By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 4/17/26

No sooner had new President of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) Dmitry Trenin issued his clarion call for correcting foreign policy misperceptions in an interview with leading domestic media, which was republished by RT and analyzed here, that another top expert stepped up to echo him. Ivan Timofeev is RIAC’s Director General, but he’s more well known as one of the programme directors at the Valdai Club, which is a hybrid think tank and expert networking platform that hosts Putin yearly. [https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/is-peter-the-great-s-project-over-no/]

He published a detailed article at Valdai about “Russia and Modernization: The Enduring Legacy of Peter the Great”. As the title implies, most of the content is an historical review of that Russian leader’s modernization reforms and their legacy across the centuries, but it contains a stark message in both the introduction and conclusion. In his words, “No matter how we define Russia—as a ‘civilisational state’, a ‘nation-state’, an ‘empire’, or in any other political form—without modernisation, it is doomed to perish.”

He observed that “Russia is simply turning to other sources of modernisation that have emerged outside the West, and applied them domestically. This applies primarily to China. However, interaction with the West itself is also not excluded.” Timofeev is correct in warning that “[Russia] is doomed to perish” without modernization, pointing to China as a new model, and not ruling out cooperating with the West. The first and last points are realities that many “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” (NRPRs) have ignored.

This global community has long extolled the virtues of emulating the Chinese model with Russian characteristics but either naively assumed or dishonestly denied the existential stakes of failing to modernize. Timofeev wrote that “It has become clear that without technical, scientific, and industrial modernisation, maintaining competition (with the West) will be difficult, if not impossible”, which alludes to what was written in the US’ National Defense Strategy that was published earlier this year.

The authors noted that “European NATO dwarfs Russia in economic scale, population, and, thus, latent military power.” The aforesaid just have to be fully unleashed through US incentives and strategic guidance in order to more effectively contain Russia. Timofeev assessed that “[the West’s] consolidation is unprecedented, but not absolute”, though he obviously isn’t taking for granted future irreparable divisions within its ranks and that’s why he’s so urgently calling for far-reaching modernization reforms.

As for the second point that many NRPRs have ignored, economic cooperation with the West, Putin is pursuing exactly this via the resource-centric strategic partnership that his Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev is negotiating with the US. They doubt its viability, however, usually speculating that either Putin or Trump is “psyching out” the other in order to strategically disarm them. By contrast, Timofeev positively referenced Trump’s proposed cooperation, so it’d be wise to drop the skepticism and take this seriously.

His latest article is so important because of what he calls for, the existential stakes that he highlighted, and that it follows his colleague Trenin calling for correcting foreign policy misperceptions, thus hinting at top Russian experts’ newfound interest in reforms. Former deep-cover-spy-turned-expert Andrei Bezrukov called for precisely this in summer 2013 before the Ukrainian Crisis derailed his similarly proposed reforms, but they now seem to be making a comeback, and NRPRs should support them.

***

‘We bow to no one’: Trenin sets out Russia’s worldview in a ‘new world war’

RT, 4/5/26

The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) has a new president: the renowned international affairs expert Dmitry Trenin. In his first interview in his new role, he told Kommersant correspondent Elena Chernenko how he envisages the development of this important foreign policy think tank and who is more important to study, Russia’s partners or its adversaries.

Q: You become president of the RIAC at a time that diplomats describe not merely as turbulent, as it was before, but as dramatic. What is your plan?

Dmitry Trenin: My plan as president of the RIAC is to give this remarkable council new impetus and to rise to the challenges we face today and those that will arise tomorrow. Despite the apparent chaos and illogicality of what is happening, we should not pretend that nothing like this has ever happened in history. Today’s events have their own distinctive features, partly due to technological developments, but this is not the first time the world has gone through a period of fundamental change. In the past, such periods were linked to world wars. Today, we are experiencing something akin to a world war. I do not like to use the term ‘Third World War’, because it implies a continuation of what happened in the First and Second World Wars. A more accurate phrase is ‘a new world war’, distinct from the first two. We must get through this period and emerge from it in a stronger position, becoming better and wiser.

Q: By ‘we’, do you mean Russia?

Dmitry Trenin: Yes. But it won’t happen by itself. Everyone has their own section of the front or line of advance. We can be on the defensive, on the offensive, or launching a counter-offensive. Since we are talking about war, we can use such terms. The RIAC is, as I see it, a small but unique area of Russia’s interaction in the international arena with other states and civilizations. And I already have some initial ideas for its further development, which I will now propose and promote and, if possible, implement.

Q: Is there demand for foreign policy expertise in Russia?

Dmitry Trenin: I am convinced that yes, it is in demand. But, unfortunately, a significant proportion of foreign policy expertise, and not only in Russia, is either not interesting or detached from reality. I speak with Foreign Ministry staff and have heard from them on numerous occasions that they are swamped with paperwork, but cannot always get anything useful out of it. The RIAC has many tasks, but one of the key ones must be to assist those who are actually engaged in foreign policy. Such people often have less time than experts to delve into the causes and origins of what is happening; they are overburdened and operate under time constraints. Experts must understand the substance of the issues and provide conclusions and recommendations that will be useful to those involved in decision-making. This is where I see a role for the RIAC. But, as I have already said, the council has other functions too, including promoting our foreign policy around the world and educating the public on foreign policy issues.

Q: Russian think tanks have begun to focus more actively on the countries of the global majority. Those states that are regarded as unfriendly are receiving less and less attention. So, who should we study more closely, friends or foes?

Dmitry Trenin: An expert in international relations must first and foremost focus on his or her own country, on its needs regarding the outside world, and on the opportunities and risks that arise for it from that outside world. In this sense, for an expert, there is no difference between friendly and unfriendly countries. The distinction lies in whether, and to what extent, it’s possible to engage positively with a particular country. With unfriendly nations, this is practically impossible at present and for the foreseeable future. But that does not mean they should not be studied. In war, studying the enemy is of the utmost importance.

The building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia in Moscow, Russia. © Sputnik / Alexey Maishev

In fact, I would start by studying the enemy in Ukraine. We need to gain a better understanding of the reasons behind their behavior. For instance, why haven’t they surrendered yet? It is clear that external factors play a significant role here, but there are internal factors too.

We need to understand Western Europe better. For a long time, we were under the spell of the West, which prevented us from accurately assessing its intentions and actions at a time when we were seeking to build a partnership with it. We had, and, incidentally, the president himself spoke of this, illusions about the West. We are now re-evaluating many things, and it is important not simply to swap positives for negatives, but to gain a deep understanding of what the modern West represents, both its American and European components. In recent years, Western European countries have on more than one occasion behaved differently from what we expected.

Q: For example?

Dmitry Trenin: Ever since the days of the Soviet Union, we have viewed Western Europeans as hostages to the US: vassals upon whom Washington imposes its will. At the same time, we were firmly convinced that they were pragmatic and would not sacrifice business for the sake of politics. I think it came as a revelation to many of us just how quickly these European countries, including Germany, on which we had pinned our greatest hopes, severed ties with Russia, including cutting off trade links. Business didn’t stand in the way of these European countries’ anti-Russian policies.

Today, Western Europe continues to surprise us, though in a different way. It has refused to accept the Trump administration’s approach to the conflict over Ukraine and has begun to obstruct it. I had generally assumed that if the US president said we needed to move towards peace, the bloc would comply, but it is resisting. At the same time, we are witnessing Western European defiance regarding the US and Israel’s war against Iran.

It is clear that these Europeans still have many ties to the US, and many in Western Europe simply hope to wait out Trump’s presidency, especially as there are many like-minded people among the current president’s opponents in Washington. Yet, in many respects, it is no longer appropriate to speak of the European NATO states as vassals, this topic requires study and re-evaluation. The same applies to the US, where significant changes are also taking place. One must know one’s opponents almost as well as one knows oneself.

Q: And partners?

Dmitry Trenin: As I’ve already said, we need to start with ourselves. Next, it’s important to study our adversaries. And that knowledge must be up to date: the war in Iran changed the world in the space of just a month. The next circle comprises the neighboring countries that are most important to us: the states of the former USSR and the largest countries of Eurasia. We need to know the countries of the South Caucasus, Kazakhstan and Central Asia far better, rather than simply living on memories of holidays in Pitsunda or walks through Registan. We need to take this seriously, because our own ignorance or lack of understanding of our neighbors will create problems we really don’t need, right on our doorstep. Ukraine demonstrates just how dangerous such an approach can be.

Dmitry Trenin © Sputnik / Anastasia Petrova

Our largest neighbor, China, naturally deserves our closest attention. This requires a systematic approach. The same applies, of course, to India, of which we have a positive but as yet rather superficial understanding, and to other major Asian countries, from Pakistan to Indonesia and from Vietnam to Japan and the Korean Peninsula. I also count Türkiye and Iran among Russia’s immediate neighbors, as we are linked to them by the Black and Caspian Seas. Alongside the leading countries of the Arab world and Israel, these are the most important players in the Middle East. And then, on the next front, there are the countries of Africa and Latin America. It’s clear that these regions, especially Africa, are currently on many people’s minds; it is a rapidly developing continent that may be of interest to Russia, including in terms of developing economic ties. Personally, however, I currently view the outside world primarily from the perspective of Russia’s national security interests and, accordingly, set regional priorities.

Q: We spoke in an interview following the publication of your book ‘New Balance of Power: Russia in Search of Foreign Policy Equilibrium’ in 2021. Given the current balance, or imbalance, of power, how should Russia shape its policy?

Dmitry Trenin: The call to seek foreign policy equilibrium remains relevant, but under fundamentally different circumstances. The book was written long before the military operation in Ukraine. Back then, it was still possible to try to work together with countries that were subsequently deemed unfriendly. Since then, the situation has become more complicated. We are forced to wage war against a significant part of the collective West. A significant part, not the whole, because even within the European Union we see differing approaches towards Russia; it is important to take this into account when formulating policy. It’s a difficult task to strike a balance with the US, which is in fact our adversary, as they share intelligence with Ukraine to launch strikes against us and do much more for Kiev. Nevertheless, under the current US administration, we should not regard America as the same kind of adversary as, say, Britain.

As we find ourselves in a historic confrontation with the West, it is vital that we maintain a balance in our relations with its other opponents, supporting our partners and allies whilst ensuring we retain our freedom of maneuver, an indispensable attribute of a great power. For example, with China, which far surpasses Russia in demographic and economic terms and has achieved remarkable successes in the field of technology and so on, it’s absolutely essential for us to maintain an equal footing in our relations and to remember that Russia is a great power which cannot be a junior partner.

We must help maintain a positive balance between our strategic partners, China and India, preventing the Americans or anyone else from using India against China and, by extension, at least indirectly against us. We must maintain a balance in our relations with the former republics of the USSR, building relations on an equal footing – and in such a way that they bring far greater benefit to Russia than the previous ‘center-periphery’ model. And so on. We must maintain a balance, standing firmly on our own two feet and understanding that we are a sovereign nation: we bow to no one and will not let the world fall apart.

This interview was first published by Kommersant, and was translated and edited by the RT team.

By Elena Chernenko, special correspondent at Kommersant daily newspaper in Moscow

***

Russia and Modernization: The Enduring Legacy of Peter the Great

By Ivan Timofeev, Valdai, 4/6/26

No matter how we define Russia—as a “civilisational state”, a “nation-state”, an “empire”, or in any other political form—without modernisation, it is doomed to perish. The legacy of Peter the Great is more than relevant in the current international climate, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.

The crisis in relations between Russia and the West suggests that the “window to Europe” created by the Russian Emperor Peter the Great is losing its purpose. It is quickly being bricked up, and this work is clearly proceeding faster on the Western side. However, a closer look at his policies suggests that it is premature to talk about abandoning his paradigm. For the first Russian emperor, the “window to Europe” was more of a means to an end. The goal, however, was to overcome backwardness and strengthen the Russian state, especially in the face of external dangers and threats. This goal remains relevant today, requiring a reflection on Peter the Great’s legacy.

In brief, the essence of Peter the Great’s policies can be summed up as follows: the comprehensive modernisation (contemporisation) of the supporting structures of Russian statehood, including the military as an organisation, the country’s administrative system, its industry, and infrastructure. Given that Russia at that time lagged behind its Western neighbours in a number of respects, their forms of military, bureaucratic, and industrial organisation were viewed as a benchmark, while the neighbours themselves were viewed as a source of the necessary specialists and competencies for the establishment of Russia’s own school.

Russian rulers had set similar goals long before Peter the Great. Individual models were adopted in military affairs, fortification, metallurgy, and so on. This convergence was reinforced by the experience of continuous military conflicts with neighbours. Historically, Russians learned from their adversaries to the south and east, as well as from rivals on their western borders. The experience of such borrowings can be traced back at least to the reforms of Ivan the Terrible. They continued as a common thread throughout the 17^th century, accelerating particularly in the second half. By the reign of Peter the Great, experience in military reforms had already been accumulated (including the “regiments of the new order”), numerous attempts had been made to gain access to the Baltic Sea, and elements of a military industry had been created, including with the participation of foreigners.

The fundamental distinguishing feature of Peter’s policy was his attempt to make modernisation irreversible and systemic, to infuse it into the “DNA” of Russian identity, and transform it into an integral part of the nation’s culture and way of life. The nobility—the future foundation of the officer corps and civil servants—was to become the bearer of this “DNA”. Peter went far beyond mere technical borrowings. Having won the Northern War, he created the conditions for permanent transport links with the leading Western countries. In addition to purely economic benefits in the form of easier access to markets for Russian raw materials and industrial imports, conditions were created for more stable “humanitarian ties”. Here, Peter broke with the established practice of relative isolation from the West. The pendulum swung back with tremendous force.

And yet, for Peter, the “window to Europe” was a tool, not an end. Using this “window”, he achieved colossal successes. However, they were determined not only and not so much by the “window” as by colossal political will, the ability to adapt foreign innovations to Russian soil, existing practices in such adaptation, and Russia’s own legacy. In military affairs, Peter directly borrowed tactical techniques from the Swedish army, learning from it directly on the battlefield and then inflicting painful lessons on the teachers themselves. The military industry made significant strides. Shipbuilding was practically created from scratch. Metallurgy and other industries made enormous breakthroughs.

Peter didn’t limit his foreign policy to engagement with the West. His attempts to gain access to the sea began in the south, with the conflict with the Turks over the Sea of ​​Azov. Peter’s push in that direction would continue, leading to Russia’s consolidation of power on the Black Sea. As a result of its Persian campaigns, Russia strengthened its position on the Caspian Sea. Relations with China developed, although they were objectively hampered by geography. Kamchatka expeditions and a series of explorations of Siberia and the Arctic were organised. However, unlike in the West, these ventures did not serve as a source of modernisation for Russia. Moreover, Russia’s accelerated modernisation along Western lines and the growing backwardness of its neighbours became an important condition for the expansion of the empire, both militarily and peacefully.

The flip side was a colossal loss of life, the accelerated enslavement of the peasantry, and the formation of an absolute monarchy in Russia without checks and balances. In the West itself, the experience of developing political systems during that period was highly contradictory. On the one hand, there was the experience of bourgeois revolutions in England and the Netherlands. On the other hand, there was the development of absolutism in most polities on the western borders. The British and Dutch experience in this context is rather marginal. It would have been simply impossible to replicate it in Russia or in any other context. However, both “marginal| countries found themselves at the forefront of industrial progress. Russia itself, despite the development of industry under Peter the Great, failed to resolve the problem of its peripheral economic role. Strengthening ties with the West, instead, deepened this peripheral role, cementing Russia’s role as a supplier of raw materials and a market for industrial products. Developing its own advanced industrial base remains a challenge to this day.

The model created by Peter the Great proved remarkably resilient. After the Emperor’s death, Russia was plagued by palace coups, and industry was held back. However, his paradigm soon resurfaced. Perhaps the most serious challenges were the objective economic and social changes of the second half of the 19^th century, against the backdrop of bourgeois revolutions abroad and the rapid development of bourgeois countries with all the foreign policy threats. The country increasingly faced the task of political modernisation. It would seem that the revolutions of 1917 put an end to the Petrine model, but Soviet modernisation retained several of its key features—a focus on military, industrial, and technological modernisation, the establishment of the cultural and social foundations for this, and active engagement with Western countries, both peacefully and militarily. The USSR achieved impressive results. Peter the Great’s legacy plays a significant role in the structure of Soviet identity, being seen as unequivocally progressive.

The failure of the Soviet project once again threatened the Petrine model. Russia attempted to become a “normal” bourgeois country. In many ways, it succeeded—capitalism developed in Russia at an impressive pace. However, Russia’s place in the global division of labour once again proved to be peripheral. Moreover, the collective West still did not accept Russia as “one of its own”.

The current crisis in relations between Russia and the West, paradoxically, returns us to the Peter the Great paradigm. It has become clear that without technical, scientific, and industrial modernisation, maintaining competition will be difficult, if not impossible. The symbolic sealing of the “window to Europe” does not change the logic itself. Russia is simply turning to other sources of modernisation that have emerged outside the West, and applied them domestically. This applies primarily to China. However, interaction with the West itself is also not excluded. Its consolidation is unprecedented, but not absolute. Just yesterday, the United States was at the forefront of containing Russia, and today, it is Washington that is initiating negotiations on the Ukraine issue, and not ruling out the resumption of economic cooperation.

Western countries remain a dangerous rival, but Peter the Great’s Russia learned much from its equally dangerous rivals, just as the Soviet Union had to do. The relevance of Peter the Great’s progressivism remains, although it is no longer confined to the West, which has lost its monopoly as the leader of modernisation. However, no matter how we define Russia—as a “civilisational state”, a “nation-state”, an “empire”, or in any other political form—without modernisation, it is doomed to perish. The legacy of Peter the Great is more than relevant in the current international climate.

By Caitlin Johnstone, Substack, 4/21/26

Former senior Biden advisor Amos Hochstein said during an interview on Sunday that the Biden administration had been preparing to bomb Iran if they had won re-election in 2024.

Hochstein was asked by Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan, “In July 2024 Secretary Blinken claimed Iran was one or two weeks away from having enough fissile material breakout capacity to eventually make a weapon if Iran had decided to do so. There were indirect negotiations that the Biden administration did, but it went nowhere. So when President Trump argues that he did what no other president would, is it just simply that the bill was coming due and it fell on his watch?”

“I do think there’s a certain element to that, and that’s why I was supportive of President Trump joining in in June to take the strikes that we had thought internally in the Biden administration, we may have to take if there was a second term,” Hochstein replied. “We thought that the spring, summer of 2025 was probably, we may have to be there in the same place. And we did, we did war games. We did some practice runs on what it would look like to look into it, because that may have had to happen under our watch as well.”

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/NuhJS1d-F6Y?start=169s&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Hochstein, for the record, is an Israel-born IDF veteran who reportedly played a major role in the Biden administration encouraging Israel’s horrific bombardment of Lebanon in September 2024. And his narrative that an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities “may have had to happen” under a theoretical second Biden term is false.

In March of last year, US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and supreme leader Khomeini [sic] has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” contradicting both the claims of President Trump and of Antony Blinken the year before.

But even if you accept that Iran was a nuclear risk, there was nothing stopping the Biden administration from simply restarting the nuclear deal that the Obama administration secured with Tehran in 2015. The JCPOA was working fine while it was in place; anyone who says otherwise is a lying warmonger. Trump and his handlers torched the JCPOA in 2018 because it was the primary obstacle preventing them from getting to war with Iran, and the Biden administration refused to reverse this move because they wanted war too.

Democratic partisans have been pointing to Trump's war for weeks to chide Hasan Piker and anyone else they blame (read: everyone but themselves) for losing in 2024. But it turns out the Biden admin was planning to attack Iran if they won a 2nd term. https://t.co/UE9C6EiQN3

— Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) April 20, 2026

The Democrats were beating the drums of war for Iran well ahead of the 2024 election. Here’s an excerpt from the official 2024 Democratic Party platform explicitly attacking Trump for not going to war with Iran in his first term:

“All of this stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s fecklessness and weakness in the face of Iranian aggression during his presidency. In 2018, when Iranian-backed militias repeatedly attacked the U.S. consulate in Basra, Iraq Trump’s only response was to close our diplomatic facility. In June 2019, when Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance aircraft operating in international airspace above the Straits of Hormuz, Trump responded by tweet and then abruptly called off any actual retaliation, causing confusion and concern among his own national security team. In September 2019, when Iranian-backed groups threatened global energy markets by attacking Saudi oil infrastructure, Trump failed to respond against Iran or its proxies. In January 2020, when Iran, for the first and only time in its history, directly launched ballistic missiles against U.S. troops in western Iraq, Trump mocked the resulting Traumatic Brain Injuries suffered by dozens of American servicemembers as mere ‘headaches’ — and again, took no action.”

Kamala Harris, who controversially replaced the dementia-addled Biden as the Democratic candidate late in the race, labeled Iran the number one enemy of the United States. In their 2024 debate, Harris repeatedly slammed Trump for being too soft on America’s enemies and announced that she “will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”

I’ve seen a lot of people trying to argue that Trump’s depravity in Iran proves everyone should support Democrats, but it’s clear the Democratic Party is just the more polite-looking face on the same evil power structure.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/0nt1CgQsgpI?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/KmHYS8oK-pg?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

The war with Iran was always planned. Analysts like Brian Berletic and Richard Medhurst have been laying out solid arguments that this American war is more about attacking the economic and energy interests of Russia and China in a last-ditch effort to retain planetary hegemony than it is about assisting Israel. This places the United States on a dangerous trajectory toward increasingly hostile escalations between nuclear-armed powers.

These moves were planned years in advance, and would have been rolled out regardless of what impotent meat puppet happened to be wheeled into office in January 2025.

You don’t get to vote out an empire. Whether or not the US will continue working to dominate the planet will never be on the ballot. We will continue seeing reckless US wars of immense human consequence until the empire falls, or until the American people bring the revolutionary change to their country that the world so desperately needs.

By Andrew Osborn and Dmitry Antonov, Reuters, 4/16/26

MOSCOW, April 16 (Reuters) – The Kremlin took the unusual step of ​publicly acknowledging sharp criticism of the authorities from a celebrity blogger on Thursday, saying work was under ‌way to address a slew of problems identified by social media influencer Viktoria Bonya.

Bonya, who is well known inside Russia for her appearances on reality TV shows and other programmes, has a huge social media following, and a video appeal she made to President Vladimir Putin this week was ​watched more than 20 million times and liked over 1 million times on Instagram.

In her video appeal, Bonya – who ​lives outside Russia – said she supported Putin, but said that officials were not telling him the ⁠truth about the country’s real problems, that the Russian people were suffering, and that they were being squeezed so hard ​by corrupt officials that they might one day erupt.

“You know what the risk is?” she said. “That people will stop being afraid ​and they’re being squeezed into a coiled spring and that one day that coiled spring will shoot out.”

KREMLIN SAYS WORK IS BEING DONE

Among other things, she spoke out against a sweeping crackdown on the internet, social media and messenger apps, accused the authorities of being too slow to respond ​to floods in Dagestan, and said they had mishandled the outbreak this year of a cattle disease in Siberia that led ​to an unpopular culling.

“The people are afraid of you,” she told Putin. “There is a big wall between the people and you,” she said, ‌blaming regional ⁠governors, government officials and lawmakers for not telling Putin the truth about what was going on.

Instagram, like Facebook, is banned in Russia but Russians are able to watch it using virtual private networks.

When asked about Bonya’s public appeal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Of course, we’ve seen it. It’s quite popular.”

“It touches on many topics, on each of which, as you can see – as ​you have seen – work is ​actually being done,” he said.

“But, ⁠to be fair, a great deal of work is being done on them, a large number of people are involved, and none of this has been overlooked,” he added.

BLOGGER SAYS SHE ​IS ACTING FOR RUSSIANS

The idea of Putin as “a good Tsar” misinformed by nefarious officials is ​not a new ⁠one, and Kremlin critics suggested that Bonya’s appeal may have been coordinated with the authorities to let people feel that their problems are being aired and dealt with ahead of parliamentary elections later this year.

Her strongly worded outburst also came as some senior Kremlin ⁠officials and ​business-oriented former officials and bankers had, according to a source, lobbied Putin about their ​discontent over mobile internet shutdowns and a move to block the Telegram messaging platform.

Bonya said the initiative to publicly appeal to Putin was solely her own ​and that she was acting on behalf of the Russian people.

***

‘The People Are Afraid of You’: In Rare Appeals, Celebrities Ask Putin to Address Russians’ Suffering

Moscow Times, 4/16/26

Russian influencers and public figures have issued a series of rare appeals to President Vladimir Putin, saying many Russians are afraid to speak up about problems they face and criticizing what they called “an intention to bring us back to the U.S.S.R.” 

The appeals began when blogger and influencer Viktoria Bonya called on Putin to address mounting social and economic pressures that have dominated national headlines in recent weeks.

“The people are afraid of you, artists are afraid, governors are afraid,” she said, adding that she was not.

“There is a huge wall between you and us ordinary people, and I want to break through that wall,” she said in the 18-minute video, which has garnered 24.1 million views and over 1 million likes in the past two days.

“We consider you an excellent politician, but there is a lot you don’t know,” said Bonya, who is best known for appearing on the popular reality TV show Dom-2 (“House-2”) and lives outside Russia.

She listed issues “that no governor would tell” Putin about, including devastating flooding in Dagestan, oil pollution along the Black Sea coast, the culling of livestock in Siberia and internet shutdowns, as well as rising prices and tax burdens on small businesses.

“People are screaming out loud right now. They’ve been stripped of their last resources and they continue to lose more. Businesses are dying,” she said. “People are googling how to leave Russia. It’s one of the most popular search queries right now.”

As the video went viral, some viewers speculated that she could be aligning herself with the Russian opposition or was even acting on the instruction of foreign intelligence.

“I’m not some opposition figure. I never have been and I don’t plan to be. I’m just a person with a heart,” Bonya said in response to interview requests from exiled media. She later said she had not been paid to record the appeal.

Other critics questioned whether the appeals to Putin were actually a PR campaign aimed at portraying him as a “strong president” unaware of problems on the ground or a more nuanced signal from competing factions seeking to ease restrictions in Russia.

Public criticism of Putin or government policies can lead to prosecution and blacklisting by the authorities for both celebrities and ordinary citizens.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday said Bonya had brought up “very significant issues,” but that authorities were already working to address them. 

“We have seen the video. It is quite popular and has received a large number of views,” Peskov said, adding that “none of these [problems] have been left without attention.” 

Also on Wednesday, popular blogger Aiza (also known as Aiza-Liluna Ai or Aiza Dolmatova) posted an eight-minute video in which she sharply criticized corruption among lawmakers as well as rising taxes and utility tariffs.

In the since-deleted clip, Aiza suggested that Putin is likely “not actually aware” of what is happening and only receives information from specially prepared briefings.

The next day, she said she had “simply wanted to support people” and later deleted the video because of the media attention and “threats” she received.

“I’m very scared,” she said. “I didn’t say anything bad or anything that isn’t already in the media.”

Even pro-Kremlin actor Ivan Okhlobystin, who once described the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war,” joined in the appeals to the Kremlin leader, calling the clampdown on the internet and foreign social media platforms “a huge mistake.”

“If they want to bring us back to the U.S.S.R., then a time machine would need to be built first. Without that, it simply won’t work,” he said.

“The very idea of restricting access to information for our science and culture is beyond comprehension,” he added. “Nothing can truly be ‘restricted’ these days — we live in the 21st century — and this lack of understanding will only further damage reputations.”

Putin’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level (67.8%) since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine amid the internet shutdowns, messaging app restrictions and price increases, the state polling agency VtSIOM said. 

The public’s dissatisfaction with tightening internet restrictions has prompted some officials to warn of “political and economic risks” from the measures, Bloomberg reported this week. 

Political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky said Bonya’s appeal fits the classic “Good tsar, bad boyars” narrative, in which problems are blamed on lower-level officials rather than the leader.

“To the all-powerful grandfather, generous and kind-hearted, who has simply become slightly lost in technological modernity — from a sweet granddaughter who still loves him and empathizes with him,” he said.

Political scientist and former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov said the appeals reflect “tectonic shifts” in Russian society.

“Many people in the opposition …are reacting to all this with mockery,” he said. “That is completely unfair, because [Bonya] is bringing a fundamentally new audience into the opposition camp that wasn’t there before.”

Nor did he believe the claims that the appeals were orchestrated by the Kremlin.

“She will bring with her people who previously had no interest in politics. Their dissatisfaction is also growing — there are problems with the internet, prices in stores are rising, the war is getting on their nerves, everything in general is exhausting them and the state is, so to speak, intruding into their private lives,” he said.

“Bonya is, in a way, a marker that this is a trend — people feel that they are not alone, that there are prominent figures who express emotions similar to their own,” he said.

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 4/13/26

Orban’s “democratic ouster” is expected to remove Hungary’s procedural opposition to the EU’s planned €90 billion loan to Ukraine that’ll be financed by members raising common debt. RT published a detailed article about this plan here last December, which was a compromise for financing this loan after the bloc failed to reach a consensus to either outright confiscate some of Russia’s frozen assets for giving to Ukraine or use at least some of them as collateral for a loan to it. Readers can learn more here and here.

If everything goes according to plan, and Bloomberg reported that the bloc plans to move swiftly after Hungary held everything up for several months already, then this move risks funding a forever war. Hopes of a military breakthrough along the front or a diplomatic breakthrough in US-mediated talks have yet to materialize, so the pace of Russia’s on-the-ground advance remains glacial, thus meaning that it could take years to achieve Russia’s reported minimum goal of obtaining control over all of Donbass.

Funding two-thirds of the Ukrainian budget for the next two years per the EU’s goal would likely lead to another two-year round being agreed in order to encourage the US to continue its military aid. Ever since last summer, the US no longer donates arms to Ukraine but instead sells them to NATO, which then transfers them there. Even if Trump suspends these sales, so long as the Ukrainian budget is financed and nothing major changes, then it might hold out long enough for him to change his mind again.

To be sure, Ukraine cannot fight forever since even Zelensky’s new Chief of Staff Kirill Budanov recently admitted that it faces “a huge, huge problem” after new Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov revealed that over 2 million Ukrainians are dodging the draft, which seriously complicates operations at the front. There’s also always the chance that Putin will turn the special operation into a formal war in which he’d no longer care about civilian casualties in an attempt to decisively end the conflict on Russia’s terms.

There are two competing schools of thought about why he hasn’t yet done so. One speculates that he doesn’t want to inadvertently risk an escalation with the US that could easily spiral into World War III, while the other is that he still truly considers Russians and Ukrainians to be one people like he explained at length in summer 2021’s magnum opus, ergo his reluctance to see their civilians suffer. At any rate, the forever war scenario assumes that Putin won’t do this, which can’t be taken for granted.

Nevertheless, the EU operates under the assumption that he won’t do so, which explains why it plans to move swiftly to approve Ukraine’s €90 billion loan and still buys arms from the US for transfer to that country. This not only perpetuates the risk that tensions spiral out of control but also perpetuates the EU’s energy insecurity amidst the ongoing crisis caused by the Third Gulf War since an end to the conflict could hypothetically result in the resumption of Russian energy exports to the EU to its citizens’ benefit.

The EU’s unstated goal is to perpetuate the conflict till at least 2029 in the hope that the Democrats will regain control of the White House and resume the US’ Biden-era Ukrainian policy. Even though Europeans will economically suffer till then, not to mention more Russians and Ukrainians dying, the bloc is willing to pay these costs in pursuit of its ideologically driven goal of inflicting a strategic defeat upon Russia. Ultimately, however, the conflict might end up strategically defeating the EU instead.

TASS, 4/15/26

MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. The pace of Russian macroeconomic indicators is below expectations and forecasts so far, President Vladimir Putin said at the meeting on economic issues.

The unemployment rate remains record low at the same time and totals 2,1%, the head of state noted.

TASS collects the key statements of the head of state.

Condition of the Russian economy

The dynamics of Russian macroeconomic indicators is below expectations and forecasts for the time being. “Below expectations not merely of experts and analysts, but also the forecasts of the government and the Central Bank of Russia,” the president said.

Statistical data for two months shows the decline of economic dynamics. The national GDP lost 1.8% in January – February. “I regret saying that the economic dynamics is going down for two months in a row. The GDP contracted by 1.8% on the whole in January – February.

Balanced budget and support measures

The authorities should keep the course of public finance stability and budget balance, including in the environment of dramatic fluctuations in international markets, and the government prepared appropriate measures.

The financial bloc should focus on preparing specific measures to stimulate economic growth. “I consider necessary to focus continuously in our work on preparations of specific measures for stimulation of growth, on development of appropriate solutions to overcome generally expectable trends that are emerging recently,” the head of state noted.

Proposals should be worked out on extra measures “aimed at resumption of growth of the national economy, support of business initiatives and improvement of the employment structure favoring industries with more efficient jobs, where high added value is generated,” Putin added.

Unemployment rate

The unemployment rate in Russia remains record low and stands at 2.1%. “It evidences in particular that our labor market is changing. Flexible platform-based types of employment are evolving,” the head of state said.

“These and other tasks are recognized in the plan of structural changes in the Russian economy. The government prepared it last year and started its implementation,” Putin added.

***

Russia’s economy up, Ukraine’s down in IMF growth forecast

By Lucy Lery Moffat, Kiev Independent, 4/15/26

WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund slashed Ukraine’s growth forecasts but raised Russia’s on April 14, as Kyiv exits a winter of heavy bombing and Moscow rides an unexpected windfall from the war in Iran.

Russia is set to grow 1.1% in 2026, the IMF said in its flagship report on the global economy released on April 14, up from a 0.8% estimate in January.

Ukraine will have to make do with 2% for 2026, says the fund, down from a 4.5% forecast in October — and on the lower end of the fund’s February range of 1.8–2.5%.  

Ukraine is emerging from the toughest winter of the full-scale invasion yet, after Russia launched thousands of drones and missiles at Ukraine’s power and heating infrastructure as temperatures regularly plummeted to minus 20 degrees Celsius.

Moscow wiped out 9 gigawatts of Ukraine’s generation capacity — at times leaving Ukraine with just half of what it needed, causing blackouts and interruptions to heating supplies for millions of people.

Russia, which was staring down the barrel of a budgetary crisis in January, has had a sharp reversal in fortunes since U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28. The blockage in the Strait of Hormuz has made Russian barrels more attractive — and expensive.

The fund said that Moscow would carry the momentum of higher energy prices through to 2027, where it is also forecast to grow 1.1% — up 0.1% from the fund’s forecast earlier this year.

Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure in recent months, in a bid to dampen Russia’s chances to line its war chest.

Roughly 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity was reportedly halted amid Ukrainian drone strikes, pipeline damage, and tanker seizures.

Speaking at a press conference in Washington D.C., Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist at the IMF, said that the shock today is comparable in size to the oil price shock in 1974, and that under a best-case scenario — a short conflict — energy prices would rise by 19%.

The impact is already feeding through to Ukraine. Ukraine’s top central banker, Andriy Pyshnyy, said that higher oil prices caused by the war in Iran could raise inflation rates by 1.5 to 2.8 percentage points in an interview with Reuters on April 13.

While inflation had been on a downward track from a peak of 15.9% in May last year, prices have risen for two consecutive months — hitting 7.9% in March 2026, according to the National Bank of Ukraine’s latest numbers.

Fuel inflation in Ukraine accelerated sharply to 23.4% year-on-year, the bank also said on April 10.

Kyiv is facing one less risk this week, after incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said that he would not continue to block a 90 billion euros ($106 billion) loan from the EU to Ukraine.

The cash will cover two-thirds of Ukraine’s military and civilian needs in 2026–2027.

Ukraine heavily relies on funding from foreign partners to keep the state afloat and fund its military, now in its fifth year of fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion.

In the fund’s last big projections in October 2025, it already labeled future prospects as dim due to uncertainty and rising protectionism.

This year’s meetings were again overshadowed, this time by the war in Iran, leading the IMF to cut its global growth forecast to 3.1%, down from 3.3% in January 2026, but also said that growth could fall to 2.5% under an “adverse” scenario or 1.3% under a “severe” scenario.

“With every day that passes and every day that we have more destruction in energy, we are drifting closer towards the adverse scenario,” Gourinchas said.