Silicon Curtain

In the 2000s, London became home to the Russian super-rich. Vast wealth  was stripped from Russia by the Oligarchs, and flaunted in London  through grandiose properties, ferocious legal disputes, private jets,  mega-yachts, and ubiquitous bodyguards. Russian oligarchs made colossal  fortunes after the collapse of communism, and London was the destination  of choice to spend and protect their wealth. But the shocking killing  of ex-KGB man Alexander Litvinenko in London with a radio-active element  Polonium, and of Stephen Curtis, the lawyer to many of Britain’s  richest Russians, sent shockwaves through the Russian community in  London. Today I’m speaking with Mark Hollingsworth about how Russia’s  wealth was harvested and brought to London, and how the UK’s  institutions and legal infrastructure facilitated the laundering of  these vast fortunes, many of dubious provenance.    Mark Hollingsworth is an investigative journalist and author of 10  books, notably ‘Londongrad – From Russia with Cash, the Inside Story of  the Oligarchs’ – published in 2010. He has also written biographies of  Mark Thatcher and Tim Bell and acclaimed studies on MI5 and the Saudi  Royal Family. He started his career working for Granada TV’s  award-winning ‘World in Action’ programme and now contributes regularly  to ‘The Times’, ‘Mail on Sunday’, ‘The Guardian’ and ‘The Sunday Times’.   His most recent articles about Russia are published in the Spectator.  He is currently writing a history of the KGB.

Edition No5 |  25-02-2023  12 months of resilience and horror   ~~~~~   FEATURED ARTICLES:   How Putin's fate is tied to Russia's war in Ukraine https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64744197  By Steve Rosenberg, Russia Editor, Moscow | 24 February 2023  ~~~~~

Russia’s war is fought on many fronts, but one of the key ones is  information. It could be said that between 2014 and 2022 Russia was  ahead in the information war, but Ukraine has caught up and overtaken  since the full-scale war began in February 2022. Today I am speaking  with DATTALION: UKRAINE’S DATA BATTALION. DATTALION is home to the  largest free, independent, open-source database of Ukraine war footage.  In addition to compiling footage from across Ukrainian and  Russian-occupied territories, Dattalion hosts a database of verified  eyewitness accounts of Russian aggression, war crimes and acts of  genocide in Ukraine. DATTALION's database of Ukraine war photos and  videos has been active since February 27, 2022, and includes war footage  from February 24 - the first day of Russia’s full-scale military  invasion onwards.   Links:  https://dattalion.com/   Nataliya Mykolska is Chief Executive Officer of DATTALION. Nataliia is a  technology visionary and expert in strategic transformation, building  bridges between Ukraine and the world. She is a non-executive member of  the board Ukrhydroenergo, PJSC. Nataliia is also co-founder of women’s  empowerment platform SheExports. She was co-founder of the Trade+ Centre  at Kyiv School of Economics and is a member of the Supervisory Board at  TechUkraine. Between 2015 and 2018 Nataliia was The Trade  Representative of Ukraine, and Deputy Minister of Economic Development  and Trade. She helped found DATTALION to help Ukraine to win this war.  She knows that data is power, and it is her chosen weapon in this war  for her country, for the future of her children’s and for global  democracy.

Ukraine is fighting for its very existence, against an enemy that  repeatedly claims it is not a real country, that it has no identity and  culture as distinct from Russian culture, and that Ukrainian is not an  independent language. Equally on the far left and extreme right in the  West, there are some who see Ukraine as a tool of Western foreign  policy. But Ukrainians have agency, and the right to determine their  future, the evolution of their political system and which alliances they  want to entertain. Today we are exploring the cultural aspects of this David and Goliath struggle of a young democracy versus an old autocracy.   Tetyana Denford is a Ukrainian-American fiction author, translator for  Frontline PBS, freelance writer as well as YouTube channel host with a  20+ year history of working in the writing and editing world. Her first  novel, self-published in 2020 as 'Motherland' has been re-published in  July 2022 with the team at Hachette/Bookouture as 'The Child of  Ukraine'. It reached #1 on the Amazon New Release list. Tetyana used to  write freelance for Elle and Vogue, and has been featured in The New  York Times, The Telegraph, The Paris Review, Flock Magazine, and Medium.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24,  2022, some territories faced Moscow’s aggression for the first time,  while others had been illegally annexed or fought over since 2014. When  Russia’s full-scale invasion began, seven regions felt the full force of  Russian aggression. Of these, Crimea had been illegally annexed by  Russia the longest, for eight years. And it’s this territory that holds  the key for victory both for Ukraine, but also for Russia.    Elina Beketova is a Democracy Fellow at the Centre for European Policy  Analysis (CEPA). She has experience of working as a journalist, editor,  and TV-anchor for news stations in Kharkiv and Kyiv. Elina is originally  from Crimea. At CEPA, Elina Authored – Behind the Lines – a project  about the latest developments in the temporarily occupied and recently  liberated territories of Ukraine. For that study, she interviewed a wide  range of Ukrainian voices – policymakers, activists, and officials.   https://cepa.org/article/behind-the-lines-ukraine-after-russias-invasion/ https://cepa.org/author/elina-beketova/

Henry Marsh - English neurosurgeon, and pioneer of neurosurgical  advances, has a strong professional connection to Ukraine, and visited  the country after the war began.   Russian propaganda would have us believe that the war in Ukraine is just  an extended civil war, driven by a popular insurgency. But this seems  far from the truth – a gross distortion of reality. Ukraine is fighting  for its very existence, against an enemy that repeatedly claims it is  not a real country, but a tool of Western foreign policy wielded by  countries that are inherently Russo-phobic.  But is the reality much  simpler? Could this in fact be the least morally unambiguous war since  WWII – a clear-cut case of autocracy versus democracy?   Marsh is an English neurosurgeon, and a pioneer of neurosurgical  advances, and has a strong professional connection to Ukraine. He worked  with neurosurgeons in the former Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine with  protégé neurosurgeon Igor Kurilets, from 1992. His work there was the  subject of the BBC Storyville film The English Surgeon from 2007. His  widely acclaimed memoir Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain  Surgery was published in 2014. According to The Economist, this memoir  is "so elegantly written it is little wonder some say that in Mr Marsh  neurosurgery has found its Boswell." His second memoir Admissions: A  life in brain surgery was published in 2017. His most recent book was  published in 2022 to critical acclaim and explores his bewildering  transition from doctor to patient.

“A toxic flood of dark money has given billionaires and special  interests a powerful way to rig the system secretly in their favour…”  These are the words of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, ahead of a debate in  the US Congress around the Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act. But  this phrase could equally be applied to the UK, where Russian Oligarchs  and dark money interests have been able to cleanse their ill-gotten  gains for decades through the London financial laundromat. Londongrad is  the phrase coined to describe the high presence of Russians in the  United Kingdom, especially in reference to Russian money in London,  permeating its service sector and securing political influence.   ----------   SPEAKER:  Oliver Bullough is a Journalist at the Guardian, GQ, BBC, etc. He writes  about financial crime, kleptocracy, and offshore shenanigans (as he  calls them). He is best known for his books Let Our Fame Be Great, which  was nominated for the Orwell Prize, (and is set in the Caucasus  mountains) and The Last Man in Russia, nominated for the Dolman Prize  and which won the Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award. In later  books Oliver has focused on financial crime, Moneyland: Why Thieves and  Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back, Butler to the World:  How Britain Helps the World's Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes,  and Get Away with Anything. Today we’ll combine his twin passions by  looking at how Londongrad became the world’s laundromat for corrupt  oligarchs to cleanse their money, and attain respectability, influence,  and privilege in the West.

Can democracies preserve their norms and values from increasing attacks  by understanding how authoritarian regimes learn? This is the question  posed by Dr Stephen G. F. Hall in his forthcoming book. Looking at two  established authoritarian regimes, Belarus, and Russia, he identifies  clear signs of collaboration between authoritarian-minded elites, in  developing survival best practices and learning from previous regimes in  their own countries. For authoritarian-minded elites the main  imperative is survival, and after that propagation of their values to  like-minded regimes.    Dr Stephen Hall is a Lecturer (and Assistant Professor) in Russian and  Post-Soviet Politics, at the Department of Politics, Languages, and  International Studies at the University of Bath. His specialist field is  Russian & Post-Soviet Politics, and his research focuses on the  authoritarian regimes in the post-Soviet space, especially Belarus,  Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. He completed his PhD in 2020 at the School  of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London and he  has been published in various journals including East European  Politics, Journal of Eurasian Studies, Russian Politics, Problems of  Post-Communism, Post-Communist Economies, and Europe-Asia Studies.   Books:  Authoritarian International (2023 - available for pre-order) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/authoritarian-international/4B49766C0CC9ACE7F2522ECB5AB804B8#fndtn-metrics

Edition No4  |  23-02-2023 GULAG Economics  ~~~~~   FEATURED ARTICLES:  https://cepa.org/article/russias-return-to-gulag-economics/  https://vasilinaorlova.wordpress.com/ ~~~~~   NEWS LINKS:  Moscow Times  Russia's Planned Coup in Moldova Reminds Us Why Ukraine Must Win This War  https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/17/russias-planned-coup-in-moldova-reminds-us-why-ukraine-must-win-this-war-a80257  Olga Lautman - 17th February 2023   'Existential War': Putin Steels Russia for Long Conflict  https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/18/existential-war-putin-steels-russia-for-long-conflict-a80248  By AFP and Anna Smolchenko for AFP - 17th February 2023   Database of Russians Eligible for Draft Set to Aid Military Recruitment  https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/18/database-of-russians-eligible-for-draft-set-to-aid-military-recruitment-a80264  18th February 2023   The Economist  Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are suffering with PTSD  https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/02/09/thousands-of-ukrainian-soldiers-are-suffering-with-ptsd   Financial Times Munich Security Conference charts new role after uninviting Russia and Iran  https://www.ft.com/content/453fc4f5-c47c-4e15-8d71-a7f9f7c45ae1   Ukraine war pushes US to review arms stockpiles  https://www.ft.com/content/a3c943e9-9071-49b8-9f6d-2b82e1f8167b   Switzerland rules out confiscating Russian assets over Ukraine war https://www.ft.com/content/ec1d9ca1-0511-46e9-8ade-e92b2a05c48f   TV Rain  Что Путин готовит к 24 февраля. Россия стягивает авиацию к границе. У Пригожина отобрали заключенных     https://tvrain.tv/teleshow/fishman_vechernee_shou/chto_putin_gotovit_k_24_fevralja_rossija_stjagivaet_aviatsiju_k_granitse_u_prigozhina_otobrali_zakljuchennyh-550044/  ~~~~~

Russia is paying a huge price in terms of blood and resource for every  metre of Ukrainian territory it tries to seize. The encircled city of  Bakhmut is emblematic of Russia’s lack of strategy and purpose as it  throws away hundreds of lives for every metre captured in a horrific  focal point of the war that has become a meat grinder. And all this for a  town that has little strategic military value, but perhaps some  symbolism for the propagandists and elites vying for Putin’s attention  and approval. Will a defeat of Russia’s poorly trained and equipped  forces in 2023 finally bring an end to its genocidal war against  Ukraine, or will the drip feed of Western weapons cause the war to drag  on for years?    Today I’m speaking with Artur Rehi, influential YouTuber, and Estonian  reserve soldier. He completed conscription in 2018 in the Kuperjanov  Infantry battalion as company communications officer. He looks at the  war with insight, empathy, and humour. He also explores his family’s  traumatic history as victims of Soviet repression and imperialism.