This is a legacy website featuring a collection of work by the Carnegie Endowment’s global network of scholars on topics including Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the post-Soviet states. This site is a product of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington, D.C. For more recent work by Carnegie scholars in this field, please visit Carnegie Politika.
As Ukraine is teetering on the brink of a civil war, the West and Russia have found themselves on the brink of new confrontation. Instead, they should cooperate on Ukraine and push the Ukrainian sides toward stopping violence.
Twenty-five years after the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan, the Russians watch the U.S.-led coalition withdraws from this country and worry about regional stability, security, and drugs production and trade. To deal effectively with these concerns, Russia should focus not so much on Afghanistan as on its Central Asian neighbors.
Russia’s Eurasian Union project aims at integrating much of ex-Soviet Eurasia into an economic, political, and security unit. Before that can happen, however, Russia needs to better manage what it already has.
The Sochi Olympics expose the rift between Moscow and the West. At the same time, they highlight Russia’s pivot to Asia and Eurasia.
To keep Ukraine in one piece, and at peace with itself, the Ukrainians evidently need to reform their political system. The West and Russia should help the Ukrainian parties reach an agreement on the parameters of a federal parliamentary republic.
The absence of several Western leaders and the presence of Asian luminaries at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics highlights the rebalancing of Moscow’s foreign policy toward Asia-Pacific.
U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul is leaving Russia after just over two years on the job. His departure is symbolic of the many mismatches in U.S.-Russian relations which exist on both sides.
It has been clear from the beginning that the Sochi Olympics would be a likely target for the terrorists. The contest between the terrorists and the forces of the Russian state is one contest that Russia absolutely must win.
The 50th Munich Security Conference marked the charting of a course toward Berlin’s more robust engagement in the world, including with military means. At the same time, the conference was overshadowed by the unfolding crisis in Ukraine.
Carnegie was on the ground at the 50th annual Munich Security Conference to give readers exclusive access to the debates and discussions as they unfolded.