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CSIS | Center for Strategic and International Studies

Russian Roulette takes a look at the politics, economics, and culture of Russia and Eurasia through both interviews and lively discussion with experts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and around the world. Hosted by CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program experts Olga Oliker and Jeffrey Mankoff.

Russian Roulette

Maria Snegovaya sits down with Pavel Talankin –– a Russian schoolteacher who became an unlikely lens into the Russian propaganda machine. His documentary, Mr. Nobody Against Putin, captured two years of footage from inside a provincial Russian classroom as Putin's war transformed his students into instruments of the state. The film won the 2026 Oscar for Best Documentary. Talankin joins Russian Roulette's first episode recorded in Russian to discuss his inspiration, experience making the film, and what his story reveals about the depths of propaganda in Russia's education system today. 

NOTE: This episode is in Russian. An English version of the audio (created using AI dubbing software and reviewed by native speakers) is available in the Russian Roulette podcast feed. 

Mentioned: 

 Mr. Nobody Against Putin | Documentary film directed by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin 

Feedback? Suggestions? Ideas to help us improve? Email us at erep@csis.org. 

If you love Russian Roulette, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. 

Listen to our sister podcast, covering all things Europe through a Washington lens: CSIS Podcasts | The Eurofile

Putin’s Propaganda Machine in Russian Classrooms (A Russian Language Exclusive)

NOTE: This interview was conducted in Russian. The English audio was created with AI dubbing software and reviewed by native speakers of both languages for accuracy. 

Maria Snegovaya sits down with Pavel Talankin –– a Russian schoolteacher who became an unlikely lens into the Russian propaganda machine. His documentary, Mr. Nobody Against Putin, captured two years of footage from inside a provincial Russian classroom as Putin's war transformed his students into instruments of the state. The film won the 2026 Oscar for Best Documentary. Talankin joins Russian Roulette to discuss what he witnessed, the process of making the film, and what his story reveals about the depths of propaganda in Russia's education system today. 

Mentioned: 

 Mr. Nobody Against Putin | Documentary film directed by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin 

Feedback? Suggestions? Ideas to help us improve? Email us at erep@csis.org. 

If you love Russian Roulette, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. 

Listen to our sister podcast, covering all things Europe through a Washington lens: CSIS Podcasts | The Eurofile

Russia's Classrooms Face Putin’s Propaganda Machine

Maria Snegovaya sits down with Nate Vance — a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who enlisted in the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the 2022 invasion — to discuss Ukrainian and Russian military tactics, life as an infantryman on the front lines, and the impact of Soviet legacies on military culture. 

Vance spent three years with the Da Vinci Wolves, seeing action from Bakhmut to Pokrovsk, before leaving in early 2025 when his first cousin JD Vance's rise to the vice presidency made him a potential Russian target. 

 

Mentioned: 

 Russian Blood and Treasure: The Ballooning Costs of Putin’s War: CSIS Publication by Seth Jones and Riley McCabe 

 

 

Feedback? Suggestions? Ideas to help us improve? Email us at erep@csis.org. 

If you love Russian Roulette, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. 

Listen to our sister podcast, covering all things Europe through a Washington lens: CSIS Podcasts | The Eurofile

How Ukraine Fights: Reflections from the Front Lines feat. Nate Vance

Max Bergmann sits down with Maria Snegovaya and Jade McGlynn, senior associate (non-resident) with the CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program and senior research fellow / head of the Ukraine and Russia Program at King's College London, to discuss how Russians have responded to major shocks over the past four years, and whether polling data in Russia truly indicates shifting attitudes toward the war.

Mentioned: 

 Russian Attitudes Are Shifting as the War’s Effects Come Home, Maria Snegovaya and Jade McGlynn 

Feedback? Suggestions? Ideas to help us improve? Email us at erep@csis.org. 

If you love Russian Roulette, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. 

Listen to our sister podcast, covering all things Europe through a Washington lens: CSIS Podcasts | The Eurofile

Has the War Come Home to Russia?

Investigative journalist Tim Mak, who has been stationed in Ukraine since 2022, joins Max and Maria for a discussion about life in Kyiv, the processes and challenges driving innovation in Ukraine’s dynamic civilian defense combat hubs, and the impact of AI and information integration on the battlefield.

Mentioned: 

 The Counteroffensive by Tim Mak, Substack 

 The Arsenal, Tim Mak 

 Build Back Ukraine, Tim Mak 

Feedback? Suggestions? Ideas to help us improve? Email us at erep@csis.org. 

If you love Russian Roulette, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. 

Listen to our sister podcast, covering all things Europe through a Washington lens: CSIS Podcasts | The Eurofile

Ukraine's Dynamic Defense Sector: Combat Hubs, Air Defense, and Non-Stop Innovation

Max and Maria sit down with Kate Bondar, Senior Fellow at CSIS’s Wadhwani AI Center and expert on autonomous warfare, to discuss the role of drones in combat in Ukraine, including Russia’s innovation tactics and takeaways from the recent increase in strikes on Moscow and Kyiv. 

Mentioned: 

 
How Russia Is Building a Sovereign Drone Ecosystem for AI-Driven Autonomy | CSIS report by Kate Bondar 

 
Defining Autonomy: Why Software, Not Drones, Will Decide the Next War | CSIS report by Kate Bondar and Matt Mande 

 
Russia Is Building Tomorrow’s War Machine | Kate Bondar in The New York Times 

Feedback? Suggestions? Ideas to help us improve? Email us at erep@csis.org. 

If you love Russian Roulette, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. 

Listen to our sister podcast, covering all things Europe through a Washington lens: CSIS Podcasts | The Eurofile

How Drone Innovation Reshapes the Battlefield in Ukraine with Kate Bondar

Max and Maria sit down with Dr. Nina Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs at the New School and one of the world’s leading experts on Russia, to discuss her new Russian‑language book Nikita Khrushchev: Vozhd vne sistemy (“Nikita Khrushchev: An Outlier of the System”) and her experience as one of the few scholars still traveling to and from Russia. As Nikita Khrushchev’s great‑granddaughter and adoptive granddaughter, she offers a rare, personal view of how Russian culture, politics, and society are evolving.

Mentioned: 

 
No Exit from Stalin | by Nina L. Khrushcheva in Project Syndicate (April 2026) 

 
Russia’s Descent Into Tyranny: How Four Years of War Have Remade Society | by Nina L. Khrushcheva in Foreign Affairs (Dec. 2025) 

 
Nikita Khrushchev: Vozhd vne sistemy (Nikita Khrushchev: An Outlier of the System) | Book by Nina L. Khrushcheva 

Feedback? Suggestions? Ideas to help us improve? Email us at erep@csis.org. 

If you love Russian Roulette, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. 

Listen to our sister podcast, covering all things Europe through a Washington lens: CSIS Podcasts | The Eurofile

Dr. Nina Khrushcheva: History, Evolution, and a View from Inside Russia

Max and Maria welcome Sir Lawrence Freedman, historian, author, and Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King's College London, to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine, how he sees the conflict evolving, and what to expect in the critical months ahead.

 
Is Ukraine winning the drone race? by Sir Lawrence Freedman 

 
Link to Substack: Comment is Freed 

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Ideas to help us improve? Email us at erep@csis.org. 

If you love Russian Roulette, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. 

Listen to our sister podcast, covering all things Europe through a Washington lens: CSIS Podcasts | The Eurofile

Shifting Tides in Ukraine - Lawrence Freedman on the Future of the War

Max and Maria welcome back Dr. Sam Greene, professor of Russian Politics at King's College London, to discuss the state of Russian public opinion today, and whether domestic conditions have begun change given the state of the economy, war, and reports of increasing paranoia in the Kremlin.

War, Inflation, and Putin's Paranoia: has Russian Public Opinion Begun to Shift?

Max and Maria welcome back Elina Ribakova to discuss her latest piece in Foreign Affairs, exploring the Ukrainian defense industry and its potential capacity to help Europe secure its own defense. 

More from Elina in Foreign Affairs: Europe’s Untapped Arsenal: Ukraine Has Forged the Defense Industry the Continent Desperately Needs

The Ukrainian Defense Industry and Europe’s Untapped Arsenal

Max and Maria get another update from military expert Mike Kofman on the state of the frontlines in Ukraine. 

This conversation was recorded on June 11, 2025.

"The Russian Wartime Economy: From Sugar High to Hangover" by Maria Snegovaya, Nicholas Fenton, Tina Dolbaia, and Max Bergmann (June 2025, CSIS.org)

"Russia's Battlefield Woes in Ukraine" by Seth Jones and Riely McCabe (June 2025, CSIS.org)

"Assessing Russian Military Adaptation in 2023" by Michael Kofman (October 2024, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)

A Battlefield Update from Mike Kofman

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