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.
Russia is demanding to be treated as an equal partner in its relationship with the EU, but Brussels had long ignored this shift, and EU-Russian relations have stagnated as a result. It is time for a fundamental rethink of the EU’s Russia policy.
Probably for the first time in the history of the Olympics, sports-related issues concerning the Games took a back seat to the issues of security. Keeping the Sochi Olympics safe is a matter of Russia’s political prestige, as well as the evidence of its ability to respond to terrorism.
In 2013 Russia’s foreign policy has finally assumed a new quality, something which will probably last. This foreign policy makes Russia much more of an international player than ever before in the last quarter-century.
To mention the Soviet Union on most of its former territory evokes pleasant nostalgia, not revulsion. However, no one, beginning with President Putin, is planning its second coming.
The Russia-EU summits are basically a relic of the 1990’s when there was still hope to integrate Russia into Europe’s normative framework. Now it is high time to end the protocol routine and move on to expert negotiations on specific issues.
Vladimir Putin’s respectful message on the passing of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proves that to quite a few Russian supporters of a strong state, Israel is the ideal in terms of the cohesion existing between the state and the nation, the effectiveness of and coordination among the military, intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, and defense of its interests.
Russia’s unconfirmed intention to buy Iranian oil throws a monkey wrench in the sensitive mechanism of negotiating a gradual easing of the regime of economic sanctions against Tehran.
Today, the Russian leaders position themselves as defenders of Europe’s 19th century values which marked the continent’s heyday, against what they term as ultra-liberalism. The value gap between the EU and Russia has gained a new dimension.
As the Kremlin confronts a weakening of the props that have enabled it to maintain power, Putin has turned to imperialism as a support for Russian authoritarianism.
The Russian system of autocratic rule has been exhausted. Still many factors help delay the deterioration of the crisis. So Russia is waiting for its Godot, that is for someone to come, either from up on top or down below, to solve all problems for it.