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.
explainer

NATO or Bust: Why Do Ukraine’s Leaders Dismiss Neutrality as a Security Strategy?

Serhiy Kudelia February 09, 2022 RM Exclusives
Prominent U.S. thinkers have said a neutral status for Ukraine could defuse the crisis with Russia. Elites in Kyiv disagree. Here are their top concerns, which proponents of neutrality will have to address.
article

Russia's Discouraging Demographics Shouldn't Change US Approach

Alexandra Vacroux December 21, 2021 RM Exclusives
The possibility that Russia might have fewer people and a smaller economy will not negate the fact that it is a nuclear superpower with unfriendly intent. What Russia becomes is less important than what Russia is willing to do.
article

US-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue: Purpose, Progress, Challenges and Opportunities

Leonor Tomero December 15, 2021 RM Exclusives
A serious and good-faith dialogue with Russia about the risks to strategic stability is necessary to understand the changing nature of those risks and the direction new arms races may take and to reduce the risk of unintended escalation.
Competing Views on Russia

Olaf Scholz on Russia

Seth Myers November 30, 2021 RM Exclusives
In Germany's relations with Russia, Angela Merkel's successor has endorsed a new “European Ostpolitik,” or eastern policy, a reference to former SPD chancellors' attempts to ease relations with the Soviet Union through greater dialogue and diplomatic exchange.
podcast

How Has Coronavirus Changed International Relations and Russian Foreign Policy?

Alexander Gabuev, Kadri Liik and Dmitri Trenin October 29, 2021 Partner Posts
In this episode of the Carnegie Moscow Center Podcast, experts discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Russian foreign policy.
podcast

Revisiting the Russian Military

SRB Podcast September 12, 2021 Partner Posts
In this episode of the SRB podcast, Michael Kofman and Dmitry Gorenburg discuss recent developments in the Russian military.
podcast

Russian Conquest of Central Asia

Sean's Russia Blog September 03, 2021 Partner Posts
In this episode of Sean's Russia Blog, host and Eurasia expert Sean Guillory talks with Alexander Morrison on his new book, "The Russian Conquest of Central Asia," published by Cambridge University Press.
podcast

Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France and the United States

PONARS Eurasia September 01, 2021 Partner Posts
Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France and the United States.
article

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.
article

Potential Fruits of the Biden-Putin Summit

Simon Saradzhyan June 04, 2021 RM Exclusives
At the Putin-Biden summit, both sides will likely be looking for low-hanging fruits—issues they can easily agree upon that stand to advance U.S. and Russian interests with minimal concessions. In our latest exclusive, Simon Saradzhyan considers low-hanging fruits, like scientific cooperation, and more ambitious topics, such as rules of the road in the cyber domain.
podcast

The US-Russia-China Triangle

Sean's Russia Blog June 03, 2021 Partner Posts
In this episode of Sean's Russia Blog, host Sean Guillory talks with Thomas Graham about the new “Cold War,” the United States, Russia and China.
article

Macron’s Dialogue With Russia: A French Attempt to Fix the European Security Architecture

Juliette Faure May 12, 2021 RM Exclusives
While Macron has attempted to shape Europe’s strategic autonomy in the management of its eastern neighborhood, lack of support from the EU has impeded the success of this policy, as has Russian behavior throughout 2020.