Maxime Marquette
MadMax is an independent bilingual news outlet based in Québec, publishing analysis on geopolitics, technology, democracy, and culture.
Our mission: rigorous, source-cited analysis carried out with full editorial independence — no sponsorship, no party line.
Our editorial standards: sources are cited inline, corrections are fixed and logged publicly, and any use of artificial intelligence is disclosed.
“Burn rather than rot. Write rather than stay silent.”
Fire first. Sentences after. No lukewarm takes.
Always answer the strongest version of the opposing point. No strawmen.
No commissioned pieces. No editorial masters. No compromise.
Columns by Maxime Marquette
4,540 columns published
OP-ED: Putin faces his own price cap, the extended-decree maneuver
A presidential decree extending a mechanism to 2027 announces nothing spectacular; it quietly reveals that no quick exit from the economic war is being…
FACT CHECK: Russia's shadow fleet, backbone of sanctions evasion
A shadow fleet appears under that name on no official registry; yet it exists, in practice, as a network of aging tankers whose sole…
COLUMN: Pyongyang, Moscow's secret arsenal
Twenty-nine thousand four hundred and eighty-eight containers: the figure sounds abstract, almost bureaucratic, until you remember it describes one of the largest clandestine arms…
EDITORIAL: Russia's shell industry, 17 times pre-war output
Seven million shells a year, seventeen times the pre-invasion level: however cold this figure looks on paper, it actually measures the depth of an…
INVESTIGATION: Rosneft and Lukoil under U.S. sanctions, the Trump maneuver
A signature at the U.S. Treasury, two Russian oil logos suddenly marked with a red flag: this is how, in October 2025, the Trump…
REPORT: Russian oil price cap extended into 2027
A decree signed quietly, a cap lowered without fanfare: the economic war over Russian oil is no longer fought in grand speeches, but in…
DECODING: Jet fuel runs dry as Russia shuts the kerosene tap too
After diesel, it is now kerosene sliding into the column of Russian restrictions. According to The Moscow Times, in its June 1, 2026 edition,…
ANALYSIS: Russia bans diesel exports, anatomy of a shortage
On July 8, 2026, the Russian government crossed a threshold rarely reached since the war began: a flat-out ban on diesel exports until July…
OP-ED/NOTE: Yaroslavl and Saratov, a Strategic Reading
The Yaroslavl refinery took a direct hit followed by a fire in late March 2026, according to CNN on March 28, 2026, an episode…