Part of a new series on people who seem to be working for someone far far away, rather than the people they claim to be serving with their efforts and outpourings.
More properly known as "Owned Matthews," as there is a good case to be made that he is "owned" by the Kremlin, a case we will be making here.
He is a journalist (born 1971), whom we theorise the Kremlin probably got some sort of hold on during his lengthy stays in Moscow as Bureau Chief for Newsweek (2006-12). This was either through kompromat or from threats or leverage on members of his family -- he is half-Russian through his Soviet mother Lyudmila Bibikov and is married to another Russian, Xenia Kravchenko.
Loyal to the Motherland?
More properly known as "Owned Matthews," as there is a good case to be made that he is "owned" by the Kremlin, a case we will be making here.
He is a journalist (born 1971), whom we theorise the Kremlin probably got some sort of hold on during his lengthy stays in Moscow as Bureau Chief for Newsweek (2006-12). This was either through kompromat or from threats or leverage on members of his family -- he is half-Russian through his Soviet mother Lyudmila Bibikov and is married to another Russian, Xenia Kravchenko.
His career trajectory -- Oxford educated, reporting on Yugoslav and Balkan matters before moving onto Moscow -- would be exactly the kind that would lead the Kremlin to target him to convert into an agent of influence in the West, and Matthews is intelligent enough to do quite a good job at it, masking his toxic shillery behind a disguise of "political realism" and jaded cynicism, a bit like John Mearsheimer.
This is all very apparent in his latest piece for the Spectator, a masterclass in subtle shillery, where he uses weasly writing to push the myth of "Russian invincibility," "Putin's genius," and the "weakness of the West."
Due to the pressure that Russia is currently under, with its economy and the morale of its brutalised army on the brink of collapse, he has apparently been asked to push harder than usual, revealing a disturbing bias, as these quotes will show:
Due to the pressure that Russia is currently under, with its economy and the morale of its brutalised army on the brink of collapse, he has apparently been asked to push harder than usual, revealing a disturbing bias, as these quotes will show:
"The 'Nato Article Five-like' security guarantees of which Italy’s Giorgia Meloni spoke in Washington this week sound formidable. The problem is that security guarantees have to be credible to work. And will Putin believe that Starmer or Macron will send their voters’ sons to fight over Donbas, when they have already said that their proposed minuscule peacekeeping force will be ‘backstopped’ by US air power?"
And:
"Putin would like nothing more than for Europe to encourage Ukraine to fight on, and to lose even more of their land and independence. The question Ukraine’s friends must ask themselves today is whether it’s time to choose an unjust peace over a righteous but never-ending war."
Of course, like all cunning influence ops, this can be presented as "just my opinion, bro," but it is exactly what a Putin shill, intending to undermine support for the Ukraine amongst educated and influential Brits, could be predicted to say at this juncture.
However, Owen's meta-data -- half-Russian, married to a Russian, exposed to Kremlin attempts to compromise him for several years, and working for a publication that was bought with £100 million of Russian-linked money, points to the bigger picture.
Paul Marshall, the current owner of the Spectator is joined at the hip with the Dubai-based Chandler Brothers, who were themselves in financial partnership with Putin himself. These three now finance institutions like the highly suspicious GB News (also known as "KGB News") and the so-called "Alliance for Responsible Citizenship."
Mathews appears to have gradually fallen out of favour at Newsweek, possibly due to his hard-on for Putin and continuing personal and business connections to Russia, writing his last piece for them in 2019.
He was then picked up by the Spectator in 2023, being appointed "Associate Editor" with an emphasis on Russia and the Ukraine, by the Chief Editor Fraser Nelson, shortly before its acquisition by Marshall. This suggests that the Spectator may even have been infiltrated by "fake realist"/ Kremlin-friendly forces even before its formal acquisition.
He was then picked up by the Spectator in 2023, being appointed "Associate Editor" with an emphasis on Russia and the Ukraine, by the Chief Editor Fraser Nelson, shortly before its acquisition by Marshall. This suggests that the Spectator may even have been infiltrated by "fake realist"/ Kremlin-friendly forces even before its formal acquisition.
Matthews has written several books, many of which are backhanded attempts to glorify Russian Imperialism through the ages.
These include Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of Russian America (Bloomsbury 2013), An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin's Master Agent (Bloomsbury, 2019), Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's War on Ukraine (Mudlark/HarperCollins, 2022).
The last of these emphasises "NATO expansion" as one of the triggers for the Ukrainian war, although this thesis is dressed up with Matthews' usual weasly writing for an audience that starts from a position of outright sympathy for the victim of Putinist aggression.
The role of writers like Matthews is to dampen down the justified outrage all decent Westerners feel at this unprovoked aggression, while drawing attention to all the unpleasant things that might accrue from continued Western support for Ukraine, while also painting a fuzzy backdrop of "muh Russia" as an invincible and relentless opponent, who nevertheless could be easily placated with a few weak-kneed concessions.
These include Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of Russian America (Bloomsbury 2013), An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin's Master Agent (Bloomsbury, 2019), Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's War on Ukraine (Mudlark/HarperCollins, 2022).
The last of these emphasises "NATO expansion" as one of the triggers for the Ukrainian war, although this thesis is dressed up with Matthews' usual weasly writing for an audience that starts from a position of outright sympathy for the victim of Putinist aggression.
The role of writers like Matthews is to dampen down the justified outrage all decent Westerners feel at this unprovoked aggression, while drawing attention to all the unpleasant things that might accrue from continued Western support for Ukraine, while also painting a fuzzy backdrop of "muh Russia" as an invincible and relentless opponent, who nevertheless could be easily placated with a few weak-kneed concessions.
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