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PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Task Forces
    • Ukraine
    • Amplifying Voices of Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (AVECCA)
  • Ukraine Experts
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RECOMMENDED
  • Clearing the Air: Secretary Blinken Visits Ukraine

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RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
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  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
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    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
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    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russia, the West and the Integration Dilemma

  • December 7, 2013
  • Mikhail Troitskiy

(Journal article) (By Samuel Charap and Mikhail Troitskiy) — On 28-29 November, the leaders of the six countries designated by the European Union as members of its Eastern Partnership (EaP) programme – Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan – met with the European Council in Vilnius, Lithuania. This summit is widely portrayed as the dramatic climax of these countries' recent history as independent states. They must finally choose, so the narrative goes, between East and West, Russia and the EU, corruption and reform, or even backwardness and modernity. 

While the EU offers EaP countries free trade, visa liberalization and a European future, Russia, we often read, is actively seeking to thwart EU policy and crush the European aspirations of the region's citizens. Through its Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, now called the Eurasian Economic Union, Moscow supposedly seeks to reintegrate its neighbours into its 'sphere of influence' and re-establish Soviet-style dominance over the region. 

This narrative accurately reflects a widespread perception of the problem. However, it is deeply misleading as an analytical framework for understanding the problem's core drivers. In reality, Russian motives are for more defensive and reactive – and, upon close examination, there is no inherent divergence of agendas between Moscow and Brussels that would make mutually acceptable compromise impossible. Instead of geopolitical or civilisational struggles, the right framework for understanding the ongoing competition between integration initiatives in post-Soviet Eurasia draws upon the concept of the security dilemma. […]

Read the full article (PDF)  | © The International Institute for Strategic Studies 

Related Topics
  • Charap
  • Eastern Partnership
  • EU
  • Russia
  • Troitskiy
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“Russia First” Policy in Retreat?

  • December 7, 2013
  • Andrey Makarychev
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  • In the News | Hовости

Пора перестать говорить о Марксе

  • December 9, 2013
  • Konstantin Sonin
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