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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Personnel Stagnation to Splinter Putin Elite With Battle of Lost Generations

Andrey Pertsev April 19, 2024 Partner Posts
Putin is more likely to promote people in their forties than older generations who have been in power for too long and can envisage life without him. But Russia doesn’t have enough young administrators ready to replace those in their sixties.
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Zelenskyy: 'We Are Trying to Find Some Way Not to Retreat'

David Ignatius March 29, 2024 Partner Posts
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a stark message to Congress in an interview as Russian missiles were pounding southern Ukraine.
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Crocus Attack Ends Lull of Six Years, Raises Question About Law-Enforcers’ Focus

Simon Saradzhyan March 28, 2024 RM Exclusives
One factor that propelled Vladimir Putin to power was his ability to convince many that he was the kind of leader who not only promised to protect them from the horrors of mass-casualty terrorism, but also delivered on his promises of security.
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Russian Women in the Face of War Against Ukraine

Egle E. Murauskaite March 26, 2024 Partner Posts
Russia’s war against Ukraine has revealed stories about the heroic resistance efforts of Ukrainian women, but comparable stories have been entirely lacking on Russia’s side.
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The War in Ukraine in a Transitional World Order

Robert Legvold February 23, 2024 RM Exclusives
The war in Ukraine is reshaping an international system released from its moorings and lurching in uncertain directions, which in turn is affecting the course and prospective outcome of the war.
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FY24 NDAA: Decreased Funding for Ukraine and Other Changes

Aleksandra Srdanovic February 15, 2024 RM Exclusives
This in-depth look at the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) details key Russia-related highlights and changes from FY23.
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Macron’s European Security Order: Stronger European Defense, Less Reliance on US and New Post-War Dynamic With Russia

Rym Momtaz February 02, 2024 RM Exclusives
Since February 2023, Macron has consistently stated that Russia cannot and must not win its war against Ukraine—but at the same time, he has repeatedly talked about the need to build a security architecture “with” Russia once the war is over.
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Russia, the West and the ‘World Majority’

Angela Stent January 25, 2024 RM Exclusives
As Russia begins its one-year presidency of the BRICS this month, great power competition in the Global South, or what Russia now calls the “World Majority,” will intensify.
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For Putin, Winning is Not Everything in Russia’s Presidential Election

Thomas Graham December 20, 2023 RM Exclusives
The election is meant to showcase Putin’s mastery of the political system, and therefore his legitimacy; by extension, it will serve as a referendum on the war in Ukraine itself.
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We Forget Henry Kissinger’s Effectiveness at Our Peril

Charles A. Kupchan December 18, 2023 Partner Posts
Henry Kissinger was the pre-eminent statesman of post-World War II America. He was not just a policymaker; he was a strategist who thought about the world in conceptual terms and drew on a nuanced understanding of history and geopolitics to guide U.S. statecraft.
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What Putin’s Unsurprising Re-Election Bid Means for Russia’s Future

Nikolas K. Gvosdev December 13, 2023 RM Exclusives
Putin wants the 2024 elections to confirm that he is the only option for seeing the Ukraine conflict to a successful close.
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The Best Laid Plans: Putin’s Rogue Election Announcement

Andrey Pertsev December 13, 2023 Partner Posts
The president’s inclination to ignore his administration and act upon his own initiative is damaging to both himself and the power vertical he created.
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