Putin’s Secret 10-Point Manual: How Russia Is Playing the West (and You)
Are Russia’s peace negotiations what they seem? Recorded in August 2025, this episode sets out what I call Russia’s negotiation theatre: a ten-point pattern, used across many earlier conflicts, for managing Western leaders, buying time and rebuilding military strength while the talks go on.
While attention was on the peace talks, Russia was expanding drone production with Chinese help. The episode goes through the figures as they stood that summer: Shahed output at the Alabuga plant, the planned drone regiments and personnel, and what that timeline says about Russia’s intentions. It also looks at the other side of the ledger, the weaknesses in Russia’s economy, demographics and agriculture, including a poor grain harvest, and at the Trump–Putin meeting in Alaska as a case of the pattern in action.
What you’ll hear
- The ten-point pattern, step by step
- How negotiation and military build-up run in parallel
- Strategic ambiguity as Russia’s primary instrument
- China’s role in Russia’s rearmament
- Where Russia is vulnerable
The figures in this episode are as of August 2025.
