Details:
The Kremlin is caught in a vicious circle: its powerful and influential intelligence and security agencies perpetuate a strategic culture that presents Russia as being under constant threat, and the consequent ‘defensive’ adventurism only increases the level of international mistrust. Mark Galeotti will provide an assessment of the various elements of the Russian intelligence and security community (RISC), their distinctive roles and organizational cultures, and their capacity to affect Russian domestic and foreign policy.
The Kremlin is caught in a vicious circle: its powerful and influential intelligence and security agencies perpetuate a strategic culture that presents Russia as being under constant threat, and the consequent ‘defensive’ adventurism only increases the level of international mistrust.
Mark Galeotti will provide an assessment of the various elements of the Russian intelligence and security community (RISC), their distinctive roles and organizational cultures, and their capacity to affect Russian domestic and foreign policy.
Biographies
Speaker: Mark Galeotti
Dr Mark Galeotti is an expert in Russian politics and security affairs, with a particular interest in the workings and interconnections between the intelligence agencies, organized crime, and the special forces. An Honorary Professor at UCL SSEES, Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI, and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague, he also runs his own consultancy, Mayak Intelligence. He read history at Robinson College Cambridge and took his doctorate in government at the LSE, and has since been Head of History at Keele University, Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, and a visiting professor at Rutgers-Newark (Newark, NJ), Charles University (Prague) and MGIMO (Moscow). He served a term as a Senior Research Fellow with the British Foreign Office, and has also advised a wide range of agencies and institutions, from the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and NATO Parliamentary Assembly, to Europol and SHAPE.He is also a prolific author, and his most recent books include We Need To Talk About Putin (Ebury, 2021), Russian Political War (Routledge, 2019), The Vory: Russia’s super mafia (Yale, 2018), and Spetsnaz: Russia’s Special Forces (Osprey, 2015). His next book, The Weaponisation of Everything, will be published by Yale University Press in 2022.
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