About Démarche

For ten years I wrote cables from Russian embassies in the Middle East and Africa — Yemen, Sudan, Algeria. They went to a small circle of readers in Moscow. I left the diplomatic service in 2021 and left Russia in 2022.

Démarche is where I keep writing those reports. The subject is the same: Russian foreign policy in the Middle East and Africa, seen from inside the system that makes it. The questions are the same: what is actually happening, who is actually deciding, and what the official language is meant to hide. Only the addressee has changed. It is no longer the Kremlin. It is you.

I watched Russian diplomacy in the region decay from within, and its final collapse in the Arab world from outside, as an emigrant. I do not think that collapse was an accident, and I do not think the people who caused it were serving their country. This site is an attempt to explain, week by week and on the evidence, how it happened and what Moscow is doing now.

What you will find here:
— Weekly analysis of Russian foreign policy in the Middle East and Africa
— Country dossiers: long-form reference pieces on Russia's presence in a given country — the people, the channels of influence, the interests, and how they came to be
— Conversations with others who have left the Russian state service
— My books, lectures and interviews (some in Russian)

I live in Israel, where I work as a researcher in communication studies. Démarche is independent; the views are mine alone.

For commentary, briefings, research collaboration and speaking: [адрес]