Roman Anin

Investigative reporter. Founder of @istories_media—proudly “undesirable” Russian outlet exposing power.

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

1/ I spent 15+ years investigating Russian secret services and organized crime, and I know people who did business with Putin in 1990s St. Petersburg. Here's how they would describe the "diesel deal." You need two words of gangster slang: baryga and lokh. 🧵

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

@Rebel_ No

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

I spent 15+ years investigating Russian secret services and organized crime. I know people who served with Putin in the KGB and sat in on his deals with St. Petersburg crime bosses. So let me explain the "diesel deal" the way they would — in gangster slang. Because that's the language Putin actually thinks in.

First, the facts.

Putin just raised Russia's 2027 military budget by 27% to a record 17.1 trillion rubles — about $203 billion. Who budgets that kind of money for a war they're about to end?

The FT reported yesterday that Western intelligence has warned the heads of European defense companies that Russia is plotting to assassinate them.

Since September, Tusk, Macron and the intelligence services of Poland, Czechia, Latvia, Belgium, France and Denmark have all warned that Russian hybrid attacks — including drone and missile strikes — will intensify in the coming months.

None of this looks like a country preparing for peace.

Who actually benefits?

🇺🇸 What the US gets: Every serious analysis I've read says the announced volumes won't move American diesel prices. This is a PR move for Trump before the midterms — a story about prices that will "very, very soon" come down once his friend Vladimir's tankers reach US shores, plus the chance to claim he ended another war (I've lost count). The only US "benefit" is Trump's rating.

🇷🇺 What Russia gets: billions of dollars to keep funding its genocidal war against Ukrainians. Sanctions relief. A demonstration of power to the rest of the world. A deeper rift between the US and its European allies. And a real chance to disrupt US weapons and intelligence flowing to Ukraine.

So what is Putin's actual goal?

Trump's disapproval is at record highs and polls show his party will most likely loose midterm elections. In less than a month his power will be badly weakened. Why would Putin sign a long-term peace deal with a lame duck whose signature will soon be scrutinized at best and annulled at worst?

He wouldn't. And here's where the slang comes in.

In the eyes of Putin and his siloviki, Trump is a baryga — a greedy, unscrupulous businessman who puts profit above law and principle. Gangsters despise barygas, but they love using them. The goal is always to turn a baryga into a lokh — a mark, an outsider who doesn't understand the rules of the underworld and gets played to serve the gang's interests.

By signing the diesel deal, Putin plays two scenarios at once:

A) The deal miraculously helps his lokh keep power — great.

B) The deal changes nothing, the baryga loses the midterms — but by then it has already done its job: inflamed US political tensions and acted as arson inside the American system.

Putin knows that the majority of Americans support Ukraine. He knows that by signing, Trump draws unprecedented criticism, including from his own party. And he knows a baryga won't give up power easily, because he will have to answer for everything he did in office — this deal included. That's classic gangster/secret-service method: tie a man to your organization, make him a partner in your crimes, so he can't walk away.

Pouring more oil — diesel, in this case — onto the most explosive fault lines of American politics, raising the stakes for Trump and pushing him past the point of no return serves Putin far better than a peace deal that could be voided within months.

Remember: Putin's goal in the West is chaos, not peace.

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

@ResistMonsters It is also negative selection. A stupid or corrupt boss will never hire smart and honest people. He will hire those who are even stupider and corrupt than he is

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

https://t.co/RMBbRfGNni

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

I spent 15+ years investigating Russian secret services and organized crime. I know people who served with Putin in the KGB and sat in on his deals with St. Petersburg crime bosses. So let me explain the "diesel deal" the way they would — in gangster slang. Because that's the language Putin actually thinks in.

First, the facts.

Putin just raised Russia's 2027 military budget by 27% to a record 17.1 trillion rubles — about $203 billion. Who budgets that kind of money for a war they're about to end?

The FT reported yesterday that Western intelligence has warned the heads of European defense companies that Russia is plotting to assassinate them.

Since September, Tusk, Macron and the intelligence services of Poland, Czechia, Latvia, Belgium, France and Denmark have all warned that Russian hybrid attacks — including drone and missile strikes — will intensify in the coming months.

None of this looks like a country preparing for peace.

Who actually benefits?

🇺🇸 What the US gets: Every serious analysis I've read says the announced volumes won't move American diesel prices. This is a PR move for Trump before the midterms — a story about prices that will "very, very soon" come down once his friend Vladimir's tankers reach US shores, plus the chance to claim he ended another war (I've lost count). The only US "benefit" is Trump's rating.

🇷🇺 What Russia gets: billions of dollars to keep funding its genocidal war against Ukrainians. Sanctions relief. A demonstration of power to the rest of the world. A deeper rift between the US and its European allies. And a real chance to disrupt US weapons and intelligence flowing to Ukraine.

So what is Putin's actual goal?

Trump's disapproval is at record highs and polls show his party will most likely loose midterm elections. In less than a month his power will be badly weakened. Why would Putin sign a long-term peace deal with a lame duck whose signature will soon be scrutinized at best and annulled at worst?

He wouldn't. And here's where the slang comes in.

In the eyes of Putin and his siloviki, Trump is a baryga — a greedy, unscrupulous businessman who puts profit above law and principle. Gangsters despise barygas, but they love using them. The goal is always to turn a baryga into a lokh — a mark, an outsider who doesn't understand the rules of the underworld and gets played to serve the gang's interests.

By signing the diesel deal, Putin plays two scenarios at once:

A) The deal miraculously helps his lokh keep power — great.

B) The deal changes nothing, the baryga loses the midterms — but by then it has already done its job: inflamed US political tensions and acted as arson inside the American system.

Putin knows that the majority of Americans support Ukraine. He knows that by signing, Trump draws unprecedented criticism, including from his own party. And he knows a baryga won't give up power easily, because he will have to answer for everything he did in office — this deal included. That's classic gangster/secret-service method: tie a man to your organization, make him a partner in your crimes, so he can't walk away.

Pouring more oil — diesel, in this case — onto the most explosive fault lines of American politics, raising the stakes for Trump and pushing him past the point of no return serves Putin far better than a peace deal that could be voided within months.

Remember: Putin's goal in the West is chaos, not peace.

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

1/ I spent 15+ years investigating Russian secret services and organized crime, and I know people who did business with Putin in 1990s St. Petersburg. Here's how they would describe the "diesel deal." You need two words of gangster slang: baryga and lokh. 🧵

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

5/ So Putin wins either way. If the deal keeps his lokh in power — great. If Trump loses, the deal has already done its job: inflamed US politics and tied Trump to Putin's crimes so he can't walk away. The goal is chaos, not peace. Full argument here 👇

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

10/ So here's the answer: Putin doesn't need to defeat NATO. He needs the war to survive as boss. A deal with Trump? From Moscow, Trump looks like a weak president heading into midterms whose signature won't outlast November. That leaves one road: escalation — at home and abroad.

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

2/ Five countries, two weeks, one message. The density of these warnings is comparable to the signals before February 2022 — and we know how seriously those were taken. Putin's reply: a nuclear threat over Kaliningrad, before anyone had proposed touching it.

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

9/ And from his seat, the risk is low:
— sanctions are maxed out; Russia already depends entirely on China
— Europe won't invade; at worst NATO answers drones with drones, which Russians are used to
— the one painful option, blockading Kaliningrad, he's already pre-empted with nukes

[Roman Anin @RomanAnin]

1/ European leaders and spy chiefs are warning that Russia may attack a NATO country within months. Skeptics call it alarmism — or a Russian psy-op. Both camps miss the point. The real reason Putin may strike Europe isn't in Brussels or Riga. So where is it? 🧵

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Your brain produces somewhere around 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day. According to a figure widely cited from the National Science Foundation, up to 80 percent of them are negative, and up to 95 percent are the same ones you had yesterday.

That means the voice in your head is running on a loop, and the loop is biased toward threat, because the brain evolved to keep you alive, not to keep you happy. A thought like "I am not ready for this" fires the amygdala, your brain's alarm centre, which floods you with cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol makes you more reactive and more likely to have the same thought again, and the repetition digs the groove deeper each time.

This is why affirmations work as counter-programming. When you repeat a sentence like "I can handle this," you are building a competing pathway. The first few times it feels empty, because the old groove is deeper. But the brain rewires itself based on what it practises, and a 2015 study from the University of Pennsylvania found that a repeated values affirmation activates the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that handles reasoning, and quiets the amygdala over time.

The research suggests that the mechanism works the same way whether you write the affirmation, say it out loud, or read it from a card. What matters is repetition and personal relevance, choosing words that connect to something you care about. Generic positivity does not land the same way a sentence about something you care about does. The more specific the statement, the stronger the signal. https://t.co/suEZKh5ARf