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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Survey: What Would a Le Pen Presidency Mean for France’s Policy Toward Russia?

RM Staff April 20, 2022 RM Exclusives
The nationalist firebrand who has recently "put water in her vodka" and considerably toned down her anti-EU rhetoric is well known for cultivating warm ties with Vladimir Putin's Russia.
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Strategic Folly in Ukraine: A War That Putin Cannot Win

Lawrence Freedman March 03, 2022 Recommended Reads
From the start, the Russian campaign has been hampered by political objectives that cannot be translated into meaningful military objectives.
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Expert Survey: Impacts of Russia’s War in Ukraine

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs February 28, 2022 Partner Posts
Belfer Center experts comment on repercussions of the invasion.
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Decoding Putin’s Speeches: The Three Ideological Lines of Russia’s Military Intervention in Ukraine

Marlene Laruelle and Ivan Grek February 25, 2022 RM Exclusives
Putin's Feb. 21 and Feb. 24 speeches have confirmed the construction of a narrative legitimizing the military intervention in Ukraine along three key ideological lines: a historical one, an ethnic one and a political one.
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Biden-Putin Call Solves Nothing, US Signals ‘Deterrence by Punishment’

Nikolas K. Gvosdev December 09, 2021 RM Exclusives
The call guarantees that the Biden administration is going to have to devote more attention and time to Moscow in 2022.
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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.
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Gangster Geopolitics: The Kremlin’s Use of Criminals as Assets Abroad

Mark Galeotti January 17, 2019 RM Exclusives
Since the worsening of relations with the West in 2014, the Kremlin has increasingly adopted a “mobilization state” approach, turning to any available foreign-policy levers. Gangsters are no exception.
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Trump-Putin G20 Summit: High Stakes and Strained Dialogue

Matthew Rojansky November 28, 2018 RM Exclusives
As high-level U.S.-Russian contacts are again plagued by deep disagreement, both sides face a list of urgent global security challenges that can be managed only through dialogue.
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Terror Threat from Russian-Speaking Jihadists Won’t End with World Cup, and the West Should Care

Jean-François Ratelle June 13, 2018 RM Exclusives
The war in Syria has greatly expanded Russian-speaking extremist groups’ transnational networks in Europe and beyond, posing an international counterterrorism challenge for years to come.
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Putin's Pivot: 4 New Features of Russian Foreign Policy

Daniel Treisman March 14, 2018 RM Exclusives
The annexation of Crimea in 2014 signaled a new phase of Russian foreign policy, characterized by risk taking, neglect of exit strategies, outsourcing and saber rattling. But can the success of these tactics last?
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Survey: Tips for President Trump Ahead of His First Meeting With Putin

RM Experts July 03, 2017 RM Exclusives
What should be at the top of the two leaders’ agenda? Avoiding war, bolstering arms control, cooperating on counter-terrorism, Ukraine … and not getting their hopes too high.
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How Western aid enables graft addiction in Ukraine

M. Steven Fish and Neil A. Abrams May 05, 2016 Recommended Reads
Can Western aid actually support the cause of reform in Ukraine? Or is Western assistance enabling an entrenched elite to continue stealing and avoid building a functioning state?
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