Jason Corcoran

Russian tourists are kicking back in Dubai on an empty beach as drones explode downtown.
● "The sea here is so beautiful. The wreckage of a drone is burning nearby. We're the only ones here today!"
Source: KP.Ru Kremlin tabloid

Blast from the past: Dzhabrailov was the former business partner of US investor Paul Tatum, who was gunned down in a Moscow metro station in 1996.
● Some US officials believed the Chechen was behind Tatum's after they rowed over the Radisson Hotel ownership in Moscow.

These Russians were children when Putin launched a full-scale war against Ukraine. Four years later, here’s what they think about their country — and their future. — Meduza As Russia’s war against Ukraine enters its fifth year, a new generation of Russians is coming of age. Despite state pressure and propaganda, not all of them support the ongoing invasion. Meduza asked ...

Russia's future interviewed by @meduza.io
"There’s this fear: if we leave, we’ll miss the moment when Russia becomes free. But if we don’t leave, they’ll close the iron curtain +we’ll never get out at all. To be or not to be — that’s the question we’re constantly asking."
meduza.io/en/feature/2...

Ukraine's war economy four years on after Russian invasion | Newstalk It’s an awful anniversary to have to mark but it’s 4 years since the unprovoked invasion of U...

It's been four years since Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukrane, a sobering milestone and a reminder of the war’s immense human cost.
● Today, I joined @joeblynam.bsky.social and Cormac Smith on @newstalkfm.bsky.social
to reflect.
🎧 Interview: www.newstalk.com/podcasts/bre...

Ukraine's war economy four years on after Russian invasion | Newstalk It’s an awful anniversary to have to mark but it’s 4 years since the unprovoked invasion of U...

It's been four years since Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukrane, a sobering milestone and a reminder of the war’s immense human cost.
● Today, I joined @joeblynam.bsky.social and Cormac Smith on @newstalkfm.bsky.social
to reflect.
🎧 Interview: www.newstalk.com/podcasts/bre...

🎶U2 , Ed Sheeran and Taras Topolia released the music video for Yours Eternally, featuring soldiers of the Khartiia Brigade💙💛

U2 unveiled their new EP Days Of Ash as a response to people’s fight for freedom. Yours Eternally is directly connected to Ukraine and the war against russian aggression.

Moscow's De-Dollarization Dreams Meet Pragmatic Reality - The Moscow Times Opinion | For years, the Kremlin has thundered that the age of the dollar was ending.

#OpEd A leaked memo suggests Moscow may rejoin the dollar settlement system despite years of trying to go its own way, writes Jason Corcoran.

Moscow's De-Dollarization Dreams Meet Pragmatic Reality - The Moscow Times Opinion | For years, the Kremlin has thundered that the age of the dollar was ending.

My @themoscowtimes.com OpEd
The Great Kremlin Climbdown: A leaked memo suggests Moscow may rejoin the dollar settlement system despite years of trying to go its own way www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/20/m...

Azerbaijan Sentences Former Nagorno-Karabakh Official to 20 Years in Prison - The Moscow Times A judge in Azerbaijan has sentenced Ruben Vardanyan, the former state minister of the now-dissolved Armenian separatist administration of Nagorno-Karabakh, to 20 years in prison, Azerbaijani state med...

Azerbaijan sentences Ruben #Vardanyan to 20 years in prison after a kangaroo trial in Baku.
● Vardanyan, who once counted Hollywood stars and members of the British royalty as friends, appears to have been abandoned by both the Armenian and Russian governments
www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/17/a...

YouTube video by Steve Rosenberg Russian papers avoid mentioning Alexei Navalny and poisoning claim.

What are today’s Russian papers reporting about the second anniversary of Alexei Navalny’s death & the joint statement by the UK, Sweden, France, Germany & The Netherlands that Mr Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin?

Nothing.

#ReadingRussia

‘Alexei was so brave it really was beyond comprehension’ – Irish journalist remembers his times with late Russian opposition leader I doubled over on Friday when I read the news that Alexei Navalny had died in captivity in a remote Arctic outpost in Putin’s bleak Gulag Archipelago.

Two years ago, #Navalny was murdered in a remote Arctic gulag by a cowardly regime.
● No one challenged Putin in 24 years like Navalny did, exposing corruption at the highest levels and offering hope for a democratic Russia.I wrote about the man I knew and his legacy
m.independent.ie/world-news/e...

Proof - not that it was needed - that Putin's regime killed Alexey #Navalny.

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Apparently, early sales are crucial for visibility and making an impact, so your support would mean a great deal to me. Pre-order links are in the last comment below

It includes investigative reporting on high-profile oligarchs who attempted to straddle two worlds as those worlds pulled part. But at its core, this is a human story – about loyalty, exile, paralysing fear, and moral reckoning.

This is not simply a personal odyssey. It involves hundreds of interviews and journeys to Uzbekistan, the Balkans, the Baltics, and the South Caucasus. It’s also a chronicle of two decades spent reporting on Russia – and of the extraordinary Russians I met along the way.

For 14 years, I reported from Moscow. I watched a country bursting with potential close in on itself. I watched independent voices disappear. And after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I watched it break.

I'm thrilled and proud that my book, Leaving Russia, will be published by @quartetbooks in April.

👉 Please find a short thread below about the book and how to pre-order a copy. More info on jasoncorcoranwrites.com

EU seeks to ban all Russian crypto transactions Bloc also wants to prohibit some trade with Kyrgyzstan, in first use of new powers against sanctions circumvention

Poor old #Bitcoin!
The EU has proposed banning all cryptocurrency transactions with Russia for EU countries, the FT reports, citing an internal agency document.
www.ft.com/content/c225...

Telegram founder Pavel Durov acknowledges Russia's accelerated, escalated censorship of Telegram. A noteworthy statement, given that he's recently focused more on criticizing Western regulators.

Kremlin has begun blocking #Telegram, the widely used messaging app owned by Pavel Durov.
● Duma deputy Andrey Gurulyov claims that there's no other way to protect information and urges all Russians to endure and switch to the FSB’s own messenger, MAX.

Russia Central Bank cuts rates, yet cucumbers are up 43% - not annually, but in a month!
● Super insight from @bbcstever.bsky.social and a clear signal from Putin's war economy.

Whoever's dead is dead !"
● Russia's State Duma stated that there is no budgetary funding to rescue Samolet, the country's largest real estate developers.
ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/06/k...

Za Zdarovye! Putin gives the keys to the Great Firewall of Russia to the FSB as vodka prices soar

Calling Denmark ‘irrelevant’ while it's literally holding pieces of your debt is like mocking Lego while standing barefoot on it.

Moscow has been hit by the biggest wave of restaurant and bar closures since the COVID-19 pandemic.
● According to Kremlin Telegram channel Baza, a staggering 423 establishments closed in the capital by the end of 2025, a record high since 2020.

Kremlin knows how to flatter Trump: "With Greenland, the US becomes the second largest country in the world after Russia, surpassing Canada in area

A grim and ominous warning for many dual Irish-Russian citizens I know who still travel there

Form a line: 'Poland began preparing demands for reparations from Russia for the Soviet invasion of 1939'
ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/01/15/p...

Хоть стой, хоть падай: на создание российской виагры из казны впустую потратили 1 млрд Почему лекарство не могут разработать почти 10 лет и при чем здесь саблезубые олени

Russia splurged one billion rubles trying to make a domestic Viagra and still couldn’t get it up.
Source: Izvestia
iz.ru/2024668/mila...