War's role in elite competition

2026-01-18 | UPDATES #105 | The Purge Turns Inward: The Kremlin Starts Eating Its “Patriots.” What’s driving it? Fear of rivals and conspiracies? Punishment for incompetence? Or just plain paranoia? The people who cheerlead for a regime typically get rewarded, until that regime metastasizes and gets consumed by grievance, revenge narratives and paranoia. In Putin’s Russia, they get recycled almost as efficiently as Ukrainians are recycling the Russian army into compost and scrap metal. Arrests, seizure of properties, reputational ruin and stripped of their power and status. If you lose proximity to power in Russia, you lose everything. How many of the Russian elite are being ostracized, incarcerated, or found dead under mysterious circumstances. ----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------SOURCES: Meduza (Jan 16, 2026) — Anton Panov death / alleged intelligence links Cyprus Mail (Jan 16, 2026) — embassy access denied; investigative linksRBC (Jan 15, 2026) — Alexey Sklyar found dead RIA Novosti (Jan 15, 2026) — “Preliminary, he took his own life” Kommersant (Jan 15, 2026) — Sklyar details Reuters (May 22, 2024) — pro-war blogger backlash over Popov arrest (Telegram quotes) Reuters (May 23, 2024; Jul 26, 2024; Oct 7, 2024) — Defense Ministry corruption crackdown; factional “clans”; FSB role The Guardian (Nov 6, 2025) — repression turns inward on pro-war figures Carnegie Endowment (Dec 22, 2025) — why the Kremlin punishes pro-war bloggers Novaya Gazeta Europe (Sep 25, 2025) — Roman Alyokhin “foreign agent” case UNITED24 Media (Nov 18, 2025) — “destroyed legally” framing (via The Economist summary)Reuters (Sep 1, 2022) — list of Russian businessmen deaths in unexplained circumstancesMeduza (Jul 7, 2025) — review of sudden executive deaths since 2022 Britannica — Great Purge Britannica — Night of the Long Knives USHMM Holocaust Encyclopedia — Röhm Purge / legalization-after-the-fact (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN Events in 2025 - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur events of the first half of the year in Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run a minimum of 12 events in 2025, and potentially many more. Any support you can provide for the fundraising campaign would be gratefully appreciated. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------