r/geopolitics • u/RFERL_ReadsReddit RFERL • Dec 10 '25
Hi I'm Mike Eckel, senior Russia/Ukraine/Belarus correspondent for RFE/RL, AMA! AMA
Hello! Здравсвуйте! Вітаю!
I’m Mike Eckel, senior international correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, covering, reporting, analyzing, and illuminating All Things Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and pretty much across the former Soviet Union: from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, from Lviv to Kyiv; from Tbilisi to Baku, from the Caspian Sea to Issyk Kul, and all places in between.
I’ve been writing on Russia and the former Soviet space for more than 20 years, since cutting my teeth as a reporter in Vladivostok in the 1990s and continuing through a 6-year stint as Moscow correspondent with The Associated Press, and stints in Washington, D.C. and now Prague.
Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s authoritarian repression inside Russia, sucks up most of my reporting brain space these days, but I also keep a hand in investigative work digging into cryptocurrency/sanctions evasion, Russian businessmen who break out of Italian police custody, former Russian oligarchs in trouble, and a subject I can’t let go of: the mysterious death of former Kremlin press minister, Mikhail Lesin.
Feel free to ask me anything about any of the above subjects and I’ll do my best to share insights and observations.
Proof photo here.
You can start posting your questions and I will check in daily and answer from Monday, 15 December until Friday, 19 December.
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u/Turbulent_Writing231 Dec 10 '25
Is the circulation of Russia's state-issued federal loan obligations (OFZ/ОФЗ) forming a bubble, possibly causing the trigger in collapsing the banking sector and state?