Carnegie Moscow Center
The symbolic affinity between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin represents not only a shared outlook on the current world, but also a shared view of history.
The clash between Governor Meniaylo and Speaker Chaliy has brought Sevastopol to the brink of mass public protests. The Kremlin is working hard to try and manage local political struggles in Crimea
Contemporary Russia has developed into an autocracy without some of its most overt elements, relying on a secretive "nod-and-wink" collusion between rulers and ruled. It is a personalist regime but one that still takes care to follow procedural niceties
A brazen attack by Christian conservatives on an art exhibition in central Moscow evoked measured criticism from the Russian authorities. But their appeal of the attackers to archaic and anti-modern values is only an extreme form of current Russian state ideology.
The Russian government provoked controversy with mass destruction of European food. The government could not allow its counter-sanctions policy to be seen to be failing and is exploiting different attitudes to banned Western products amongst the opposition and the general public.
Chaos in the Arab world has offered the Kremlin a convenient opportunity to shape public opinion at home on such issues as the legitimacy of the regime, its confrontation with the West, and the situation in Ukraine.
Russia is a superpower in decline, and the challenge it poses to the United States is very different from that posed by the Soviet Union.
Today, reaching out pro-actively to the non-West is the only realistic option for Moscow. It should view its role as an economic resource base, a diplomatic adviser, and a defense arsenal of the emerging community of the non-West.
There have been four bursts of anti-American sentiment in Russia in the twenty-five years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin’s propaganda has played a role, but why has it been so successful?
Putin’s announcement that Moscow plans to add more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal is troubling mainly because of its political and psychological impact on NATO allies. But it is no cause for alarm.