history

The collective West is often treating Russia as a country whose internal logic seems impossible to grasp - emphasis on "seems", because it's not actually impossible. Understanding the internal logic of the current Russia requires holding several uncomfortable truths at once.

I would argue that Byzantium remains a key driver of Russian (strategic) security and intelligence culture. In this post I want to explore how I came to this conclusion and talk about how Byzantine "intelligence traditions" influenced Russian statecraft across the ages.