Interesting think piece by Yakov Feygin on Prigozhin's Concord that illustrates the usefulness of a political economy perspective on Russia - even if only to expose and question prevalent assumptions
'We overestimate the internal cohesion and consistency of Russian government agencies; in reality, its institutions are wracked with forces that pull them at cross-purposes.'
Do read this piece by Jeremy Morris, where he pushes back against many prevalent simplifications about Russian politics and society.
As a new user, I’m enjoying Mastodon’s vibe so far but the one thing that is a letdown is the trending hashtags. I’ve been checking them regularly over the past couple of weeks and it seems like they’re pretty much always like this....
When that weird ass Wagner rebellion went down a few weeks ago, I followed the #wagner, #Prigozhin, and #russia hashtags and the news was just as up to the minute as anything on Twitter was. After the rebellion fizzled out, I just unfollowed the hashtags. I also happened to find some reliable accounts to follow that were knowledgeable about that part of the world.
I’m not even sure that any of those hashtags showed up in the ‘trending tags’ part of my app, though.
Why are Mastodon's trending hashtags so ... dull? (lemm.ee)
As a new user, I’m enjoying Mastodon’s vibe so far but the one thing that is a letdown is the trending hashtags. I’ve been checking them regularly over the past couple of weeks and it seems like they’re pretty much always like this....