Mark Galeotti is one of the world’s leading experts on Russian politics, crime and security (which are often one and the same), which may explain why Moscow banned him indefinitely in 2022. He read History at Cambridge University and Politics at the LSE, and has travelled extensively across Russia and the post-Soviet states. He has been head of History at Keele University in the UK, academic chair of the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, a Senior Research Fellow at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, head of the Centre for European Security at the Institute of International Relations Prague and a visiting professor at Rutgers-Newark (USA), MGIMO (Moscow), Charles University (Czech Republic) and the European University Institute (Italy). He now heads the Russia-focused consultancy Mayak Intelligence and is an honorary professor at University College London as well as a senior fellow with the Council on Geostrategy in London, the University of Kent, and the Institute of International Relations Prague. He has briefed widely, from prime ministers and CEOs to generals and intelligence chiefs. A prolific author, his more than 30 books include Homo Criminalis: how crime organises the world (2025), Forged in War: a military history of Russia from its beginnings to today (2024), Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin and the new fight for the future of Russiawith Anna Arutunyan (2024), Putin’s Wars (2022), The Weaponisation of Everything (2022), We Need to Talk about Putin (2019) and The Vory: Russia’s super mafia (2017).
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Episode 494
Mark Galeotti
The West’s Forgotten War and the New Russia | Mark Galeotti
Mark Galeotti is one of the world’s leading experts on Russian politics, crime and security (which are often one and the same), which may explain why Moscow banned him indefinitely in 2022. He read History at Cambridge University and Politics at the LSE, and has travelled extensively across Russia and the post-Soviet states. He has been head of History at Keele University in the UK, academic chair of the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, a Senior Research Fellow at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, head of the Centre for European Security at the Institute of International Relations Prague and a visiting professor at Rutgers-Newark (USA), MGIMO (Moscow), Charles University (Czech Republic) and the European University Institute (Italy). He now heads the Russia-focused consultancy Mayak Intelligence and is an honorary professor at University College London as well as a senior fellow with the Council on Geostrategy in London, the University of Kent, and the Institute of International Relations Prague. He has briefed widely, from prime ministers and CEOs to generals and intelligence chiefs. A prolific author, his more than 30 books include Homo Criminalis: how crime organises the world (2025), Forged in War: a military history of Russia from its beginnings to today (2024), Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin and the new fight for the future of Russiawith Anna Arutunyan (2024), Putin’s Wars (2022), The Weaponisation of Everything (2022), We Need to Talk about Putin (2019) and The Vory: Russia’s super mafia (2017).
In Episode 494 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Mark Galeotti — host of In Moscow’s Shadows and one of the most informed and provocative voices on modern Russia — about the war in Ukraine, the risk that it spills over into NATO’s eastern flank, and the escalatory paths and deepening dependency on Beijing that will define Russia’s place in the emerging global order.
The first hour takes stock of Russia’s war in Ukraine, a conflict Galeotti describes as several wars happening simultaneously — a grinding battle of attrition in the Donbas, an economic war of deep strikes on refineries and critical infrastructure, and a political war that has enveloped not only the conflict’s chief counterparties but every major power and regional bloc for whom this war has become the central battlefield in the emergence of a new global order. They discuss the human and economic costs of the fighting, the strategic aims of Europe’s nation states and how those align with Washington’s, and the fraying, increasingly uneven state of Western support, before turning to the mind of Vladimir Putin — the insecurities Galeotti places at the core of his character, his survival instincts, his narrow circle of trust, and the forces shaping his perception of how the war is going.
The second hour explores what Putin would actually need in order to end the war, why he keeps chasing a symbolic victory in the Donbas rather than the settlement presently available to him, and why his aversion to weakness is essential to making sense of his calculations. The conversation then turns to succession, what tends to follow the death or departure of a personalistic ruler, the lessons of Stalin’s untimely death, and why Galeotti expects any transition of power in Moscow to reflect the will of a coalition of post-Soviet elites rather than the machinations of a younger, smarter Putin. They weigh the escalatory paths that worry European capitals, from a direct challenge to NATO’s eastern flank to the campaigns of sabotage, subversion, and hybrid warfare that Galeotti considers more plausible, and close by examining how America’s entanglement in the Middle East has been received in Moscow, what a hollowed-out but battle-hardened post-war Russia could mean for the world, Moscow’s lopsided and deepening dependency on Beijing, the prospects for Washington to cleave Russia away from China’s sphere of influence, and what all of it means for energy markets and the global economy.
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Mark Galeotti is one of the world’s leading experts on Russian politics, crime and security (which are often one and the same), which may explain why Moscow banned him indefinitely in 2022. He read History at Cambridge University and Politics at the LSE, and has travelled extensively across Russia and the post-Soviet states.
He has been head of History at Keele University in the UK, academic chair of the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, a Senior Research Fellow at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, head of the Centre for European Security at the Institute of International Relations Prague and a visiting professor at Rutgers-Newark (USA), MGIMO (Moscow), Charles University (Czech Republic) and the European University Institute (Italy).
He now heads the Russia-focused consultancy Mayak Intelligence and is an honorary professor at University College London as well as a senior fellow with the Council on Geostrategy in London, the University of Kent, and the Institute of International Relations Prague. He has briefed widely, from prime ministers and CEOs to generals and intelligence chiefs.
A prolific author, his more than 30 books include Homo Criminalis: how crime organises the world (2025), Forged in War: a military history of Russia from its beginnings to today (2024), Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin and the new fight for the future of Russiawith Anna Arutunyan (2024), Putin’s Wars (2022), The Weaponisation of Everything (2022), We Need to Talk about Putin (2019) and The Vory: Russia’s super mafia (2017).
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
