Introduction

In this episode, Dmitri Alperovitch talks with historian and Russia expert Mark Galeotti about:

- Whether Putin is capable of compromising his war aims in any potential future negotiations with Ukraine

- The real reason for why he chose to invade Ukraine

- Why he went ahead and annexed territories he didn't even have full control over

- The similarities between Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022

- Why Prigozhin and Kadyrov are no threat to Putin's hold on power

- Whether the sanctions and export controls are having much of an effect on the Russian economy and society

- How the people in Russia's intelligence services are reacting to the war (and what happened to SVR's Naryshkin)

- Why Putin is incapable of holding incompetent leaders accountable

- Why the bombastic rhetoric from Russian nationalist shock jocks on state television is not a portal into Kremlin's policy

- And much more!