Russia's space program) and about the death of Natalya Lebedeva, a doctor who found herself caught up in the confusion and panic of the pandemic’s early days. Incidentally, Longform.org selected the text as one of the best science long-reads of 2020. Follow Polina on Twitter here. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Олег Анофриев,...

Today's guest is Samantha Berkhead, a news editor at The Moscow Times, where she’s reported on all manner of things over the past two years, including Internet memes, Tolstoy’s descendants living in the sticks, witchcraft, queer culture, kinky parties (more about this in the interview), feminism, and a lot, lot more. Follow her on Twitter here and at The Moscow Times here. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы бяки-буки”Счастье вдруг (из...

Today's guest is Dr. Leslie Root, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Demography at UC Berkeley. Dr. Root recently completed "Fertility in Transition in 21st-Century Russia," a dissertation on childbearing and fertility changes over the course of the Putin era in Russia. Follow Leslie on Twitter here, and visit her website here. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы бяки-буки”Счастье вдруг (из х/ф Иван Васильевич меняет...

Today's guest is Alex Kliment, the creative director at GZERO Media, Eurasia Group's global-politics-oriented independent media spinoff, where he directs “Puppet Regime,” a political satire puppet series. Additionally, Alex is the senior editor of Eurasia Group’s global politics newsletter, “Signal.” Alex also composes film scores, and he’s put that musical talent to work for GZERO, as well. Follow Alex on Twitter here and watch "Puppet Regime" on YouTube here. Music and audio for "The...

Today's guest is Jack Stubbs, the European cybersecurity correspondent at the news agency Reuters and previously a correspondent in Russia and Ukraine. About a week ago, on October 1, 2020, Jack authored an exclusive story at Reuters, titled “Russian Operation Masqueraded as Right-Wing News Site to Target U.S. Voters,” about people connected to the infamous Internet Research Agency — that troll factory founded by Evgeny Prigozhin — running a fake news outlet designed to target right-wing...

Today's guest is Ben Aris, the editor-in-chief of bne IntelliNews, a media outlet he pioneered that reports on business news and data from emerging markets. Ben spent many years as a foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe, and he’s been covering Russia since 1993, with stints in the Baltics and Central Asia. He co-founded bne and is a former Moscow bureau chief for The Daily Telegraph and was a contributing editor at The Banker and Euromoney for a decade. Follow Ben Aris on Twitter...

Bryan MacDonald, the head of the online Russia desk at the English-language edition of Russia Today, or RT, joins “The Russia Guy” to discuss his career in journalism and his views on Alexey Navalny, Western reporting, and Russian politics. Follow him on Twitter here. Music and audio for "The Russia Guy": Ну погоди, episode 14Олег Анофриев, Бременские музыканты, “Говорят, мы бяки-буки”Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/kevinrothrock)

Today’s guest is Anna Arutunyan, a Russian-American analyst and writer and the author of “The Putin Mystique: Inside Russia’s Power Cult” (2014) and “The Media in Russia” (2009) and the co-author of “Freedom, Repression, and Private Property in Russia” (2013). Her work has been published all over the place, and one of her most recent articles was released on August 5 in the magazine Foreign Affairs, titled “There Is No Russian Plot Against America.” Follow Anna on Twitter here! Music and...

Today's guest is Tara Reade, the former staff assistant in Joe Biden’s Senate office, who earlier this year accused Biden of sexually assaulting her back in 1993 when she was in her late 20s. Ms. Reade has faced significant criticism not just for her allegations against Joe Biden, but also for her past statements about Russia and Vladimir Putin, which some commentators seem to believe constitute “possible Russia connections” in line with the collusion theory that Donald Trump conspired with...

Today's guest is Rob Lee, a doctoral student in the Department of War Studies at King's College London, a former Alfa Fellow, and an ex-Marine. Rob joins "The Russia Guy" to talk about the 33 Russian nationals arrested in Belarus on July 29, 2020. Officials in Minsk say the men are mercenaries from the “Wagner” private military company (PMC) who planned to incite riots ahead of the presidential election. Russian diplomats have identified the suspects as private security guards who were...

Today's show welcomes back Wilson Center Disinformation Fellow Nina Jankowicz, who first appeared on this podcast way back in December 2017. She's back now to discuss her new book, How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict, which "takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics" (Estonia, Georgia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine) and "shows what is at stake: the future of civil...