U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s appearance at the Munich Security Conference offered a polished, "good cop" follow-up to the blunt speech delivered by Vice President J.D. Vance a year prior, confirming a new era of American "tough love" for Europe. While Rubio’s presence suggested diplomatic relief among allies, Russian state media broadcast a narrative of transatlantic divorce. The campaign to discredit any remaining Western unity was bolstered this week by depictions of Italy's Winter Olympics as an embarrassing failure, woven into continuing salacious and conspiracy-laden coverage of the Epstein files, branding Western elites as a "satanic" cult.

In this episode, Andy Kuchins and Chris Monday unpack how the Kremlin presents its story of imminent collapse of the transatlantic alliance.

Last week's targeted shooting of General Vladimir Alexeyev in the outskirts of Moscow has stripped the Russian military of one of its most competent strategists. The assassination attempt occurred against the backdrop of growing paranoia reminiscent of the Stalin era, exemplified in a grim new state documentary warning how Ukraine recruits Russian youths as "terrorists" via the popular Telegram messaging app. Meanwhile, to preempt dissatisfaction among national minorities who bear the brunt of war casualties, state media has revived another Stalinist trope of the "friendship of the peoples."

In this episode, Andy Kuchins and Chris Monday unpack how Russian television projects regime stability by doubling down on a narrative combining theatrical patriotism with a hunt for domestic enemies.

Despite suffering over 1.2 million casualties in Ukraine—eclipsing Soviet losses in the Afghan conflict by orders of magnitude—Russian society remains strikingly silent compared to the civil strife that once challenged the Kremlin's authority in the 1980s. This domestic compliance rests, in part, on Russian state media's framing of the Ukraine War as an existential battle for the nation's survival against a decadent West.

From the systemic branding of political dissent as treasonous to the pageantry of Putin's recent Middle East diplomacy, hosts Andy Kuchins and Chris Monday look at the latest Vesti Nedeli news broadcast and unpack how state media effectively insulates Russia's urban middle class from the grim realities of a grinding war of attrition.

After weeks of silence, Russian state media has suddenly pivoted toward a "let's make a deal" narrative, signaling a startling shift in tone as high-stakes Ukraine negotiations revive in Moscow and Abu Dhabi. Vladimir Putin has returned to the airwaves not as an aggressor, but as a calm and savvy dealmaker, even floating a proposal to use frozen central bank assets to fund Donald Trump's new "Board of Peace" and support Ukrainian reconstruction. In this episode, Andy Kuchins and Chris Monday unpack how Russian state media is recalibrating its narrative and preparing domestic audiences for a potential peace deal over Ukraine.

President Donald Trump’s announcement of punitive tariffs targeting European allies who oppose the U.S. acquisition of Greenland has plunged NATO into a state of unprecedented chaos. In Moscow, Russian state media openly relishes the spectacle, portraying Western leaders as feckless and hopelessly paralyzed in the face of President Trump's pressure campaign. In this episode, Andy Kuchins and Chris Monday unpack how Vladimir Putin and Russian elites understand the world, and how they seek to influence it.

Russia's recent Oreshnik missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Lviv, not far from the Polish border, is a new benchmark in the Kremlin’s campaign of intimidation against the West. As the Kremlin gauges the unpredictability of the second Trump administration in Venezuela and Greenland and tests the limits of European deterrence, its state media has abandoned any pretense of diplomacy for the language of raw power. In this episode, Andy Kuchins and Chris Monday unpack how Vladimir Putin and Russian elites understand the world, and how they seek to influence it.

While the world reacted with shock to the dramatic U.S. seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, the Kremlin's response remains strikingly circumspect, fueling speculation of a high-stakes backstage deal and a "new Yalta" establishing spheres of influence from Caracas to Kyiv. In this episode, Andy Kuchins and Chris Monday discuss the strategic calculus behind Russian media's handling of the Venezuela story and the potentially fabricated drone assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin at his Valdai residence.

As 2025 draws to a close, Vesti Nedeli delivers a confident verdict on Vladimir Putin's leadership: the Russian president remains unbowed by Western pressure. State media portrays Europeans as exhausted "piglets" dependent on U.S. sponsorship, while Putin himself is calm, patient and resilient in his phone call with Donald Trump on Ukraine. In this episode, Andy Kuchins and Chris Monday explore what this carefully curated narrative reveals about the Kremlin's image-making, and whether a new national ideology is taking shape.