Kyiv should stay out of US politics
(NEE) There have been certain developments in Ukraine over the last few weeks that appeared to endanger its key relationship with the United States, and they also have the potential to…
From a State of Exception to Policy Legitimation: The Politics of COVID-19 in Russia, Belarus, and Georgia (Part 1 of 3)
(PONARS Eurasia Commentary) By Giorgi Beridze, University of Tartu/Tbilisi State University, Alla Leukavets, University of Tartu/Belarusian State University, and Andrey Makarychev, University of Tartu. One of the questions the current…
Russia’s Foreign and Security Policy in the Middle East: Entering the 2020s
(IAI Papers) As Russia has become a major external player in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region due to its military engagement in Syria since 2015, it has acted…
Russian Nationalism: A Discussion between Marlene Laruelle and Andreas Umland
(IERES) Marlene Laruelle and Andreas Umland address questions about the ideological diversity of Russian nationalism, its sociological basis, the doctrinal greyness of Putin’s regime, the issue of an anti-Putin Russian nationalism,…
The Coronavirus Could Hit Putin Most of All
(FP) The coronavirus pandemic has created problems for countries around the world, but it seems it may hurt Russia in particular, creating new and complicated challenges for President Vladimir Putin.…
Kurilla: There would have been no Hiroshima and Nagasaki if not for Boris Pash
(Russia Beyond) U.S. Colonel Boris Pash (1900 – 1995) was a typical 20th-century American ‘badass’ – he hated the communists’ guts, took German cities almost single handedly in WWII and captured…
Cooley: You can’t underestimate some of the unintended consequences that some of this sunlight creates
(RFE/RL) When Ukraine’s Privatbank filed a lawsuit in the United States against its former owner Ihor Kolomoyskiy one year ago, it claimed the tycoon had used a slew of anonymous shell…
New PONARS Eurasia Podcast! Pandemic Politics in the North Caucasus with Ekaterina Sokirianskaia and Grigory Shvedov
The North Caucasus is a highly complicated territory in Russia, comprised of seven different ethnic republics with complex relationships to the Russian federal center. Throughout the region, the already immense…
Marat: The crisis may intensify the autocratic realities of Central Asia | Juraev: Tajikistan & Kyrgyzstan will be hit hard | Laruelle: Remittances sent home are falling
(IWPR) The Covid-19 pandemic may lead to increasingly authoritarian politics across Central Asia, according to a joint online discussion organised by IWPR and Chatham House. The panel of experts and…
Kurilla: The Kremlin line is that peaceful protests always escalate into riots
(The New York Times) MOSCOW—Smarting over decades of American criticism of its human rights record, Russia is now getting some payback. The Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, sanctioned by the United States as a violent…
Snegovaya: The Kremlin is very averse to anything that has to do with revolutions | Greene: Kremlin propagandists don’t need to spin this
(RFE/RL) The screen depicts the Statue of Liberty backdropped by a cloud-specked sky, its outstretched arm and crowned head superimposed over the body of an American police officer whose knee presses…
Kremlin Fails to See Anger and Anxiety Rising in Russia
(EDM) The Russian authorities are caught in a familiar dilemma of whether to resume economic activity or contain the coronavirus pandemic and, trying to have it both ways, are blundering the…