Jeremy Morris
@jeremymorris.bsky.social
Write and research on Russia. Work at Aarhus University, but opinions my own, not those of employer.
New blogpost: watching the Russian opposition and gauging the latest economic gloom in Russia. Link in next post.
I'm extremely grateful Jacobin published me riffing on my usual themes. While this is for a non-specialist audience, there's a bit of everything for everyone, including the way the strikes by Ukraine change the socio-political calculus in Russia. jacobin.com/2026/08/russ...
Russia’s Authoritarian Neoliberalism Reaches Its Limits
Ukrainian attacks on fuel infrastructure and on online retailer Wildberries are disrupting middle-class Russians’ sense of normality. Moves to step up military conscription could push the system towar...
jacobin.com
Did a podcast for RevTrans - which discusses English-language research about Russia in Russian. Here's a auto-translation snippet www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORSn...
Wife-beater and pedo-fan dies. British press celebrate a life they admire.
had this article partly in mind when I wrote the last paragraph of my Magical Thinking Fortress Kremlin piece, which VERY FEW OF YOU HAVE CLICKED ON!" Viktorov and Kryshtanovskaya, 2023:
Jeremy Morris@jeremymorris.bsky.social · 3mo agoDoing what I said I'd never do. Indulging in some Kremlinology. After all, I can't be more wrong than the professionals. postsocialism.org/2026/07/14/t...
Doing what I said I'd never do. Indulging in some Kremlinology. After all, I can't be more wrong than the professionals. postsocialism.org/2026/07/14/t...
The Trouble with Avos: Inside P*tin’s Magical Thinking
Any excuse for an EU4 reference Over 1600 days of war. Is that a lot? Maybe it is when you consider full-scale war has lasted more than a sixth of Putin’s time in power. Really, this is just an exc…
postsocialism.org
"Russian authorities long relied on security-service hardliners to explain away their own failures by attributing them to malign foreign influence. British parliamentarians now appear to be following much the same logic." New blogpost on the Masha and Bear saga: postsocialism.org/2026/07/08/m...
Masha and the Experts
As the row over banning Masha and the Bear continues to escalate, British Russia experts have themselves come under attack, accused of spreading pro-Russian propaganda. Both the calls for a ban (Gu…
postsocialism.org
>>> Tolstoy’s unhappy families principle applies surprisingly well to Russia-watching. Fontanka, Carnegie, Meduza, and the rest all have credibility problems—but not the same credibility problems. <<<
Jeremy Morris@jeremymorris.bsky.social · 3mo agoA risky anniversary piece about Prigozhin’s Mutiny is published in the mainstream Russian press. What gives? I unpack the shifting boundaries of what's permissible in the press and how we need to be even more *critical* in all our media analysis in a new blogpost: postsocialism.org/2026/06/24/w...
Just realised that the podcast this post describes, in part, is now on YouTube too. Enjoy a transnational perspective on flexible authoritarianism featuring Johanna Bockman and Greg Yudin plus me and the author youtube.com/watch?v=XTEg...
Rethinking Russia: Transnational Perspectives on Authoritarianism, Society & Resistance –A Symposium
YouTube video by Center for New Critical Politics and Governance
youtube.com
Jeremy Morris@jeremymorris.bsky.social · 4mo agoRe-upping - I know it's not my usual thing but I think it's healthy to do a meta-dive into Russian domestic media from time to time. This one was pretty interesting!
Jeremy Morris@jeremymorris.bsky.social · 3mo agoA risky anniversary piece about Prigozhin’s Mutiny is published in the mainstream Russian press. What gives? I unpack the shifting boundaries of what's permissible in the press and how we need to be even more *critical* in all our media analysis in a new blogpost: postsocialism.org/2026/06/24/w...
A risky anniversary piece about Prigozhin’s Mutiny is published in the mainstream Russian press. What gives? I unpack the shifting boundaries of what's permissible in the press and how we need to be even more *critical* in all our media analysis in a new blogpost: postsocialism.org/2026/06/24/w...
When a Mutiny Becomes a “March of Justice”: The shifting boundaries within authoritarian media
On the three-year anniversary it is pretty interesting that a piece about Prigozhin’s March is published by Fontanka. It’s an interview with Prigozhin’s former lawyer-troubleshooter who is pedallin…
postsocialism.org
turns out being deliberately antagonistic towards the people who elected you in order to court people who would under no circumstances ever vote for you is not smart
Always been that way. Muscovites finding out what us provincials knew 2 years ago.
Janis Kluge@jakluge.de · 3mo agoAir defence is definitely the greater danger to Russian civilians.
It's rare when I write such a neat post that it's still true and worth reading 4 years later. Or maybe we're all just still incapable of accepting the need for a shift away from using numbers without context? postsocialism.org/2026/06/08/f...
Great essay by @seva.bsky.social and @jeremymorris.bsky.social about why it will be hard for Putin to end the war without throwing Russia into chaos.
Seva@seva.bsky.social · 4mo agoRussian economy and society have been reorganized around war. There are now powerful domestic incentives that make ending the war difficult and even dangerous for Russia’s president. Jeremy Morris @jeremymorris.bsky.social and myself in Foreign Affairs (open access)
Russian economy and society have been reorganized around war. There are now powerful domestic incentives that make ending the war difficult and even dangerous for Russia’s president. Jeremy Morris @jeremymorris.bsky.social and myself in Foreign Affairs (open access)
The Inertia of Russia’s War
Why Putin can’t end the conflict.
foreignaffairs.com
Nice of Greg to review me in the latest LRB:
London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 4mo agoIssue 48.10 is now online, featuring: Stefan Collini on the crisis in universities Lili Owen Rowlands on Agnès Varda Greg Afinogenov on Russian ideologies Rahmane Idrissa on the Sahara and @jamesmeek.bsky.social on Andy Burnham. Read online at www.lrb.co.uk
Re-up: how wiling are young people in Russia to mould themselves to the demands of both the market and the government. sidenote: this case study just came out that supports both my and Schwenck's approaches.
Jeremy Morris@jeremymorris.bsky.social · 4mo agoHow flexible is Russian authoritarianism? This question is asked by Anna Schwenck’s recent book and is more relevant now than ever as the economic decline in most parts of the Russian economy accelerates New blog post. Link in next post.
My review of Marc's book. The only nuanced media-insider account you're likely to read straddling the Ukraine-Russia divide. A book born from anger, but which overcomes that and provides surprise after surprise where so often his colleagues pander to prejudice. postsocialism.org/2026/05/19/r...
‘Russia’s Spiral into Madness’ reviewed: The Times’ man in Russia writes his acid take on 25 years in Russia
Marc Bennetts’ new book pretty much hits the spot for anyone who wants a comprehensive and accessible journalistic treatment of ‘how we lost Russia’.
postsocialism.org
It turns out the distinguishing characteristic of Starmer the politician is not his incuriosity, his poor decision-making or his tendency to throw others under the bus but his overweening sense of entitlement ("his landslide majority").
Why is Russia a rich country full of poor people and why do social scientists and politicians alike conspire to hide this? postsocialism.org/2026/05/11/r...
“Russia: A rich country full of poor people”
The quote is from my book, but I wanted to write a bit more here about inequality in Russia because it is often underplayed and misunderstood. Scroll to the end if you just want the ‘news’ about th…
postsocialism.org
Academics usually publish reviews of books they disagree with, not sign open letters about them. Maybe the real problem is Altmetrics and AI changing the meaning of intellectual authority. My new blogpost - link in next post:
New (guest) blogpost on Russian polling: Total Recall? Is the firewall broken between unpopular decisions and Putin? In the popular imagination he is a figure hovering above the political fray. Is this now untenable? Link in the next post.
