Carnegie Moscow Center
Non-government organizations have become “undesirable” in Russia, along with Russian experts and specialists. In fact, they are not undesirable for Russia, which actually needs them very badly, but undesirable for the current regime.
The EU should think less about winning Eastern Partnership countries away from Russia, and more about instituting lasting economic and political reforms.
Presidency of the BRICS will allow Moscow to position itself as a participant of an association that offers an alternative to the global world order, and the grouping’s summit in Ufa will give the Russian government an opportunity to present the country as a leader of the non-Western world.
There is sobering news for the EU in two new polls from Georgia and Moldova, showing that public support for the European project is faltering.
As it attempts to step back from the brink of a new Cold War, the West will have to make sure that Putin does not interpret backtracking as a reward for bad behavior
The Ukraine crisis was not just about Ukraine, or even Europe. It was about the global order, which promises a long competition with a yet-unforeseen result.
Perhaps the most important document signed by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping on May 8 in Moscow is the joint declaration on the unification of the Moscow-backed Eurasian Economic Union and the Chinese Silk Road Economic Belt.
The EU needs to remold its support for fundamental political reform in Eastern Partnership partner states—and use this as a firmer base from which to assuage tensions with Russia.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the situation in the Volga River basin and in some other Russian regions where Muslims live began to change: radical views gained currency, and radical groups and study circles became active.
Ukrainian society—particularly sectors that pushed for greater accountability and transparency during the EuroMaidan Revolution—and Western governments, particularly the United States, are pushing Poroshenko to rein in the oligarchs.
Japan’s national interests need to be front and center, rather than subordinated to the not always clear vision—or lack of it—of a particular administration in Washington. These interests demand that Tokyo keeps a viable relationship with Moscow.
The Victory Day parade in Moscow has sent a number of important messages, which outsiders would do well to reflect upon.
The Russia-China rapprochement is a sign of the changing world order, in which the West is still very relevant, but no longer dominant.
In a system that requires participation, mere nonparticipation comes across as a sign of foreign political culture to the regime. Even more so, it is a form of resistance.
Vafa Guluzade was Azerbaijan’s leading foreign policy advocate in a very difficult period and part of the most promising initiative to resolve the Karabakh conflict. He has never been adequately replaced.
The conflict in Ukraine is anything but frozen. The dynamics of this conflict are driven as much by Ukrainian domestic affairs and local commanders’ decisions in the conflict zone as they are by any Cold War-style stand-off between East and West.
The latest friction between Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov and Moscow’s siloviki was not an attack intended to unseat Kadyrov. It was not even a conflict per se. Instead, it was an attempt to reformat Moscow’s approach to Chechnya. The contract with Kadyrov isn’t being annulled; it’s just being rewritten before its next extension.
The intensity of Moscow’s current contact with Tehran is unprecedented in Russia’s post-Soviet history. Yet despite the potential for improvement, there are serious obstacles that may hamper or even halt cooperation.
Kim Jong-un eagerly and easily communicates with foreigners, but at the same time avoids meeting foreign heads of state. After three years in power he has never once met with a single one of his foreign colleagues.
Old totalitarian practices can reemerge with new symbols, from new directions. And a struggle against the symbols of past unfreedom isn’t enough to protect against a lack of liberty in its latest incarnation.