In this “thoughts, texts, and tunes” post, I’m short on ideas and long on catching up with current events. I begin with some first-hand impressions of the 11th ICCEES World Congress in London, UK, to a series of reflections on current affairs across the post-Soviet space. My reflections survey the new diplomacy unfolding in the South Caucasus, agreeing with the argument that Moscow’s diminished leverage has opened unprecedented room for rapprochement between Armenia, Türkiye and Azerbaijan. I then examine President Zelenskyy’s July attempt to place Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies under political control. I recount the domestic and EU backlash that forced him to reverse course, and review what opinion-poll and CPI data reveal about the depth of public distrust in Ukrainian elites. The remainder offers concise reviews of what I have been reading, from the AI 2027 report and recent Foreign Affairs essays to longer works by Tooze, Somerset Maugham, Luce and others, together with a brief note on a new release by Canadian rock trio The Dirty Nil.

It’s been a while.

I’ll pick up from my latest “busy” period.

The 11th ICCEES (International Council for Central and East European Studies) World Congress just wrapped up (BASEES, 2025). It ran five days from 21–25 July 2025. I had the immense fortune of the conference (which takes place only once every five years) to be held at my place of work, University College London. And while the entire conference was held in the hideous and confusing Lasdun building that houses UCL’s Institute of Education (Wikipedia, 2025), taking the tube (London’s sweltering metro system) was preferable to having to travel to Canada or Japan (ICCEES, 2015, 2020).

I presented two papers at the conference. I much appreciate the criticisms of my work. It is a privilege to be evaluated by world-leading scholars; many thanks to Sean, Pete, and George.

The most memorable moment at the conference, at least for me, was when my former colleague Professor Emeritus in Soviet Foreign Policy Pete Duncan made a comment during the closing keynote address. Pete stated that recent history offers a guide for how to confront Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Pete recalled to the audience the 1999 Pristina airport confrontation between NATO and Russian forces near the end of the Kosovo War (1998–1999). Russian forces surprised NATO commanders by sending an advance force to occupy Pristina airport arriving three-hours before NATO troops (Daalder & O’Hanlon, 2000, p. 324; Sarotte, 2021, pp. 323–325). NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Wesley Clark ordered the use of force to prevent the seizure of the airport. But British troops on the ground refused to fire on the Russians (BBC News, 2010). Commander of British forces General Michael Jackson supported his men, (in)famously replying to Clark, “I’m not going to start World War III” (Daalder & O’Hanlon, 2000, p. 176). Prof Pete Duncan argued that what worked against the Russians in 1999 in Kosovo would work against them now in Ukraine: a joint effort to starve the Russian war machine. The Russian advance force had acted in a rush. They only brough enough supplies for a few days (BBC News, 1999, 2010). “Clark reportedly contacted countries from which Russia needed overflight rights to resupply their forces—including potentially Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania—to get those rights cancelled or denied” (Sarotte, 2021, p. 324). Denying the Russians a way to resupply, Pete argued, meant that eventually the Russian force needed to be escorted out from Pristina airport. There needs to be a united, international effort today to starve the Russian economy, Pete continued, which would make it too much for the Kremlin to keep prosecuting its war against Ukraine.

Professor Pete Duncan said these things more clarity and colour than I relate them here now. This approach certainly makes a great deal of sense. However, considering Donald Trump has utterly fumbled a united position on Ukraine (Kramer, 2025) and actively punished US allies with tariffs (Gamio et al., 2025), I cannot see how a united, economic position against Russia is possible under Trump.

Thoughts: What I’ve Been Thinking About

Work has been all-consuming. Thank god for excellent news and analysis sources, such as Ukraine: The Latest and Paul Hansbury’s blog. But they can’t be expected to cover everything. So, I spent Saturday afternoon catching up on current events.

Most fascinating have been developments between Armenia-Turkey and Armenia-Azerbaijan. Declining Russian influence in the South Caucasus has created new possibilities for cooperation and realignment (Mankoff, 2025). On 20 June 2025, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a “working visit” to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Office to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, 2025). This is the first official visit by an Armenian leader to Türkiye (Vartanyan, 2025). Then on 10 July 2025, Armenia and Azerbaijan held a summit in Abu Dhabi and confirmed a draft peace treaty text (Associated Press, 2025). Blocks to signing the treaty remain. There is anger over ceasefire violations, Azeri demands on changes to the Armenian constitution, and so on. But these are still remarkable developments. It appears that “as Russia has withdrawn forces and equipment from its military bases in the Caucasus and Central Asia to redeploy them to Ukraine, countries in both places are resolving conflicts that Russia has long exploited for its own benefit” (Mankoff, 2025). As Matveeva (2025) notes, Armenia and Azerbaijan still have strong ties to Russia. Chief among these are remittances from nationals living in Russia and substantial trade. Russia will remain an influential power in the region. And just a day before Pashinyan’s visit, Erdoğan hosted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to make it clear where Turkish loyalties lie (ibid.). Still, this demonstrates the possibilities when an imperialistic power weakens and begins to roll back.

The next issue that captured my attention is the endemic and entrenched corruption of Ukraine’s elite. On 22 July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law, which granted the Prosecutor General (who is appointed by parliament) the power to reassign corruption probes to different investigators and in some cases even halt investigations (Santora & Chubko, 2025; Shevchenko, 2025). These sparked the some of the largest protests in Ukraine since the 2014 Euromaidan protests (Miller, 2025a). Supposedly, Zelenskyy claimed “his push to put the prosecutor-general, whom he appointed, in charge of Nabu and Sapo was aimed at rooting out Russian spies” (Miller, 2025a). A quote from Christopher Miller’s Financial Times report has stayed with me: ‘One veteran and double-amputee at a rally near the president’s office held a sign that read: “We are fighting for Ukraine, not your impunity”’ (Miller, 2025a).

Zelenskyy soon backtracked. Criticism both at home and abroad and pressure from the European Union (the withholding of 1.5 billion euros) prompted Zelenskyy to propose new legislation reinstating the authority of the NABU (National Agency on Corruption Prevention) and SAPO (Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office) agencies (Santora & Chubko, 2025). These agencies investigate the integrity of public spending and create protected channels to guarantee the anonymity of whistleblowers (Kravtsov et al., 2024, p. 39). There were rumours that Ukrainian lawmakers would delay or table the legislation at a time when there would be too few MPs pass it (Miller, 2025b). However, on Friday, 31 July, 331 of the 340 lawmakers present voted in favour of the law (Santora & Chubko, 2025). In a video statement after signing the law, Zelenskyy said, “It is very important that the state listens to public opinion […] Ukraine is a democracy—without any doubt” (Santora & Chubko, 2025).

Ukrainian public opinion is, unsurprisingly, sceptical of claims from the President and lawmakers. The Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention working with polling company Info Sapiens produce public opinion surveys on corruption in Ukraine (Info Sapiens, 2024, 2025). For the 2024 survey, groups of 2,488 adults from the general population were interviewed from 27 September to 30 October 2024 and 1,206 “entrepreneurs” were interviewed between 20 September and 16 November 2024 (Info Sapiens, 2025). According to the survey, concern over corruption in Ukraine is growing. “In 2024, 79.4% of citizens called corruption a very serious problem, which is 7.8 percentage points higher than in 2023” (Info Sapiens, 2025, p. 18). Corruption is the second only to “Russia’s military aggression” among the most serious problems in Ukraine (Info Sapiens, 2025, pp. 18–19). Throughout the report, the public perception of corruption at all levels appears to be growing (Info Sapiens, 2025, p. 25).  Among the different forms of corruption, the survey finds “top-level political corruption to be the most serious” (Info Sapiens, 2025, p. 23). In fact, 93.8 percent of survey respondents “named corruption in the Government or the Parliament as a serious or very serious problem” (Info Sapiens, 2025, p. 23). These data suggest President Zelenskyy’s climb-down and his assertion that “the state listens to public opinion” are unlikely to assuage a deeply sceptical Ukrainian public.

And it’s not just the Ukrainian people. External organisations also find corruption in Ukraine is a persistent problem. Academic studies (such as Astramowicz-Leyk et al., 2024; Kravtsov et al., 2024) tend to include indicators, like Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), to track corruption in Ukraine. The CPI is a public sector measure of corruption. It asks a group “experts and business executives” a series of questions taking scale-based answers to assess the “[use] of public office for private gain” in a given country (Transparency International, 2025a, pp. 1–2). The scale-based answers are converted into z-scores (a standardised statistical measure) and rescaled into a 0–100 score (where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean) (Transparency International, 2025a, pp. 3–5). Ukraine scores 35 and is ranked 105th out of 180 countries for 2024 (Transparency International, 2025c). This is below the 2024 global average of 43 (the score given to China, Moldova, and Solomon Islands) (Transparency International, 2025b). The top three spots in the CPI go to Denmark, Finland, and Singapore, with corresponding scores of 90, 88, and 84. Russia and Belarus, for comparison, score 22 and 33 and are ranked 154th and 114th respectively. Ukraine’s score has improved since the days under the felon President Viktor Yanukovych, which featured the country’s lowest CPI score of 25 in 2013 (Transparency International, 2025c; Wilson, 2022, p. 317). But it is clear corruption is understood to be a chronic issue in Ukraine.

So, what can be drawn from this tale of executive overreach? What use are the statistics I’ve dug out? First, the episode demonstrates Ukraine’s anti-corruption architecture remains politically vulnerable. A single statute was sufficient to place NABU and SAPO under partisan control. Their independence was restored only after domestic protests and threats to suspend EU financial assistance. Second, public-opinion data reveal a deep crisis of trust: with almost four in five citizens viewing corruption as a very serious problem, it will take much more than claims of listening to the people to repair legitimacy eroded by perceptions of elite impunity. Lastly, Ukraine’s below-average position on Transparency International’s CPI underscores that incremental progress since Euromaidan has not translated into protection from partisan interference. The July reversal should be read as a cautionary reminder that the health of Ukrainian democracy in wartime Ukraine rests on continual vigilance by citizens, legislators, and international partners alike.

Texts: What Have I Been Reading?

The first thing I feel compelled share is the AI 2027 report (Kokotajlo et al., 2025). A key contributor to the report is Daniel Kokotajlo, who is featured on the Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI list (Pillay, 2024). Although I haven’t looked for evidence of this, Kokotajlo is supposed to have predicted the chatbot boom, chain-of-thought reasoning, $100M training runs, and chip export controls—before ChatGPT was released. Notably, in 2022, Kokotajlo ‘joined OpenAI as a governance researcher. Two years later, he made headlines by resigning and refusing to sign a non-disparagement clause […] His choice to prioritize his “freedom to speak up” over financial gain has fuelled a wider conversation about AI safety and corporate responsibility’ (Pillay, 2024). Check out an excellent, recent interview with Kokotajlo (Computerphile, 2025).

The report predicts and models two scenarios for the advent of AI-superintelligence. AI-superintelligence is essentially an AI system that is cognitively “better than the best humans at absolutely everything” (Computerphile, 2025, 00:02:07). Once superintelligence is reached, it can be assumed that AI research can be automated and run by teams of superintelligent AI systems. At this point, the technological advancement of AI will become exponential. Kokotajlo et al. (2025, p. 2) warn that “society is nowhere near prepared” for AI-superintelligence, which they predict we “could arrive by the end of the decade.” The report opens with this premise, then models two scenarios for a world with superintelligent AI: slowdown and race. In the slowdown scenario, society manages to benefit from AI-superintelligence and in the race scenario society is enslaved by it.

I’m on the fence about the report. I encourage you to read it. I have not seen evidence of a decision-making AI model yet (as described by Yan LeCun) (MIT Department of Physics, 2023). LLMs (Large Language Models) and LRMs (Large Reasoning Models) are just too limited and always will be (Browning & LeCun, 2022). And without reliable decision-making AI, I do not see how the AI-2027 Project’s predictions are possible. I sometimes wonder if AI energy consumption will be too costly to justify future development (Rogers, 2024). Allthesame, the report is worth a read.

On Friday, I read a series of recent blog posts on the Foreign Affairs website. These included Mankoff (2025) on Russia’s fading influence in the post-Soviet space, Kimmage and Lipman (2025) on the difficulties of maintaining stability in Putin’s Russia, Nachman and Yen (2025) on stability and democracy in Taiwan, and Wei (2025) on China’s ambivalent position on Ukraine. These are all short and worth a read if you have access.

Last week I finished Crashed by Adam Tooze (2018). The book is a economic historian’s examination of the major financial and economic crises that rocked the 2000s and 2010s. Introduction is well worth a read. The first few chapters on the 2008 financial crisis are page turners, but the book lags when it gets to the Euro Crisis—but this is to be expected. Some of Tooze’s commentary on the social impact and injustices of these crises are apt. Well worth a read if the 2008 financial crisis is just a vague memory or something you’re not quite sure about.

At the end of second term (two months ago), a student gave me The Razor’s Edge by William Somerset Maugham (2008/1944). All told, it was an entertaining read. The student said he identified me with the character Larry Darrell and his thirst for knowledge. I think this was supposed to be a complement. Larry’s thirst for knowledge, though, is privileged and juvenile at best. Then again, maybe the student’s more insightful than I appreciate? Whatever. I’m sure anyone who’s read the book would rather be the wheeling-and-dealing, opinionated Uncle Elliott than anyone else. One unique thing about the book is that it must be the only novel in existence whose central plot hinges on a bottle of Zubrowka—the Polish, bison-grass-flavoured vodka. The novel—which is a pleasurable read—also contains some truly awful writing and cringy stereotypes:

There was no doubt about it, she was a very pretty and desirable young woman, but it was obvious that unless she took care she would develop an unbecoming corpulence.

After I read the quote above, I spent the entire afternoon saying “she would develop an unbecoming corpulence” in as pompous a voice as possible.

Upon completing the book, I read two pieces on William Somerset Maugham’s life and writings from The New York Review of Books by Gore Vidal (1990) and Robert Mazzocco (1978). The Vidal review starts slow, but by mid-way I came understand why he is known as one of the greatest critics of the 20th century. Strongly recommended if you want to get an idea of Somerset Maugham’s background and development as a writer.

I have just started Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Cold War Prophet by Edward Luce (2025). I am thoroughly enjoying it. I’m only four chapters in and I’m already regretting that I haven’t yet read Brzezinski’s (1967) The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict. I highly recommend Edward Luce’s engrossing and well-written book.

I am still reading two books on the Russian Civil War (1917–1921): Blood on the Snow by Robert Service (2023) and Russia in Flames by Laura Engelstein (2018). Both excellent, but I have been drawn away from them by work. I went on a Russian Civil War kick after reading Max Eastman’s translation of Leon Trotsky’s (2017/1930) History of the Russian Revolution and Arutunyan and Galeotti’s (2024) Downfall about the rise and fall of Kremlin curator Yevgeny Prigozhin last summer. I first read Antony Beevor’s (2022) Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917–1921. This was a fascinating read, but it read too much like a historical narrative and not a serious study of the subject. All these books are excellent and I recommend all of them.

Tunes: What Am I Listening to?

Since Friday, I have been enjoying The Dirty Nil’s (2025) Spider Dream from their new album “The Lash” that released just last week (25 July 2025). The singer, Luke Bentham, has a great voice and he is a talented guitarist. Spider Dream is definitely within The Dirty Nil’s wheelhouse sound-wise, but the song is different enough from their other material that it feels fresh. When you take a break, give it a listen.

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