Anton Shekhovtsov
@shekhovtsov
PhD UCL SSEES, visiting professor at CEU, director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity, author of books "Russia and the Western Far Right" and "Russian Political Warfare", columnist for EUObserver @euobserver.bsky.social, outdoor research fellow
Peter Thiel and Alexander Dugin look like opposites - a US techno-oligarch and a Russian fascist ideologue. Both borrow, however, the same theology of the katechon and the Antichrist. My new essay, "Antichrists and Empires", on where their doctrines clash - and eventually converge: buff.ly/ib9xVDa
This is Elon Musk, a techno-oligarch with 241 million followers on TwitterX, spreading and amplifying Ceuta-linked right-wing disinformation, with one message reaching 9.9 million views and the other 7.9 million as of right now. 1/4
At an international conference in Tübingen a few days ago, I delivered an academic paper, titled “Antichrists and Empires”, discussing (largely opposing) quasi-religious visions of Russian fascism (Alexander Dugin) and US techno-oligarchy (Peter Thiel). 1/2
The great British knee in all its glory! Roderick Spode and his Blackshorts would have been proud.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Manila last night to discuss Russia’s war against Ukraine. Russian demands remain the same - as I translate from Lavrov’s horse language: 1/2
The Techno-Oligarchy’s First “Holocaust”: Government Efficiency and Death by Indifference. shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/the-techno...
Jens Spahn, the leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, has announced his resignation following a controversy over his use of a surrogate mother in the US. He was also an unapologetic participant in several meetings of the secretive society "Dialog": buff.ly/owdK4qc
The 2020 files Trump declassified name Moscow’s info ops in the US in detail. But his address mentions Russia only once, in a list, and makes China the villain. World-class intel in hand, and the one adversary it caught left ignored. https://shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/russia-the-vanishing-adversary
The edited volume "Global Narratives of Russian Disinformation", featuring my chapter "'Russia Is Not Our Enemy!' Behind the Pro-Russian Billboard Campaign in Italy", is out on the 24th of July this year: buff.ly/xwOLrGb
No Russian operation, no Russian actor was mentioned. In Trump’s address built on declassified intelligence about foreign interference in the 2020 elections, the country that the US agencies actually caught interfering had been written out of the script. shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/russia-the...
The techno-oligarchy will play its own game, aligning, for the time being, with the Trump regime. 3/4
As my colleagues and I argued last month, the Trump regime is not only launching a frontal political attack on Europe using the far right as a weapon – that was clear already last year – it is also ready to support this _joint_ venture financially. 1/4
Too many, even in the US, have overlooked a different Vance (no relation to JD). He is now awaiting what is likely to be confirmation to lead the US State Department’s in-house analytical bureau. https://shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/americas-anti-eu-turn
A decade ago, American anti-EU sentiments were a fringe provocation. Today they run from the Vice President’s office to a State Department nominee awaiting Senate confirmation. My new piece traces how the US anti-EU turn went mainstream. https://shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/americas-anti-eu-turn
Organised international sport is organised international corruption by default. IOC, FIFA, etc.
Technology companies exploit vulnerabilities in human psychology for money. They monetise the perpetual present. The techno-oligarchy goes further - it does not merely monetise the collapse of time – it politicises it. https://shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/techno-oligarchy-and-the-theft-of
Last year, the techno-oligarchy orchestrated its first “holocaust” against humanity. This is how it happened: shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/the-techno...
Russia’s economy is entering a structural decline as investment collapses under high taxes and nationalisation risks. With firms halting expansion and technology projects, the country is exhausting past gains while laying the foundations for long-term stagnation. theins.press/en/economics...
Worse than fascism: eight points of techno-oligarchy: https://open.substack.com/pub/shekhovtsov/p/worse-than-fascism
Being associated with the Trump regime is bad for reputation, they said. Oh well. (First photo: Gregory Bovino, former Commander-at-large of US Border Patrol; second photo: Bovino and Dan Dungaciu of the Romanian far-right AUR party).
Will Russia now consider awarding the Order of Friendship to Poland’s far-right president Karol Nawrocki for taking the Order of White Eagle from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky? Credit is due, I trust Nawrocki has earned it!
European Imperium of Weights and Measures: shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/european-i...
The author of the piece attacks critics of Peter Thiel’s Palantir, dismissing them as “deranged”. Yet some relevant information about the author should have been disclosed before the article itself – the kind of disclosure one would expect from honest journalism. 1/2
A short video excerpt from my presentation “Weaponising the Far Right: Foreign Influence in Europe Today”, with German subtitles – the full presentation can be read here: shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/weaponisin... Video: Stephan Richter. Project: “Zeit der Monster”: www.hgm.at/zeitdermonster
The Techno-Oligarchy’s First “Holocaust”: https://shekhovtsov.substack.com/p/the-techno-oligarchys-first-holocaust
Piggybacking on the deeply tragic death of Henry Nowak in the UK, JD Vance – a pathetic tool of the US techno-oligarchy – is now trying to amplify the racial hatred already consuming parts of British society. 1/3