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.
For the U.S. public and its political establishment, Russia is back as an adversary. Having taken on U.S. power, the Russian state will need to be very smart—and very good—to withstand the confrontation.
The situation around Crimea’s Tatars remains complicated despite Moscow’s evident readiness to compromise.
The Black Sea region could do with some Turkish soft power, but it looks as though this is not a priority for Prime Minister Erdogan.
Today’s world is again facing the civilizational choice which was recently expressed in the speeches of Putin and Obama representing two civilizations with starkly different norms.
The continuing crisis over Ukraine has significantly hardened Western official and media attitudes toward Russia. However, with Washington leading the charge and NATO back in the saddle, the European Union is taking a back seat.
The seizure of Crimea is Putin’s personal conquest, as well as a dramatic reinforcement of his regime of personal power. For now Putin has succeeded in halting Russia’s social and economic modernization and has pushed Russia to an anti-modernization course.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has said that he supports the Crimean referendum, but it is hard to say whether Armenia’s authorities could have expressed another view.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea and possible future incursions into eastern Ukraine could reshape the geopolitical map of Europe and derail cooperation between Moscow and the West for years to come.
Cooperation among Arctic states is essential to reducing the potential for political, economic, or small military clashes. The fallout from the Crimea crisis, however, could spoil elements of Arctic cooperation.
As soon as the Crimea crisis struck, both Armenia and Azerbaijan immediately hardened their positions on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.