Carnegie Moscow Center
Russian consumers are increasingly unhappy, but their discontent is being frozen in depression rather than manifested in social protest.
The award of the world's most prestigious literary prize to Svetlana Alexievich is a seal of approval for her genre of polyphonic non-fiction and her insights into the catastrophes of the Soviet era.
Little more than a week into Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria, new evidence has emerged about the Russian public’s attitudes towards Putin’s latest military intervention.
Putin is laying claim to the legacy of the 1945 Yalta conference. But Russia's attempts to rewrite history to justify its current policies are not working.
The parallels between the late Soviet era and contemporary Russia are indeed striking. But is this analogy applicable? Not entirely. To assess Russia’s future we should look not to its own recent history, but to the developments in countries that experienced similar transitions.
Russia’s involvement in Syria helps Vladimir Putin distract Russians from their country’s economic woes. However, Russian power seems to lack any long-term vision.
Vladimir Putin is making a bid to regain global respectability by leading a fight against ISIS and evoking the anti-Hitler coalition of World War II. The West is yet to be convinced that the appeal to be “brothers-in-arms” is serious.
As Islam expands in the Ural Federal District, religious and political life there is evolving. Much of this expansion is due to the arrival of Muslim migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus, and some migrants bring with them religious radicalism—a challenge that requires a more effective official response.
A new Ukrainian campaign to blockade Crimea is a gift for the Kremlin as it tries to distract the public’s attention away from the major challenges facing the peninsula and the questionable actions being undertaken by the Russian government against its population.
Following the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, the Russian public has embraced an increasingly conservative and nationalistic ideology.