While there were certainly some shortages in Russia's regions this summer, the picture painted by a new survey could hardly be called a crisis.

By focusing on visa restrictions for Russians, the EU is missing Moscow's actual sabotage tactics and how they can harden themselves against them.

Russia's self-imposed isolation, combined with not seeing the issue as a priority, risks neglecting the remnants of the Soviet nuclear program.

As draft peace proposals include the handover of Ukraine’s Donbas, we cannot ignore the rights abuses Moscow committed in occupied territory.

There are still brave publishers willing to sell provocative books, albeit it with content warnings and blank packaging like cigarettes.

The hope for many in today’s elite is that by wrapping themselves in the symbols of Nuremberg, they will ensure that no tribunal ever judges them.

The FSB's fingerprints are all over thousands of migrants crossing Russia's arctic borders in 2015-16. It was a test for more recent manipulations.

Once again, Moscow has damaged a diplomatic building in an airstrike. This follows a pattern of retribution that stretches plausible deniability.

It isn't the genealogy of Russia's elite that matters, but where they sit in the spider's web of Kremlin patronage.

I recently asked a Russian friend what her hopes for the future were. "No plans. Only December," she said.

With the industry regulated into a corner, the price of staples like sunflower oil and rye are climbing. Officials are only making things worse.

Overzealous regulation and cautious corporations are making it as hard for Russians to live in the EU as the Moscow does for them to remain.

Rich Russians with multiple passports or golden visas can open doors with their money, while ordinary Russians become increasingly alienated.

Installing technocratic bureaucrats without their own patronage networks helps the Kremlin rein-in the leaders of the military and security services.

To endorsing "holy war" and living in luxury, the actions of Russia's religious elite are miles from the spiritual values they profess.

Sanctions should try to weaken the social base that supports Putin, not reinforce Kremlin claims of Russophobia toward ordinary people.

Moscow's blind patriotism and shunning of anything foreign means Russians will have to pay higher prices for less effective medication.