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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Hacking Power Grids: New Tactic of War or Wave of the Future?

Nadiya Kostyuk November 03, 2017 RM Exclusives
Recent research suggests that cyberattacks have not yet become a force multiplier to conventional military tools in wartime, but this may very well change in coming years as countries invest in such capabilities.
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Putin’s Peacekeepers: Beware of Russians Bearing Gifts

Fredrik Wesslau September 11, 2017 Partner Posts
The Russian president's proposal for a U.N. peacekeeping force in eastern Ukraine could be a trap—or it could provide a means of de-escalating the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
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Russian Military Buildup in the West: Fact Versus Fiction

Michael Kofman September 07, 2017 RM Exclusives
Until 2014 Russia was largely cutting the number of troops on NATO's borders to move them elsewhere. The war with Ukraine changed that, reawakening Moscow to the possibility of a large-scale war on its western front.
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Russia’s Plan B: Divide and Conquer?

Nikolas Gvosdev July 28, 2017 RM Exclusives
At the start of 2017, Putin’s election-related gambles appeared to be paying off. By summer, the apparent wins had all gone bust. Moscow’s next step? Probably trying to split the U.S. and its Western partners on questions of Russia policy.
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The Foreign Policy Price of Trump’s Russia Scandal

Robert E. Hunter May 23, 2017 Recommended Reads
In the current maelstrom of U.S. domestic politics, it will be virtually impossible for the United States to do what’s needed to promote its interests regarding Russia and related security issues.
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Russia Looks Out for Own Interests in Europe’s Elections But Risks Long-Term Blowback

Yuval Weber April 19, 2017 RM Exclusives
Liberals worry about Russian meddling in elections from France to Bulgaria. But Moscow didn’t create Euro-skepticism; it's just good at exploiting existing fissures in Western societies—and has been for a long time. Here's where that may lead.
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The Ukraine Crisis: Why Everyone Loses

Samuel Charap and Timothy J. Colton April 18, 2017 Partner Posts
As the conflict in eastern Ukraine approaches its fourth year, with nearly 10,000 dead so far, the authors consider how we’ve gotten to where we are and call for a radically different approach to resolution.
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Dealing with Russia and Drawing Red Lines

Steven Pifer March 09, 2017 RM Exclusives
With new NATO deployments in Central and Eastern Europe, a former U.S. diplomat to the region considers America’s red lines vis-à-vis Russia: What should they be and how to enforce them?
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The Ukraine-Russia Conflict: A Way Forward

Matthew Rojansky February 01, 2017 Recommended Reads
While the likelihood of the conflict’s resolution is low, Washington needs to keep aware of opportunities for resolution due to what is at stake: U.S. interests, relations with Russia and Europe and global security.
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European Security Reform Holds Key to Breaking Stalemate in Ukraine

Simon Saradzhyan October 27, 2016 RM Exclusives
The conflict in eastern Ukraine is unlikely to be resolved until the underlying demands of the key stakeholders are met. A new European security charter may be the answer.
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Ukraine’s Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

Nicolai N. Petro September 07, 2016 Recommended Reads
Amidst the brewing domestic political storm, the struggle for the right to define Ukrainian identity has become a “perpetual war, for perpetual peace,” a peace that can only come when all the enemies of Ukraine, at home and abroad, are fully vanquished.
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The Role of Sanctions in US-Russian Relations

Richard Nephew and Andrew S. Weiss July 11, 2016 Recommended Reads
Sanctions are a critical tool in persuading Russia to change its Ukraine policy. But the West’s overreliance on them risks undercutting their long-term effectiveness.
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