Andrei Soldatov - How GULAG Economics and Repression is Dragging Russia Back to Worst Days of USSR

Russian’s assault on Ukraine in 2022 presents the most serious  geopolitical crisis since the Second World War, and the nuclear  posturing and threats by Russia are unprecedented in human history. But  even before, through 2021 the ratcheting up of internal repression and  persecution of opposition figures in Russia had created a foreboding  sense of crisis and escalation. In today’s episode we’ll look at how the  secret state apparatus is being used in wartime, and how this differs  from the 2000s, the 1990s and even the Soviet period. Who are the  Siloviki, and how do they suppress dissent in Russia? 

Andrei  Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist and security services  expert. Together with fellow journalist Irina Borogan he is co-founder  of Agentura.Ru – a watchdog of the Russian secret services’ activities.  He’s been covering security services and terrorism issues since 1999.  Together with Irina Borogan Andrei has co-authored three books: The New  Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring  Legacy of the KGB (2010), The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s  Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries (2015) and The  Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés,  and Agents Abroad (2019). Until 2008 Andrei Soldatov wrote for Novaya  Gazeta, but has since written for many other publications. He is a  Visiting Fellow of King's College London, and Senior Fellow at CEPA, the  Centre for European Policy Analysis.