Professor Mark Galeotti

Professor Mark Galeotti is one of the leading experts on modern Russia, with particular expertise in its security politics, intelligence services, organised crime, and political warfare. He is Director of Mayak Intelligence, an Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague, and an Associate Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy.

A prolific and widely respected author, Professor Galeotti has written more than 30 books on Russia, including:

• A Short History of Russia: From the Pagans to Putin (2022)
• Downfall: Putin, Prigozhin, and the New Fight for the Future of Russia (2025, with Anna Arutunyan)
• Forged in War: A Military History of Russia from Its Beginnings to Today (2024)
• Homo Criminalis: How Crime Organises the World (2025)
• Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (2024)
• Russian Political War: Moving Beyond the Hybrid (2019)
• The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia (2018)
• The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War (2022)
• We Need to Talk About Putin: Why the West Gets Him Wrong (2019)

He also writes regularly for The Times and The Spectator, is a frequent contributor to RUSI and Foreign Policy, and hosts the podcast In Moscow’s Shadows.

Professor Galeotti read History at Robinson College, Cambridge, before completing his doctorate in Politics at the London School of Economics. Over the course of his career, he has held senior academic positions, including Head of History at Keele University, Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, and Head of the Centre for European Security at the Institute of International Relations Prague. While at Keele, he also directed the Organised Russian and Eurasian Crime Research Unit, the only specialised centre of its kind in Europe.

He has advised the Foreign & Commonwealth Office on Russian foreign and security policy and has given evidence to organisations and institutions ranging from the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly to Interpol and SHAPE. He was also the founding editor of the journal Global Crime.