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.
article

Nobody Actually Knows What Russia Does Next

Stephen M. Walt April 02, 2024 Recommended Reads
The West’s warnings about Vladimir Putin’s future plans are getting louder—but not any more convincing.
article

Russia’s Nuclear-Capable Missiles: A Question of Escalation Control

William Alberque March 15, 2024 Recommended Reads
Aspects of Moscow’s military strategy in Ukraine, including its deployment of dual-use missile systems, have offered some potential insights into its nuclear-weapons doctrine.
article

Russia’s Economy Once Again Defies the Doomsayers

The Economist March 10, 2024 Recommended Reads
As an election nears, Vladimir Putin now looks to have inflation under control
article

What the Pentagon Has Learned From 2 Years of War in Ukraine

Alex Horton February 22, 2024 Recommended Reads
A classified year-long study on the lessons learned from both sides of the bloody campaign examined five areas: ground maneuver, air power, information warfare, sustaining and growing forces and long range fire capability.
article

Russia's Opposition Has Lost a Crucial Leader but Gained a Martyr

The Economist February 20, 2024 Recommended Reads
Alexei Navalny’s death is a sign of how Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship has transformed.
article

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.
article

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.
article

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.
report

Central Asia: Making Use of a Historic Opportunity

Vladislav Inozemtsev December 15, 2023 Partner Posts
This report analyzes the economic and geopolitical situation in Central Asia
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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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