June 27, 2023

The Precarious Nature of Putin’s Regime

Over the weekend, infighting between Prigozhin and Shoigu led to seismic shifts in Russian domestic stability. This episode was recorded on Friday, June 23, prior to start of the Wagner Group’s insurgency within Russia. The implications of Wagner’s armed rebellion remain uncertain. This Brussels Sprouts, released in conjunction with the launch of the CNAS Russia Stability Tracker, focuses on the broader context of Russian domestic stability. As the war in Ukraine continues and elite fissures begin to emerge, Catherine Belton and Arkady Ostrovksy join the conversation to discuss Putin’s hold on power, and how we might expect Russian domestic dynamics to evolve moving forward.

Catherine Belton reports on Russia for The Washington Post. She is the author of Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West.

Arkady Ostrovsky is the Russia and eastern Europe editor for The Economist. He is the author of The Invention of Russia: The Journey from Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War and The Invention of Russia: The Rise of Putin and the Age of Fake News.

  • Podcast
    • September 13, 2024
    Splitting the Atom on U.S. Nuclear Strategy

    Earlier this year, the Biden administration revised its nuclear strategy, the nuclear employment guidance, which is updated approximately every four years. This time, however,...

    By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend, James Acton & Jon B. Wolfsthal

  • Commentary
    • Sharper
    • September 11, 2024
    Sharper: Drones on the Battlefield

    From the battlefields of Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine, the deployment of drones has become a critical element of modern warfare. Will the explosion of unmanned aerial ...

    By Anna Pederson & Molly Campbell

  • Video
    • September 5, 2024
    Why Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are teaming up

    Probably the most surprising thing about the war in Ukraine is that Russia is getting a ton of help. North Korea and Iran are sending it millions of rounds of ammunition and l...

    By Andrea Kendall-Taylor

  • Commentary
    • Foreign Affairs
    • September 3, 2024
    Putin Will Never Give Up in Ukraine

    The evidence suggests that on Ukraine, Putin simply is not persuadable; he is all in....

    By Peter Schroeder

View All Reports View All Articles & Multimedia