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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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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Ditch the ‘Rules-Based International Order’

Andreas Kluth February 08, 2024 Recommended Reads
The phrase is a linguistic atrocity, while the concept draws attention to American hypocrisy in the Middle East and beyond. There’s an alternative.
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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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Russia's Upper Hand Puts US-Ukraine at a Crossroads

George Beebe and Anatol Lieven January 11, 2024 Recommended Reads
Absent a compromise settlement, massive levels of aid for Kyiv would have to continue, perhaps indefinitely.
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The High Price of Losing Ukraine: Part 2 — The Military Threat and Beyond

Nataliya Bugayova December 22, 2023 Recommended Reads
A Russian victory in Ukraine would create a world fundamentally antithetical to U.S. interests and values with an empowered anti-Western coalition.
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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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Attitudes toward Russia’s War on Ukraine in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Hannah Chapman and Raushan Zhandayeva December 12, 2023 Partner Posts
How does the public in Central Asia view Russia’s war against Ukraine? This memo provides a preliminary examination of public attitudes toward the invasion in two Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
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The War That Neither Ukraine nor the West Can Afford to Lose

Serhii Plokhy December 12, 2023 Partner Posts
The war between Russia and Ukraine can continue indefinitely unless the West realizes that what’s at stake isn’t just the fate of Ukraine but the future of the West itself
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