iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

For UK audiences. *To Run the World* is now available in paperback (as of last week), and can be purchased here: www.amazon.co.uk/Run-World-Kr.... Priced at £14.99, so never cheaper! Your leisurely beach reaching as the summer arrives.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Damn. I got a medal from the Council on Foreign Relations, which is super exciting.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

On BBC this morning, with Catherine Barnard (Cambridge), and our wonderful host Julian Worricker. Talking about politics, sports, literature, art, and love.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 05/10/2025

Honored to interview President Yushchenko for my forthcoming book on the Russia-Ukraine war. It's important to understand the historical context of the Russian invasion. If we start in 2022, we risk missing out on the essential.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Together with my brilliant RA Peter Sies (SAIS-2024) (R) had a very candid, interesting meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (C). This is all part of my big project on the history of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which will eventually lead to a very big book.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

And, as a bonus, here is the final paragraph that didn't make it into the oped for reasons of length.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

That's just not the case. Poland narrowly avoided a Soviet invasion in 1956, and again in 1981, when Gen. Jaruzelski spared Moscow the trouble by imposing martial law. But you knew that.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

A confidential readout on Yeltsin-Chirac, October 1997. Yeltsin's views on the Baltics, NATO and the EU. A consistent take, actually, throughout this period, but also later, under Putin.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

Another encounter between Russian and European leaders; another discussion of NATO and EU enlargement. This here is from Tony Blair's meeting with Chernomyrdin, October 6, 1997. A persistent theme.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Ha, of all places, Alaska. Would never have crossed my mind. Definitely, meant to impress. It's fairly rare to hold summits somewhere that is not a capital city, but it's certainly not unheard of. The Russians have held multiple summits in Siberia (Putin-Kim in Vladivostok or Putin-Mori in Irkutsk).

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

The last time I read The Twenty Years’ Crisis was 25 years ago. It’s so interesting to come back to it now; unarguably many passages read differently that they sounded in a very different age. More pertinent?

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Russia’s then-Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, in a conversation with Tony Blair, July 22, 1999.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

open.substack.com/pub/profradc.... An interesting report by the British Ambassador in Moscow Sir Andrew Wood on Russia's outlook. How things looked 25 years ago, at the time of Putin's arrival.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Gotta love the 1960s. (From Lawrence Freedman’s Strategy: a History).

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

You just gotta love this. From a CIA study.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

The word refers to street tricksters who would swindle people out of their money by using three cups and a ball. The term is quite derogatory (i.e. people who try to steal your money using a cheap trick). A very common sight in the 1990s.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

This here by Lawrence Freedman has interesting contemporary resonance.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Every time I hear lamentations about the death of the post-1945 Liberal International Order (at the hands of the Russians and the Chinese), I am reminded of Paul Chamberlin's book, The Cold War's Killing Fields. Here's a useful passage from the book.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

A fun story from the Cold War. Incredible to think just how much the US contributed to Soviet economic output and military production.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

This is implied in the post, which also discusses whether the previous Istanbul talks were just a time-wasting maneuver on Putin's part. As for the current proposal, here's what I actually argue in the post.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Thrilled to have To Run the World shortlisted for the 2025 Gelber Prize alongside other great books by Mary Bridges, Steve Coll, Tim Cook, and Benjamin Nathans. The Gelber Prize is awarded for the best book on international affairs published in English.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Meanwhile, on foreign policy specifically. From my own study of Russian policymaking, I should say that the best starting point is to see what policymakers themselves say. Read their speeches, their various pronouncements, understand their historical references, etc.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

There is some plausibility to this argument though "asking them" may be more difficult than King is willing to admit because "them" - the Russians - are obviously a very diverse group of people. So who are we going to ask and, even more importantly, what are we going to ask them?

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

He argues that literature does not really help you understand how a society works, and that if we want to know how the Russians think, we should stop reading Russian classics and, instead "just ask them" [the Russians].https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjW4WwjW0AAVhw3?format=png&name=large

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Part of this here. Oh dear, what a line-up.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Where I disagree with Sikorski is that there exists an “authoritarian axis” of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. My professional opinion (as someone who has studied these relationships for decades now) is that there is basically no such thing.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

A rare KGB document from October 1969 that highlights the extent of Chinese concern about a potential Soviet nuclear strike on China. Recounts how Chinese diplomats in Moscow aired their worries to the Poles and tried to find out about possible disagreements on this subject among the Soviet leaders.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

This here from Erik Scott’s book is quite interesting. It pertains to the case of Mkheidze and Orekhov, arrested while trying to flee the USSR in 1962. A window into the Soviet appeal process, not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Soviet justice system.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Haha isn’t this the case? Check out the last sentence here. This is from Erik Scott’s new book on Soviet defectors.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

A new morning coffee read. Looks promising!

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

What an incredibly sad story about the first Soviet embassy in Turkey.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

To Run the World was released 7 months ago. I am happy to say that the door-stopper is still in the top ten reads on Russia/the Soviet Union.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Read this earlier this year and highly recommend that you do, too. Recounts the most quickly-forgotten-about episode of ethnic cleansing in recent memory.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Excellent to see To Run the World listed here by The Sunday Times among other great reads.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Here's a little Strobe Talbott for you, to cope with the news cycle.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

One thing I found interesting in Putin's discussion of the Oreshnik IRBM is his repeated emphasis on how several conventionally-armed missiles could inflict damage "comparable to nuclear." He said this at least three times in the last few days.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Frank Gavin makes this important point in Hal Brands (ed), War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World (2024).

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Reading this book with my morning coffee. There’s a chapter here by @kschake.bsky.social who makes a pretty compelling argument that Biden’s major mistake in Ukraine was to delineate the limits of U.S. involvement early in the game. Why would anyone want to give Putin any reassurances?

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

And here's one of Putin's generals in the meeting earlier today, talking about how the new missiles could "hit targets in all of Europe." Plus ça change...

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Brezhnev of course famously thought that the ability to destroy the world was what made the Soviet Union deserve its high place of power and influence in the world. Here's Brezhnev (cited from To Run the World).

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Third, Khrushchev and later Brezhnev liked to boast about the Soviet ability to wipe out whole countries. Why, here's Khrushchev in December, 1959 (cited from To Run the World):

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Like Khrushchev who boasted about the Soviet Union producing missiles "like sausages," Putin has sought to intimidate by promising that Russia would serialize the new weapon.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Putin follows this tradition. He has stressed the amazing specs of this magic weapon, both in his statement yesterday, and his comments today, highlighting its speed, invulnerability, and power. "No one in the world has anything like this," he said.

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Sergey Radchenko @radchenko.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Anyway, of course Khrushchev also liked to claim the Soviets had amazing weapons that no one else did. Check out his boasting / intimidation in this conversation with Richard Nixon in 1959 (this is from To Run the World):

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