Carnegie Moscow Center
The ethno-religious tensions in Russia have subsided a bit in 2014, because the Ukrainian conflict has shifted the xenophobic sentiments from an internal to an external adversary. However, this shift does not eliminate xenophobia altogether—on the contrary, overall aggressiveness is on the rise.
Russia’s anti-western sentiment runs deeper than just the regime’s manipulation of public opinion. Russia will only be able to move forward and become a successful member of the globalized world by resolving its deeply buried existential crisis.
The situation in Russia’s Muslim community is generally stable. However, the economic crisis creates fertile soil for the growth of Islamic radicalism, for which the country should be prepared.
Russia, while a truly independent player, is not an equal of the world’s high and mighty. However, Putin has a chance to elevate Russia. He should use his immense political capital to embark on the hard path of modern nation-building.
The list of countries wanting to take advantage of Western sanctions to boost their food exports to Russia has nothing in common but the desire to gain a new market.
By turning Russia into a war state, President Putin has unleashed a process he cannot stop and made himself hostage to suicidal statecraft.
Russian terrorism is deeply rooted in politics, religion, and social issues. Also, it is part and parcel of the global radical movement. Ten years after the terrorist attack on a school in Beslan, the repeat of that tragedy is still possible.
The only possible source of money for the Power of Siberia pipeline is no one else but China, and the terms of this assistance will be dictated from Beijing. The Kremlin’s inability to come to terms with the Western world does not come cheap.
Vladimir Putin’s increasingly reckless interventions in Ukraine should force the West to reevaluate everything it thought it knew about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the past two decades of Western policy on Russia.
Berlin is critical to any future settlement of the Ukraine crisis. It is too difficult to reach a deal on the settlement, but the absence of any deal deemed minimally acceptable to all sides would steer Europe toward an abyss.