Report: Smuggling, security & the power of cheap – speaking at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs
On 22nd September, I was honoured to be invited to discuss the links between big business, mercenary airmen and terrorist groups at a special event presented by the Transnational Security Committee of NYU’s Center for Global Affairs. The conversation that followed, moderated by CGA Academic Chair Dr Mark Galeotti, took in the disintegrating Soviet Union,…
Analysis: Chewbacca, Kurt Cobain & cheap thrills, or life in a post-Soviet West
What if…? is a popular parlour game among historians. How would the world look had World War Two ended differently? What would a Confederate-won Civil War have meant in a parallel 21st-century USA? What if the DDR’s army hadn’t wavered, and the Berlin Wall had never fallen? This week brought a chance to play…
Outlaws Inc is Maxim magazine’s big adventure
Maxim magazine has made Outlaws Inc. its adventure of the month for August, with a three-page feature interview on some of the key locations featured in the book. From mafia-run Belgrade to the bootleggers’ paradise of Kabul and war-torn Africa, the feature takes a long, hard look at just how the guns, drugs and gold…
Google, Skype, Hotmail & the FSB: Russia’s hidden heart
Very interesting city, Ekaterinburg. It’s known for a number of reasons, all of which are to do with its somewhat shadowy, secretive character. It was the scene of the Romanov family’s assassination by the Bolsheviks, and the fount of the whole Anastasia controversy/red herring. During World War II, the Russian government created a secret second…
What makes you think it’s not me, officer?
Happy memories of shopping for forged driving licences in Russia’s Urals…
The lighter side of Moscow’s customs officials
News from today’s Moscow Times suggests all that glaring and journalist-deporting Russian customs and border officials have been doing recently may just be a front to disguise their real fun-loving side. What other conclusion can we possibly draw from this video, showing a group of Moscow customs men and the mime-along pop video they made…