Carnegie Moscow Center
The 20th anniversary of Russia’s Constitution and the Russian president’s State of the Nation Address delivered before the Federal Assembly are an opportune moment to sum up the state of Russia in 2013 and look ahead, in terms of its political system, economic, foreign, and security policies.
Two years after the Russian mass protests of 2011-2012, the democratic opposition has not been able to consolidate, while the Kremlin’s policy has become more repressive. Neither the society nor the authorities can definitively say whether such protests will be repeated.
Every week a selection of leading experts answer a new question from Judy Dempsey on the foreign and security policy challenges shaping Europe’s role in the world.
If a political window of opportunity in U.S.-Russia relations opens in the future, then the key to resolving the current impasse in the negotiations will not be an agreement on BMD systems, but rather an agreement on modern conventional long-range offensive weapons.
It is time for Moscow to rethink its approach to Central Asia.
Russia’s Constitution is the main guarantee and instrument for keeping Russia’s authoritarianism in place. Constitutional reform that will ensure political competition should become the foundation for political reform in general and for opening up Russia’s system of government.
The choice between Russia and the West should be Ukraine’s, and Russia should respect that choice and structure its relations with its neighbor accordingly.
Nation-building in Ukraine is a formidable task, its divided nation also a hurdle to a democratic development. Still, Ukraine seems to have a better chance of evolving as a democracy than Russia.
Russia may face a danger of becoming a “super Finland,” neutralized and marginalized between the NATO and China. To avoid this, Russia can strengthen its ties with the East-Asian countries.
Putin’s Eurasian Union would be a set of political and economic structures, similar to the EU, that Russia would dominate. But this vision comes with a price; Ukraine’s economy is in trouble, just as Russia is suffering from low economic growth.