As AfD surges, Leonid Ragozin changes his tune again
Following the election in Saxony-Anhalt, Ragozin is playing bothsidesism in a way that doesn't match his previous narratives.
It increasingly seems like Leonid Ragozin isn't even trying to sound plausible anymore with analysis like this.
The thing about “Russia experts” who have spent a little too long based in Moscow is that their analysis makes zero sense when you step back from the current news cycle.
They can rapidly shift their tone, messaging, and underlying logic to whatever best amplifies Kremlin narratives to Western audiences at the edge of the current Overton window.
Leonid Ragozin, ostensibly a journalist, is the most notorious example.
Just before the start of Russia's full scale war, he mocked anyone concerned about it, calling the prospect “outlandish QAnon-style delirium”, which “only the imagination of the DC blob could produce”. He's since deleted those tweets.
Within days though, he was expertly explaining why Putin will nuke us all because that’s just the kind of person Putin’s always been.
You can watch that short clip below on X, or Threads or Bluesky.
The thing about “Russia experts” like Ragozin is that their analysis makes zero sense when you step back from the current news cycle.
— Bad Baltic (@BadBalticTakes) September 8, 2026
They can rapidly shift their tone, messaging, and underlying logic to whatever best amplifies Kremlin narratives to Western audiences at the edge… pic.twitter.com/7VdLyJnRpE
Ragozin’s main logic for getting the invasion wrong is that he doesn’t trust Western governments, which is a curious line coming from someone also maintaining the story that he had to flee to the West from persecution in Russia. Yet that logic doesn’t apply to trusting Russian statements.
Also in this Unherd interview from the early days of the full scale war, Ragozin really emphasises that all his continued criticism of Ukraine and the West doesn’t mean he would ever possibly equate them with Russia.
Similarly, his X timeline from back then is very sympathetic to Ukraine and emphasises he is on their side as they fight a fascist invasion. That emphasis is now gone.
His latest post is not just equating support for Russia and Ukraine, but adding that the latter is a worse form of totalitarianism.
Following the election in Saxony-Anhalt, Ragozin is calculating that he can shift his narrative further into absurdity, exploiting political sentiments, without anyone noticing the longer term inconsistency.
Just don’t expect many of these “Russia experts” to cover the topic of Russian influence on the Western media landscape.
Despite Ragozin’s increased focus on Germany, he was very quiet about Hubert Seipel getting caught as a Russian asset. And, despite amplifying Seymour Hersh, he went quiet on him after that “poor waif in his underwear” slip up.
A shame. That’s the one area in which their Russia expertise could be useful.
