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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Putin’s Invasion Was Immoral but Not Irrational

Mark F. Cancian May 10, 2022 Recommended Reads
Evaluating Putin’s decision requires capturing what was known at the time, not what became evident later.
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Why Hasn’t Russia Unleashed ‘Cybergeddon’ in Its War on Ukraine?

RM Staff May 04, 2022 RM Exclusives
Some experts say expectations of cyber apocalypse have been overblown, while others argue Russia has already done plenty of cyber damage. Check out our compilation for what Russia’s use (and non-use) of cyber means in the war on Ukraine.
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Lessons From the Battle for Kyiv

Alex Vershinin April 21, 2022 RM Exclusives
The operation rapidly degenerated into an urban battle of attrition favorable to Ukraine, and eventually the Russian government withdrew its troops, conceding defeat in the battle for Kyiv, while preparing a second phase of the war in Donbas.
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How Silent Assent Made Bucha Possible

Andrei Kolesnikov April 07, 2022 Recommended Reads
Those who approve or stay silent bear, at the very least, collective responsibility for what is happening in their own country and what the state is doing.
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Parsing the Evidence: Will Russia Invade Ukraine?

RM Staff January 27, 2022 RM Exclusives
With reams of analysis written to answer this question, we summarize a handful of experts who have backed their assertions with abundant research.
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The Global War on Chechnya: What Does 9/11 Teach Us About Counterterrorism Cooperation With Russia?

Paul Kolbe October 13, 2021 RM Exclusives
Mutual interest in fighting terrorism simply cannot counter all the negatives in current U.S.-Russian relations to serve as a basis for improved overall bilateral ties.
multimedia

Twenty Years After: How Terrorism and the World have Changed Since 9/11

Center for the National Interest September 09, 2021 Partner Posts
Graham T. Allison, Paul Pillar and Jessica Stern discuss how the United States should deal with terrorism in the aftermath of its military withdrawal from Afghanistan and with friends and rivals abroad to secure vital security interests today.
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The HMS Defender Incident: What Happened and What Are the Political Ramifications?

Dmitry Gorenburg July 01, 2021 RM Exclusives
Inadvertent escalation poses the greatest risk of a political confrontation between Russia and NATO resulting in armed conflict, and as long as one or both sides believe that it is beneficial to use their military forces to make political points, we should expect more incidents of this type to take place.
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Will Russia Invade Ukraine (Again)?

Simon Saradzhyan April 14, 2021 Recommended Reads
Not a day goes by without dire warnings of an imminent Russian military invasion of Ukraine, but Putin is unlikely to order an offensive against Ukraine unless Zelensky makes the first military move on the Donbass chessboard.
primer

Russia’s Impact on US National Interests: Preventing Terrorist Attacks on US Homeland and Assets Abroad

George Beebe April 13, 2021 RM Exclusives
Russia has shown it can help the U.S. on counterterrorism a great deal. Adversarial relations notwithstanding, there is more the two sides can do in terms of sharing both intelligence and expertise.
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Rebuttal: Ukraine Is Emerging as Critical Node for White-Supremacy Extremists

Mollie Saltskog and Colin P. Clarke September 24, 2020 RM Exclusives
The authors argue that the transnational threat of violent right-wing extremism emanating from the conflict in eastern Ukraine has not waned, even as the number of ultranationalist foreign fighters there has.
Competing Views on Russia

George Kennan on Russia: Insights and Recommendations

RM Staff August 21, 2019 RM Exclusives
From the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which will see its 80th anniversary this week, to the beginning of the 21st century, Kennan's views on America's Cold War rival went far beyond the "containment" policy for which he is perhaps best known.
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