Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl

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This is a conversation with Mark Galeotti, director of Mayak intelligence and one of the greatest living experts on modern Russia - and we talk about why, after years of remarkable stability, a lot of things in Russia are now beginning to crack. 

We get into what’s behind the sharpest fall in Putin's approval since 2022, why is there an increasing public criticism of the war and debate over whether it’s time for it to end or why the Kremlin's attempt to seize control of the internet triggered the biggest popular backlash of the entire war - and what's left holding the system together now that the old social contract between Putin and the Russian people is gone.

➡️ This is a clip from an interview with John Bolton. You can access the entire interview ad-free on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

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➡️ Full Nigel's report: https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2026/05/the-coming-crisis-in-russias-political-economy/

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This is a conversation with Nigel Gould Davis - a Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the IISS. Nigel recently published a really interesting report about why Russia's war, on its present course, has reached a breaking point - when it is no longer economically and demographically sustainable.

What Nigel argues is that this will almost inevitably result in a major crisis, both political and financial, that is about to hit Russia within about a year from now - and why in order to keep fighting, the Kremlin will be forced to strip away the last freedoms Russians have and drag the country back toward a Soviet-style governance and economy, with all the social upheaval that it would bring. It’s a fascinating analysis that follows a clear logic and a chain of events - and it’s definitely worth listening to.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

➡️ Check out Ravi's FP Live: https://open.spotify.com/show/4pbzJRK0uPozoTxxSZhpQS

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It’s now been a year and a half since Trump returned to the White House and in that short time, he managed to turn decades of U.S. foreign policy on its head - although differently than what people maybe expected.  And so in this conversation with with Ravi Agraval - the editor in chief of the Foreign Policy, the host of the FP Live podcast and someone who has as they say the finger on the pulse of the U.S. foreign policy - I wanted to take a look at how is he doing at this point, what will be the consequences of his policies - and what might come next.

We speak a lot about Iran and about why it is Trump’s biggest failure yet and why it might be the most important mistake of his presidency, what options Trump has at this point to get out of this and why even the best ones are still really really bad or about how this war will fundamentally change the U.S. relations with Israel. But also about the big picture - about the ways in which the impact of his decisions will be around much longer than him - or about why at the same time the changes in the U.S. foreign policy are much bigger than just him alone - and why the whole world should realize that very fast. And much more.

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics

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It seems that something is changing in Russia and quite a lot. With Ukrainian strikes on Russian cities, the economy under a growing strain and the war increasingly being felt by regular Russians, it’s harder to pretend like everything is normal. And at the same time, the approval ratings of the Russian president has reached lowest numbers in years, we have previously unseen signs of public discontent and reports of a growing anxiety among Russia’s elites. 

But what will all of this lead to? Are we entering a new era of Russian politics and what will that mean for the stability of the country, its future trajectory and what the country will look like in this new era? To answer all that I am speaking with one of the greatest Western experts on Russia’s politics and society, professor at King’s College London - Sam Green.