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Gennady Rudkevich

@grudkevich.bsky.social
3K followers 279 following 253 posts

Economist. Former Assistant Professor of Political Science, focusing on Russia and Central Asia. All views my own.

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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The last time these groups fought (2020-2022), at least 100,000 people died. This time, there's potential for even higher casualties, with additional Ethiopian regions along with Sudan being involved in some capacity. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/w...
nytimes.com
Tigrayan Forces Mobilize Against the Central Government in Ethiopia (Gift Article)
Tigray People’s Liberation Front seized a key airport in the city of Mekelle, as fears grow of a possible return to a full-scale war.
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Reposted by Gennady Rudkevich
Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 19/09/2026
Election in occupied areas by Russia - voting under military supervision.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
What an astounding level of incompetence by a significant number of highly qualified people who really should have known better. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/15/w...
nytimes.com
Professor’s Death Leaves Behind Hard Questions for Cambridge on Race and Hiring (Gift Article)
Jason Arday, the school’s youngest Black professor, was found dead on Friday. The school ignored a series of warnings about his life story and his work.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
I will never cease to be amazed by people who are shocked that someone who's deeply immoral in one arena ends up being equally immoral in another.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Casualty figures, especially for autocracies, are notoriously unreliable. Having said that, the only countries to suffer 500,000 battlefield fatalities since World War II are Vietnam (Vietnam War) and Iran (Iran-Iraq War). Both wars lasted much longer than Russia's. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Almost 500,000 Russian soldiers killed since start of Ukraine war
GCHQ's director Anne Keast-Butler set out the threats facing the UK in her inaugural public speech.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
The irony of Orban losing big due to the large number of seats chosen through single-member constituencies and lack of run-offs when he previously changed the constitution to create more single-member constituency seats and eliminated run-offs. instituteofgeoeconomics.org/en/research/...
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
I know the world is going from one crisis to another, but I haven't seen much written about the implication of a shift to a much more violent world order. Violence has been legitimized in a way it hasn't been since the 1930s. The consequences have been minimal. The odds of war increase everywhere.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
For anyone discounting the consequences of stagflation: Dow Jones was basically unchanged between the first Oil Crisis (1973) and 1982. That's almost a decade of 0% returns.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Strange how decreases in oil prices don't affect gas prices for months, while increases in oil prices affect gas prices within a day. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/b...
nytimes.com
Gas Prices Continue to Surge in U.S., Rising 14% in a Week
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Dictators always claim that the tyranny is necessary for providing their people security. And yet, they consistently show themselves to be more proficient at butchering their own people than at protecting them.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
What happened in Iran is the fate of any society where extra-judicial killings go unpunished. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/w...
nytimes.com
How Iran Crushed a Citizen Uprising With Lethal Force
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Curious what happened to all the realists claiming that who leads a country is irrelevant and that all rulers pursue a hardcoded set of national interests.
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Stanislav Aseyev @stanislavaseyev.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
During this time, the Germans managed to reach Moscow and be pushed back to Berlin - and Putin got stuck near Myrnograd.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
It's amazing how the same people who had "crypto" in their profiles have suddenly transformed into AI experts. Can't wait for their next transformation.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
And this is just the tip of the iceberg of recent crimes against humanity in Sudan. news.un.org/en/story/202...
news.un.org
Reported massacre at hospital in Sudan’s El Fasher leaves 460 dead
Horrific stories of mass-atrocities committed by the RSF militia continue to emerge, along with the tens of thousands of civilians who have fled the North Darfur city of El Fasher in Sudan.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
If Maduro is overthrown, what stops regime loyalists from teaming up with cartels to seize control over chunks of Venezuela? And what would prevent a very violent civil war between various armed groups for control of the drug routes? No new government could assert control over the entire country.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Since it's that time of the year (when NHL fans have hope for their team based on its preseason performance), I decided to run some correlations between performance in the preseason and the ensuing season. The correlation is 0.08. A perfect correlation is | 1 |. For the graphically inclined:
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
Important lesson for ruling party elites who believe there's nothing to fear as long as they remain loyal to those in power. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/w...
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
Since Putin is basically acting as if we're still in the 19th century in terms of foreign affairs, it's strange that he doesn't apply a 19th century logic to his current war. Back then, if you wanted to achieve maximalist goals, you needed to occupy the enemy capital.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Nominal GDP (in trillion $): Sweden: 0.62 Norway: 0.50 Denmark: 0.45 Finland: 0.30 Iceland: 0.04 Total Nordic: 1.91 Russia: 2.08
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Might as well have promised to attack Estonia instead of Ukraine next time.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
A lot of Russian actions in the past 3.5 years have been pretty predictable, but if you told me that Russia would suffer ~200k fatalities (about 10 times higher than in the Afghan War) and there would be no publish backlash, there's no chance I'd believe you.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Am I the only one curious how du Plessis, an Afrikaner MMA fighter, has the same last name as the famous French foreign minister, Cardinal Richelieu?
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Curious if anyone researched how the widespread adoption of first the television and then social media has allowed authoritarian governments to maintain domestic legitimacy through a more effective form of propaganda than what came before. The internet itself was generally too hard to control.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
It's interesting how so many of the anti-migrant rioters (in this case, in the UK) have took part in the same crimes they're willing to riot over when committed by migrants. They share a profile with Islamist terrorists in Europe, who tend to have a criminal record. www.bbc.com/news/article...
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Given that the Russian-sponsored far right candidate in France is currently polling at 50% (in a second round match up), I can't imagine how much resources Russia will use to get its candidate into power in 2027. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/e...
nytimes.com
Russia Sees France as Its Main Enemy in Europe, French General Says
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Reposted by Gennady Rudkevich
Anton Barbashin @abarbashin.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
BRICS Brazil summit declaration condemns Ukraine’s attacks of Russian infrastructure in Bryansk, Voronezh and Kursk regions. No word of Russian attacks of Ukraine, of course. As if it is Russia that is a victim of Ukrainian aggressive war of expansion
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
After a lengthy intervention in the Syrian civil war, Russia has now seen three of its allies/key military partners (Armenia, Syria, Iran) get attacked in the past 3 years and provided serious assistance to none of them.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Let's hope Putin doesn't do anything rash, like shooting missiles at Ukrainian cities, kidnap thousands of Ukrainian children, or try to conquer Ukrainian territory. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Putin will seek revenge for Ukraine drone attack, warns Trump
Trump says a call with the Russian president was a "good conversation" but would not lead to "immediate peace".
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Even in countries that recently came back from the brink of dictatorship (Poland and South Korea), the parties that enabled the path toward authoritarianism lost at most 10-20% of their previous support. This is in contrast to many communist parties going extinct after the Soviet collapse.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Any professor that bases academic misconduct reports entirely on an an AI detection tool should themselves be written up for academic misconduct. The false positive rate for these tools is huge. Not to mention that basic decency requires a more thorough investigation. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/s...
nytimes.com
A New Headache for Honest Students: Proving They Didn’t Use A.I.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
What a depressing story from every angle. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/w...
nytimes.com
East African Housekeepers Face Rape, Assault and Death in Saudi Arabia
East African leaders and Saudi royals are among those profiting off a lucrative, deadly trade in domestic workers.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
Horrifying stories coming out of Sudan, Congo, and Syria, but each barely made the news cycle. Given the current priorities of the international community (to the extent it still exists), the likelihood anything will be done is near zero. If anything, things will get worse before they get better.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
It was obvious from very early in the Kursk operation that the attack was a political move with 0 military merit. It's quite likely that this move strongly contributed to Ukrainian defeats in far more strategically important territory. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/w...
nytimes.com
Russia Pushes Back Ukraine’s Offensive With Drones and North Korean Troops
Russia has retaken about two-thirds of the territory Ukraine seized last summer in the Kursk region of Russia, but at a fearful cost in lives.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Is this the country Western investors want access to? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/w...
nytimes.com
Emboldened Kremlin Steps Up Efforts to Seize Businesses in Russia
The legal onslaught on Moscow’s second-largest airport has been seen as part of the Kremlin’s wartime drive to seize control of key assets still in private hands.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
What happens when the cartels retaliate? This war will be much harder to retreat from than wars fought thousands of miles away. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
washingtonpost.com
Under Trump, CIA plots bigger role in drug cartel fight
The CIA is developing plans to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign pledges to get tough on Mexico’s drug cartels, but critics warn of a backlash.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
The left map shows the parts of Germany with the highest percentage of Syrian refugees. The right map shows public support for the anti-migrant AfD. Something to keep in mind when reading stories that posit a direct link between refugee numbers and support for the far-right.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
The DeepSeek news about the cost-effectiveness of technology reminds me of the old joke about NASA:
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
Not even one whole day into the new year.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Pet peeve: people blaming capitalism for things that preexisted capitalism. You think inequality, poor social mobility, discrimination, etc. didn't exist under feudalism or manoralism? When these issues exist throughout space and time, it seems the problem is much deeper than the economic system.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Sounds like an "I'm sorry you're upset" apology. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Putin apologises for Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, without saying Russia at fault
Russia's leader apologises for the downing of an Azerbaijani plane in Russian airspace - without directly taking blame.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 27/12/2024
It's tempting to trust (and share) stats that reinforce one's preexisting beliefs. But that's precisely when you should dig into and find the original source. And if there is no original source, heavily discount information from whoever "cited" it. There should be a social cost for misinformation.
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Francis Scarr @fscarr.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
meduza.io/en/cards/was...
meduza.io
Was Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer jet shot down? Marks on the plane’s exterior suggest it was hit by military air defenses. Meduza considers the evidence. — Meduza
On December 25, 2024, a few hours after an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer passenger jet crashed in Aktau, Kazakhstan, an anonymous Russian blogger, who is connected to Russia’s Air Forces and goes by the...
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
A Russian leader spouting anti-Semitic rhetoric is about as surprising as an American health insurance company refusing to cover a needed medical procedure. www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrain...
atlanticcouncil.org
Putin faces antisemitism accusations following attack on ‘ethnic Jews’
Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing fresh antisemitism accusations after claiming that “ethnic Jews” are seeking to “tear apart” the Russian Orthodox Church, writes Joshua Stein
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
Curious how someone in jail since 2020 could commit espionage. Russia isn't even trying anymore. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Russian-born US citizen Gene Spector jailed in Moscow on espionage charges
The allegations against the businessman, who was tried behind closed doors, are not being made public.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
I would heavily discount reports of any agreements between Russia and Syrian rebels. Until the rebels consolidate control over their country, they have a huge incentive to avoid picking unnecessary fights.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Russian response to America's withdrawal from Afghanistan 3 years ago. www.rferl.org/a/afghanista...
rferl.org
Beneath The Gloating, Taliban Takeover Brings Unwelcome New Uncertainty For Moscow
The chaotic vacuum that the United States is leaving behind in Afghanistan creates a new set of uncertainties and potential problems for the Kremlin.
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Gennady Rudkevich @grudkevich.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Can't think of many successful armed rebellions (not military coups) this side of the millennium (Libya is close, but foreign powers played a huge role). And now there are two (Afghanistan and Syria).
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