Andrey Andreyevich Piontkovsky (russian: Андре́й Андре́евич Пионтко́вский, born June 30, 1940,

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

) is a Russian

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosop ...

and political writer and analyst, a member of International PEN Club. He is a former member of the

Russian Opposition Coordination Council The Russian Opposition Coordination Council (OCC or KSO; russian: Координационный совет российской оппозиции, КСО – ''Koordinatsionnyy sovet rossiyskoy oppozitsii'', KSO) was a council created in October ...

Biography

He graduated from the Mathematics Department of

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

and has published more than a hundred scientific papers on

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemati ...

. He was an executive director of the Strategic Studies Center (Moscow) think tank that has been closed since 2006. He contributes regularly to ''

Novaya Gazeta ''Novaya Gazeta'' ( rus, Новая газета, t=New Gazette, p=ˈnovəjə ɡɐˈzʲetə) is an independent Russian newspaper known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. It is published in Mo ...

'', ''

The Moscow Times ''The Moscow Times'' is an independent English-language and Russian-language online newspaper. It was in print in Russia from 1992 until 2017 and was distributed free of charge at places frequented by English-speaking tourists and expatriates s ...

'', '' The Russia Journal'' and the online journals ''Grani.ru'' and Transitions Online. He is also a regular political commentator for the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the British Government through the Foreign Secretary's office. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception a ...

and

Radio Liberty Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

in Moscow. He has been an outspoken critic of Putin's "managed" democracy in Russia and, as such, has described Russia as a "soft

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...

regime" and "hybrid fascism." Piontkovsky is a member of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meeting ...

Piontkovsky is the author of several books on the Putin presidency in Russia, including his most recent book, ''Another Look Into Putin's Soul.'' Piontkovsky is one of the 34 first signatories of the online anti-Putin manifesto "

Putin Must Go "Putin Must Go" () is a Russian website and public campaign organised for the collection of signatures to an open letter demanding the resignation of President (formerly Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin. The campaign was started on the Internet on ...

", published on 10 March 2010. In his subsequent articles he has repeatedly stressed its importance and urged citizens to sign it. On 26 June 2013, Piontkovsky commented the case of

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...

by saying, "If Pushkov dares to draw a parallel between Snowden and

Soviet dissidents Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union in the period from the mid-1960s until ...

, I must respond that none of them had anything to do with Soviet special services and none of them pledged not to betray state and departmental secrets." Piontkovsky compared the

Crimean speech of Vladimir Putin On 18 March 2014, Russian president Vladimir Putin gave a speech to both chambers of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation in connection with the request for admission by the Crimean parliament of the republic in the Russian Federation ...

in 2014 to

Hitler's Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

speech on

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...

in 1939. He described Putin as using "the same arguments and vision of history" and beyond that, that this speech played a key role in starting the

war in Donbas War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

. In 2016 he published an article "Бомба, готовая взорваться" ("A bomb that is ready to explode") about Russian-Chechen ethnic conflict. When the General Prosecutor Office found his article "extremist" and started criminal prosecution Piontkovsky at last left Russia on 19 February 2016.

Condemnation of fascism

Piontkovsky adduces Igor Girkin's name among those of like-minded persons and says, "The ''authentic high-principled Hitlerites'', ''true

Aryans Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...

'' Dugin, Prokhanov, , , Girkin, Prilepin are a marginalized minority in Russia." Piontkovsky adds, "Putin has stolen the ideology of the Russian Reich from the domestic Hitlerites, he has preventively burned them down, using their help to do so, hundreds of their most active supporters in the furnace of the Ukrainian

Vendée Vendée (; br, Vande) is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.

." In his interview with

, Piontkovsky says that maybe the meaning of the operation conducted by Putin is to reveal all these potential ''passionate leaders of social revolt'', send them to Ukraine and burn them in the furnace of the Ukrainian Vendée. In the interviews Andrey also argues that the ideology of Rashism is in many ways similar to German fascism (

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

), while in speeches and policies of the President Putin it's similar to the ideas of Hitler.

Some works

;In English * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ;In Russian * * * * * * * * * * * *
His articles in The Jamestown Foundation

His articles in Project Syndicate

English translation from grani.ru
His articles in grani.ru (Russian)

Putin's Russia as a Revisionist Power

Video

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piontkovsky, Andrey 1940 births 21st-century Russian male writers 21st-century Russian politicians Living people Writers from Moscow 2011–2013 Russian protests Hudson Institute Moscow State University alumni Russian activists against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Solidarnost politicians Yabloko politicians Russian dissidents Russian male journalists Russian mathematicians Russian political activists Russian political writers Soviet mathematicians