Russian Roulette CSIS

On this week's episode, Max and Maria sat down with Roman Dobrokhotov, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Russia-focused investigative media outlet, The Insider. Roman's team, along with colleagues at CBS's 60 Minutes and the German outlet Der Spiegel, recently concluded an investigation that uncovered evidence potentially linking Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, with the health incidents impacting U.S. government officials and their families that have come to be known as "Havana Syndrome."
Show Notes: "Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families" by Roman Dobrokhotov, Christo Grozev, and Michael Weiss (The Insider)

Max and Maria sat down with Paul Schwartz and Sam Bendett to discuss the different technological and tactical battlefield innovations taking place in Ukraine today, and what they mean for military analysts studying the war.
Disclaimer: Paul and Sam's views as expressed in this episode are their own, and do not necessarily represent the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA).

Nicolas Véron of Bruegel and the Peterson Institute for International Economics joined Max to discuss the ongoing debate over Russia's frozen central bank reserves. This conversation was recorded on March 15, 2024.
See "The European Union should do better than confiscate Russia's reserve money" by Nicolas Véron for Bruegel. At the time of this episode's publication, the European Council met for a summit in Brussels and was considering a plan to use the profits accrued to frozen Russian assets to provide military support for Ukraine.

This week, Maria was joined once again by Liana Fix and Nikolay Petrov to discuss Russia's March 2024 presidential election, and what "politics" looks like in the country today.
Be sure to read the new paper written by Maria and Liana, "Leadership Change in Russia: Contingency Planning Memorandum" (Council on Foreign Relations).

This week, Max and Maria are joined again by Miriam Lanskoy from the National Endowment for Democracy to discuss the recent news of Alexei Navalny's death in a Russian penal colony.

On this week's episode, listen to Max interview Maria on her new book, "When Left Moves Right: The Decline of the Left and the Rise of the Populist Right in Postcommunist Europe." Max and Maria were joined by Dan Kelemen, a Senior Associate non-resident fellow at CSIS and an expert on the European Union. This conversation was recorded on January 30, 2024. To order a copy of Maria's book, please click here.