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Sezin Öney, originally from Turkey, is based in Budapest and Istanbul. She her journalism career as a foreign news reporter in 1999 and she turned into political analysis as a columnist since 2007. Her interest in her main academic subject area of populism was sparked almost decade ago; and now she focuses specifically on populist leadership, and populism in Turkey and Hungary. She studied international relations, nationalism, international law, Jewish history, comparative politics and discourse analysis across Europe.
What Putin Really Wants
Russian hackers and manipulated US elections are the hot topic of the day. But what is the reality behind appearances? Who are the Russian hackers, and is there really a "puppet master" behind them? Looking from the US perspective, the Russian hackers and their Kremlin masterminds are responsible for breaching the security of the servers of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, spreading disinformation through WikiLeaks, probing into the voting infrastructure of various American states and fanning the flames of blazing culture wars in the US
Julia Ioffe goes on an investigative journey across Russia; from a "hacking competition" in Volgograd to the power circles in Moscow and around the oppositional forces in St Petersburg. As Ioffe puts it, looking from within Russia;
...most Russians don’t recognize the Russia portrayed in this story: powerful, organized, and led by an omniscient, omnipotent leader who is able to both formulate and execute a complex and highly detailed plot.
Alternatively, Russia appears to be counting the days for change; for the era beyond Vladimir Putin. Infrastructure is fraying, corruption of the elite is becoming rampant, and the youth is nihilistic as they are desperate for some prospect that would lift them out of deprivation. And Putin just wants to extend his hegemony for as long as he can. In Ioffe's words:
Putin is not a supervillain. He is not invincible, nor unstoppable. He pushes only until the moment he meets resistance.
Analyzing the structure of political power in Russia, Ioffe evaluates the weaknesses of politics in the US and subtly points out that it is actually American political weakness, not Kremlin's strength that led to the hijacking of the 2016 Presidential elections. But Pandora's box is open: on the one hand there is the uneasy and unpredictable Donald Trump in power, and on the other is the increasingly uneasy and unpredictable Putin – and they both want to remain in power above all.
