This blog’s author, Dr Mark Galeotti has been researching Russian history and security issues since the late 1980s, and enjoyed regularly travelling there to study, teach, research and simply engage with the Russian people — until the Kremlin chose to ban him indefinitely in 2022.

Educated at Cambridge University and the LSE, he is the director of the consultancy firm Mayak Intelligence. He is also an Honorary Professor at UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies, Ernest Bevin Associate Fellow in Euro-Atlantic Geopolitics with the Council on Geostrategy and a Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI, as well as a senior non-resident fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague and an Associate Fellow of the Middle East Institute’s Frontier Europe programme. Previously he has been a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, Head of the Centre for European Security at the Institute of International Relations Prague, Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, head of the History department at Keele University in the UK, an adviser at the British Foreign Office and a visiting professor at MGIMO (Moscow), Charles University (Prague) and Rutgers (Newark), as well as a visiting fellow with the ECFR.

His books include Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin and the new fight for the future of Russia with Anna Arutunyan (Ebury, 2024), Putin’s Wars (Osprey, 2023),  The Weaponisation of Everything (Yale University Press, 2022), A Short History of Russia (HarperCollins, 2020/Ebury, 2021), We Need To Talk About Putin (Ebury, 2019) and The Vory: Russia’s super mafia (Yale University Press, 2018), and several Osprey books.  He is a regular contributor to the Sunday Times and The Spectator Coffee House blog.

Mark Galeotti from Moscow on policy gridlock and Rex Tillerson's visit,
12 April 2017

Speaking on corruption on 'Russia's Rotten Core' panel at Chatham House, 2012

Speaking on corruption on The Big Think, 2012

Speaking about assassination of mob boss Usoyan on Varney & Co, Fox Business Network

Speaking on Russian espionage on Bloomberg TV, 2010

A friendlier Russia in 2013? A one-minute "geopolitical surprise" prediction for Wikistrat

On Bloomberg Surveillance, 26 March 2013, talking about Russia and Cyprus

On CNBC, 6 September 2013, talking about Russia and Syria

On RT with Oxana Boyko on 17 April 2014, talking about covert actions

Crime, Crimea and the Kremlin: Ties between Putin regime and organized crime with VOA, 24 November 2014

FORGED IN WAR (Osprey, 2024)