Category: Russia

Post
Yevgeny Prigozhin

Wagner Group Leader Calls for End to Russia’s ‘Special Military Operation’

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Russian paramilitary force, Wagner, has broken with President Putin The remarks, published in a lengthy blog post on Friday, April 14 see the oligarch-turned-PMC leader ramble about the importance of the contested city of Bakhmut, denounce the “deep state” inside of Russia, call for an end to the “special military...

Post
Yevgeny Prigozhin

Wagner Mercenary Chief Says He Ran Russian Information War  

An ally of President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin earned his reputation as an operator of internet “troll farms.” The U.S. Treasury Department has placed him under several rounds of sanctions, accusing him of interference in the 2016 presidential election, among others, in part by funding the Internet Research Agency — which has been accused of fomenting...

Post
Vladimir Putin

The Future CIA Director’s Prescient Memo on Putin, NATO and Ukraine

From Robert Wright’s Nonzero Newsletter: Burns’s 2008 warning came in two forms—a memo circulated widely within the Bush administration and a more pungently written email he sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (an email she shared with Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley). The email said that if, at...

Post
Biden at CIA

CIA Thought Putin Would Quickly Conquer Ukraine

U.S. intelligence reports at the time predicted that Kyiv would fall quickly, perhaps in a week or two at the most. The predictions spurred the Biden administration to secretly withdraw some key U.S. intelligence assets from Ukraine, including covert former special operations personnel on contract with the CIA, the current and former officials said. Their account...