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.
Putin aims for a world order in which the Security Council’s five permanent members, not the United States—alone or with its allies—decide on major issues pertaining to war and peace.
With revolutions across the Arab world, Russia’s chances for strengthening its position in the region look increasingly slim. The Kremlin must change course and ensure that its approach to the Middle East and Islamists reflects post–Arab Spring realities.
Angela Merkel seems intent on doing the bare minimum in dealing with Vladimir Putin. She will need to do a lot more than that—not least when it comes to the Eastern neighborhood.
The main reason that Russia’s anti-gay laws have stirred up such strong emotions is the lack of open social discussion about the issue.
As Russia proceeds with its massive rearmament program, its arms exports, a lifeline in the 1990s, will be important, but no longer critical. The truly critical question is, what Russia itself will be arming against.
The euro crisis is not the only foreign policy challenge facing the new government in Berlin. Will Germany now realize its potential and develop a foreign policy worthy of the name?
The tenth-anniversary Valdai Club meeting was named “Russia’s diversity for the Modern World.” Nevertheless, the issue of diversity was put to the side by other hot current issues: the recent Russian elections, corruption, and Syria.
Merkel’s rule, apparently, means a break in Germany’s life due to the lack of new political elites and leaders.
The authorities took a new approach in the Moscow election by allowing opposition candidate Navalny to participate without the possibility of winning. But Navalny won a moral victory and became an opposition leader with a national reputation.
Vladimir Putin has taken the new aggressive turn in domestic policy and in the neighborhood. That has simply left him with no friends in the West.