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opinion Farida RustamovaandMaxim Tovkaylo

Will Putin Announce Another Round of Mobilization?

Talk of a second mobilization wave in Russia has been on everyone’s lips in recent weeks. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov claimed it...

How the War in Ukraine Became a Magnet for Russia's Career Politicians

For those in Russia’s ruling elite set on reaching the top, the war in Ukraine is an unexpected new career elevator. Ever sensitive to the whims...

Prodolzhenie Sleduet

The Return of Russia's Foreign Agent Paranoia as Biological Imperative

Every Friday, the Russian internet — well, its liberal part at least — waits with bated breath for communications regulator Roskomnadzor to...

Ivan U. Klyszcz

Lavrov's Africa Trip Reveals Limits to Russian Soft Power

The focus of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's visit to South Africa, Eswatini, and Angola this week has been the portrayal of Russia as a partner...

Europe's Freedom Depends on Ukraine Winning a Decisive Victory Over Russia

The biggest disappointment of the allied conference held at the U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany on Friday was the failure of the negotiators to...

Konstantin Skorkin

What the Return of Kremlin Ally Medvedchuk Means for the War in Ukraine

Viktor Medvedchuk, for a long time a leading pro-Russia figure in Ukrainian politics, had until now been lying low since he turned up in Russia last year...

Angelina Davydova

How Russia’s War Is Impacting the Global Environmental Agenda

The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on biodiversity and the climate was not part of the official agenda at two recent major UN environmental...

Even Liberal Bastion Yekaterinburg Has Succumbed to Russia's Stagnation

It’s often said that one cannot fully understand Russia without spending a considerable amount of time beyond the confines of Moscow and St. Petersburg...

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan

How the Kremlin Is Taking Aim at its Russian Critics in Exile

The Kremlin is busy developing a new strategy to deal with the unprecedented recent wave of emigration that has seen hundreds of thousands of people decide...

Ksenia Luchenko

Russia's Attempt to Weaponize Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine

The celebration of Orthodox Christmas in both Russia and Ukraine on Jan. 7 provided ample evidence of what the Washington-based Institute for the...

Why Aren't Russians Abroad Doing More to Protest the War?

When Russian President Vladimir Putin came to Yerevan in November I took part in a protest against the war in Ukraine along with around 20 other Russian...

Tatiana Stanovaya

Re-Election, Reshuffle and Warring Elites: Putin's Key Challenges in 2023

More than 10 months on from the invasion of Ukraine, the contrast between the scale of the external shocks faced by Russia and the relative inertia inside...

Once Unthinkable, Capitulation Could Still Be Russia's Saving Grace

The war started by Vladimir Putin has no goals that can be achieved. It's not about trying to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO — that can&rsquo...

Kirill Krivosheev

Russian Peacekeepers Find Themselves Sidelined in Nagorno-Karabakh

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan to drift away from...

Russia and Central Asia: Never Closer or Drifting Apart?

Just one year ago, Russia’s positions in Central Asia were so solid that even China’s growing presence in the region was not a threat. That...

Philip Boobbyer

How Culture and Faith Might Help Russia Find its True Voice

If we find ourselves in hell, what voice will we scream with? "Not with our own," observed the Russian writer Andrei Sinyavsky in his 1973 book of...

Alexandra Prokopenko

The Cost of War: Russia's Economy Faces a Decade of Regress

Nine months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian economy is doing better than expected. The predicted collapse has been avoided, and the...

Svetlana Stephenson

Putin's Idealization of Death Reflects Russia's Growing Nazification

The carnival of violence that has for years permeated Russia's state-controlled media has in recent months given way to a new tone of solemnity and calls...

What the Prigozhin-Beglov Feud Reveals About Russia’s Power Vertical

The vicious public campaign being waged by controversial businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin against St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov has rocked Russian...

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