Vladimir Putin and the fictional Soviet Spy Stierlitz.
The Ukrainian crisis has given Russia's vaunted siloviki, the security service veterans in Vladimir Putin's inner circle, a big political boost.
Simultaneously, there has been a wave of nostalgia for the 1970s and the era of Leonid Brezhnev is increasingly looked at like a Russian Victorian Age.
In the latest Power Vertical Podcast we take a look at these two phemomena.
Joining me are co-hosts Kirill Kobrin, editor of the Moscow-based history and sociology magazine "Neprikosnovenny zapas," and security expert Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University and author of the blog "In Moscow's Shadows," and special guest Merkhat Sharipzhan, a senior correspondent and analyst for RFE/RL.
