How Putin created the most threatening regime in the world – with Michael Thumann

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Michael Thumann, foreign affairs correspondent for the German weekly newspaper Die ZEIT, longtime expert on Russia, and one of the only German correspondents still reporting from Moscow. Following the publication of Thumann’s new book, “Revanche. Wie Putin das bedrohlichste Regime der Welt geschaffen hat” (“Revenge: How Putin created the most threatening regime in the world”, currently only available in German), he and Leonard discuss the roots of the Russian regime’s imperialistic behaviour. What is the relevance of Vladimir Putin’s interpretation of Russian history? Could Russia become a ‘normal country’ in the future? And how have Germans’ views of Russia changed since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine?

This podcast was recorded on 1 February 2023.

Further reading:

• Revanche by Michael Thumann [available only in GER]
• The old is dying and the new cannot be born: A power audit of EU-Russia relations by Kadri Liik

Bookshelf

• Geschichten aus der Heimat by Dmitry Glukhovsky [available only in GER]
• Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin
• The Frontline Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present by Serhii Plokhy