Russia has a reputation for being unknowable – “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” as Churchill put it. That caricature remains surprisingly robust, and as the war in Ukraine enters its third year, the question of what Russia is really thinking remains as crucial and mysterious as ever. To paint a picture of the current political climate, Richard Hames talks to Tony Wood, author of Russia Without Putin and a lecturer at Princeton, to follow up on his New Left Review article from 2022, 'Matrix of War'. They discuss the death of Alexei Navalny and the prospects for Putin's opposition, the impact of Nato expansion on Russian nationalism across the political spectrum, and the demise of Wagner PMC chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose ill-fated rebellion strikes Wood as “one of the craziest things ever to happen.”