Cicero's Songs

Since Vladimir Putin "resurfaced" on Monday, the most feverish speculation has died down. He has not been actually overthrown. However there is little doubt that his regime is facing serious problems. In a sense we can know this by the renewed blizzard of propaganda and misinformation being put out by the Kremlin lie machine : reporting and exaggerating splits between EU and NATO partners about the current Russian sanctions regime, for example. Then there is the report that Putin was prepared to use nuclear weapons over Crimea . Meanwhile the entire Russian northern fleet has gone on alert. The message is clear "I am dangerous, don't mess with me". Yet as some sources report that the Russian death toll in Ukraine now significantly exceeds the initial estimates, the fact that it is the Northern fleet is significant- threatening to the NATO exercise in the Baltic, but not a further threat to Ukraine. More to the point it is a distraction for a force which...

The murder of Boris Nemtsov is beginning to look like a catalyst for some significant upheaval in Russia.  The arrest of Chechen suspects initially looked like a lazy round up of the "usual suspects".  However it quickly became clear that the individuals detained by the FSB were not just ordinary Chechens but significant figures, very close to the Chechen strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has enjoyed special privileges both in his home patch, but also across Russia, including Moscow. Privileges which were, of course, granted by Putin. The fact that the head of the FSB personally announced the arrests -a very unusual thing for him to do- suggests a major split between two of the critical pillars of Putinism: The FSB and Kadyrov's Chechens. This is now a major headache for Putin. At other crisis points -the Kursk disaster springs to mind- he has dropped out of sight and then returned, usually with increasing levels of ruthlessness, and, amid swirling rumours, that se...