In Moscow's Shadows 16: The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR): and Is Putin Ill? (Spoiler: Probably Not) - a podcast by Mark Galeotti

After a few very brief observations on the US elections and the implications of a Biden presidency, a look at the SVR, its operations, role, culture and political ambitions of its director, Sergei Naryshkin (which I also discuss here). Then, in the second part, I take apart the rumours about Putin's supposed imminent resignation for reasons of ill-health - and muse on why we still have to listen to silly rumours.

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