Analysis

This listing contains all the analytical materials posted on the Russia Matters website. These include: RM Exclusives, commissioned by Russia Matters exclusively for this website; Recommended Reads, deemed particularly noteworthy by our editorial team; Partner Posts, originally published by our partners elsewhere; and Future Policy Leaders, pieces by promising young scholars and policy thinkers. Content can be filtered by genre and subject-specific criteria and is updated often. Gradually we will be adding older Recommended Reads and Partner Posts dating back as far as 2011.
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Why the Wagner Group Cannot Be Easily Absorbed by the Russian Military—and What That Means for the West

Kimberly Marten September 01, 2023 RM Exclusives
In one shape or another, the Wagner Group is likely to continue operating in the interests of Putin’s regime outside Russia, regardless of whether it comes under MoD command and the costs of doing so.
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8 Lessons for Taiwan From Russia’s War in Ukraine

Tzu-yun Su January 18, 2023 RM Exclusives
While the fighting in Ukraine is on land, and thus very different from the maritime battlefield that would surround Taiwan, there are still many things this island nation can learn from Ukraine's defensive operations.
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Still ‘No Limits’? The China-Russia Partnership After Samarkand

Elizabeth Wishnick September 22, 2022 RM Exclusives
Despite their many conflicts of interest in Ukraine and elsewhere, Russia and China continue to be bound together, both by geopolitical factors and by their deep need for regime security.
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Russia and Iran Get Closer While Still Competing, Amid Balancing Act With Turkey

Nicole Grajewski August 03, 2022 RM Exclusives
At July’s summit, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei endorsed Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has given Tehran more leverage in relations with Moscow.
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The Toll of Economic War: How Sanctions on Russia Will Upend the Global Order

Nicholas Mulder March 23, 2022 Recommended Reads
The economic offensive against Russia has already exposed one important new reality: The era of costless, risk-free and predictable sanctions is well and truly over, the author writes.
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Taiwan Is Not Ukraine: Stop Linking Their Fates Together

Kharis Templeman January 27, 2022 Recommended Reads
In the current geopolitical moment, the differences between Ukraine and Taiwan are far more important than their similarities—and linking together the security threats that the two countries face can make both situations worse.
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Be Careful What You Wish For: Russia, China and Afghanistan after the Withdrawal

Jeffrey Mankoff July 29, 2021 RM Exclusives
Do Beijing and Moscow have sufficient influence to oversee a managed transition, contain any spillover of violence, and provide reassurance to anxious Afghanistan neighbors? The whole region is about to find out.
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Russia, the United States and the Counterrevolutionaries: A Trilateral Chess Match in the Middle East

Jon Hoffman July 21, 2021 RM Exclusives
Russia's return to the Middle East must be assessed from the perspective of regional actors, namely how they seek to use competition between Moscow and Washington for their own strategic benefit, our latest exclusive argues.
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Russia’s Competing Policy Interests in Syria and the Middle East

Mark N. Katz May 25, 2021 RM Exclusives
Amid its ongoing military intervention in Syria, Russia’s role is complicated by conflicting policy goals pursued other actors in the country.
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Five Years After Russia Declared Victory in Syria: What Has Been Won?

Thomas Schaffner March 18, 2021 RM Exclusives
Has the intervention paid off or has Obama’s 2015 prediction that the operation would end in a “quagmire” for Russia come true? An assessment of some key costs and benefits generated by Russia’s intervention in Syria.
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The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Development Hampered by Internal Conflicts

Lucie Messy October 29, 2020 RM Exclusives
While the capabilities of individual SCO members, such as China and Russia, pose a challenge to Western countries’ interests, due to internal challenges and a loose organizational structure, the organization itself does not.
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Armenia-Azerbaijan War: Military Dimensions of the Conflict

Michael Kofman October 02, 2020 RM Exclusives
This large scale conventional war between the two countries is likely to upend the status quo of territorial control in the region.
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