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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Lessons from Russia's Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine

Michael Kofman, Katya Migacheva, Brian Nichiporuk, Andrew Radin, Olesya Tkacheva and Jenny Oberholtzer May 01, 2017 Recommended Reads
Russia's military operation in 2014 to annex Crimea was a decisive and competent use of military force, while its campaign in the eastern part of Ukraine was ineffectually implemented but achieved its aim: political fragmentation of the country.
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Russian Defense Spending: Tricky Math

Olga Oliker April 26, 2017 RM Exclusives
With Russia flexing its military muscle, analysts are increasingly interested in how much Moscow is spending on weapons. This explainer lays out the factors that make those numbers hard to crunch.
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Russia's Military: Assessment, Strategy and Threat

Alexander Golts and Michael Kofman June 24, 2016 Partner Posts
A report providing a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the Russian armed forces in the context of Russia’s reemergence on the geopolitical stage.
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Why Arming Kiev is a Really, Really Bad Idea

Stephen M. Walt February 09, 2015
Arming Ukraine will simply intensify the conflict and add to the suffering of the Ukrainian people.