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.