Mark Galeotti - Criminality, Conflict and Deception: Russia's Hybrid Warfare Transforms to Total War

The invasion of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014 has now been overshadowed  by the full-scale war across Ukraine. But understanding the shadowy and  obscure ways in which the conflict began and developed prior to 2022 may  help to highlight potential risks for a post-conflict order. Russia’s  hybrid warfare strategy may have played a leading role in igniting and  fuelling the conflict, but crime and insurgency are intimately  interconnected in the Kremlin playbook. The boundaries between mafia  criminality, the security forces and government are hopelessly blurred  in Russia, and nowhere more so than in the occupied territories of  Ukraine. The Kremlin is opportunistic and co-opts all kinds of actors,  from businesses and gangsters to politicians and educators as tools and  proxies. A Ukrainian victory will not only require the seizing back of  territory, but an effort to root Russian assets, networks and  accomplices and roll back propagandist media and the penetration of the  occupied territories by criminal elements. I’m joined by world-renowned  academic Mark Galeotti today to unravel this murky and terrifying Ruskii  Mir.   

Mark Galeotti is an author and academic – by training an historian – but  in practice an interdisciplinary scholar with interests encompassing  politics, criminology, security studies, international relations, and  anthropology. He is a specialist in transnational and organized crime,  security affairs, Russian Politics, Russian History, Intelligence and  Security. Mark has a PhD in Government from LSE and has worked as a Senior  Lecturer and Head of Department of History at Keele University. I can’t  list all his numerous achievements, but he is a Principal Director at  Mayak Intelligence, and is an Honorary Professor, SSEES at UCL. He is a  Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He has  also been Professor of Global Affairs at New York University from 2009  to 2016.  Make Galeotti has written on a dizzying array of topics and published  numerous books covering Russian foreign and security policy, the Soviet  war in Afghanistan, Soviet and Russian militaries, organised crime, as  well as the Russian leaders: Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin. At  present Mark is working on a survey of Russia’s military since 1991 –  which is likely a challenge given the rapid degradation of that military  in Ukraine since February, and he’s also researching the security and  intelligence services and their impact on Russian politics and society.