Carnegie Moscow Center
To avoid a dangerous meltdown in Ukraine, the West must lean hard on Kiev in support of economic and political reform.
Russia’s “pivot to Asia” is meeting with a number of challenges, such as bureaucratic inertia, lack of workable ideas, and high levels of corruption. However, there are ways of dealing with all of them.
There is little chance of moving U.S.-Russian relations out of the current crisis, due to fundamental differences in how both nations view the world. The best people can hope for is that the more dangerous path will not be taken.
A Greater Asia, stretching from Shanghai to St. Petersburg, could transform the entire continent of Eurasia and have a significant impact on the global balance of power.
It is still unclear whether Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman’s trip will bring any deep changes in Russian-Israeli relations. However, the fact that Lieberman’s agenda in Moscow included such a wide range of questions shows that, at present, the two countries’ interests intersect at many points.
Ukraine and the global crisis over it point to the start of a new period in world politics. Great powers—Russia overtly, China covertly—are challenging the U.S.-dominated order. Also, in the foreseeable future, there will be no common security system in Europe.
The new Minsk agreement will not necessarily prevent further escalation, but it might postpone it. The world should work hard to make sure that the shaky truce does not founder, leading to a broader war.
Western leaders’ recent attempts to assure a diplomatic resolution of the Ukraine crisis may come to no avail. Is it possible to restore the peaceful, European status quo amidst such rapidly growing East-West animosity? Eurasia Outlook asked Carnegie’s experts to share their thoughts.
Through its actions in Ukraine, Russia wants to consolidate its new strategic perimeter without being drawn into a full-scale war.
Currently, Russia and Saudi Arabia are neither friends nor foes, and the status of bilateral relations and their future remain obscure. This, in turn, is clearly reflected in the polyphony of views on Saudi Arabia existing in Russian society.