The Second Front

Historian Françoise Thom says, Russia barely gave in on its original plan to settle a pro-Russian government in Kyiv.

28 min read

When Russia “helps” Africa

The African summit in St. Petersburg was not a great success. But Vladimir Putin was able to harangue to his heart’s content.

~1 min read

Confusion in the Kremlin

Since the Prigozhin mutiny, confusion reigns at the top of the Russian state and among the population: the head of Wagner, sometimes accused, sometimes pardoned, negotiating with Putin, keeping his money and leaving for Belarus to reconstitute his private army

~1 min read

Russia: the end of Consensus

According to historian Françoise Thom, the almost monolithic appearance of Putin’s system is no cause for complacency. The policy of breaking away from Europe lies at the heart of the rift between two groups of the elite.

17 min read

The Russian Lobby in the United States

In this in-depth investigation, historian Laurence Saint-Gilles sketches the contours of the Russian lobby in the United States and examines the conditions that have enabled it to penetrate deeply into American society and politics.

31 min read

They Made Putinism: Mikhail Lesin (1958-2015) from Russia Today to Hollywood

Dubbed by some as “the number one enemy of Russian independent media”, Mikhail Lessin was instrumental in reshaping the media landscape after Vladimir Putin became president. And he’s buried in Hollywood. The fifth part of the serial of the historian Cécile Vaissié.

26 min read

A Feigned Innocence

Our cartoonist tackles the destruction of the Kakhovka dam by the Russians, while the Putin regime continues to claim, falsely, its innocence. Like so many times already…

~1 min read

They Made Putinism: Alfred Koch, the man of Privatizations and NTV

The historian Cécile Vaissié offers Desk Russie the fourth part of her soap opera. If Alfred Koch is quite universally hated in Russia, it is above all because he is associated with the privatizations of the 1990s. Less so because he, “like the shark of capitalism”, contributed to the suffocation of the media under Putin.

28 min read

Wild Geese

Drones descend on the Kremlin, Russian rebels attack Belgorod, Russian positions are attacked in Ukraine, but Vladimir Putin and his entourage continue to show their faith in the final victory.

~1 min read