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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Why Forecasts of a Chinese Takeover of the Russian Far East Are Just Dramatic Myth

Alexander Gabuev and Maria Repnikova July 14, 2017 Recommended Reads
Reports of mounting tensions between Moscow and Beijing are not rooted in ground realities but on faulty assumptions about China-Russia relations.
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How the Sanctions Are Helping Putin

Andrey Movchan March 28, 2017 Recommended Reads
Tougher sanctions could have brought Russia down in months. Instead, Putin has gained leverage in domestic politics and Russian oligarchs have founded new monopolies.
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The Russian Defense Budget and You

Michael Kofman March 17, 2017 Recommended Reads
Russia's 2017 defense budget is smaller than last year's, but the reduction is not quite as drastic as some interpretations indicate.
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Russia, Trump and a New Détente: Fixing US-Russian Relations

Robert David English March 10, 2017 Recommended Reads
Demonizing Russia only widens the gulf of U.S.-Russian misunderstanding and encourages dangerous misconceptions.
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Russia’s False Dawn

Robert Kahn July 18, 2016 Recommended Reads
While there has been a new sense of optimism about the Russian economy, poor structural polices and deficit constraints suggest that it may have a limited capacity to respond to future shocks.
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False Alert: Is Russia Beefing Up Forces on NATO’s Border?

Ulrich Kühn July 08, 2016 Recommended Reads
While Russia has done an about-face on military reforms meant to switch from large divisions to smaller, more mobile brigades, Moscow is not (yet) creating additional armed forces.
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Is Russia's Economy Doomed to Collapse?

Sergey Aleksashenko July 01, 2016 Recommended Reads
While the primitive structure of the Russian economy and Putin’s pro-market economic doctrine will prevent economic chaos, the Russian economy remains in need of significant political reforms in order to be competitive and attractive in the long run.
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Twilight of the Petrostate

Petr Aven, Vladimir Nazarov, Samvel Lazaryan May 17, 2016 Recommended Reads
Only those countries that embrace modernization and carry it further than they did in the previous oil downcycle can hope not be relegated to a historical footnote. Now is the time for petrostates to awaken from their long oil dream and choose between the first and the third worlds.
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Russia’s Master Plan to Seize the Arctic

Vladislav Inozemtsev May 02, 2016 Recommended Reads
For now, the Northern Sea Route remains a bluff, like, in general, all of Russia’s plans to develop the Arctic.
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Explaining Russia’s New Normal

Chris Weafer September 11, 2015 Recommended Reads
More than just maturation or growth, "new normal" represents fundamental change in how an economy is managed, and it has practical implications for how businesses and investors look at opportunities and risk in Russia's changing economy.
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Vladimir Putin's Dicey Dilemma

Graham Allison November 11, 2014 Recommended Reads
After Russia's aggression against Ukraine, Washington crafted a narrative: Russia is a loser that doesn’t matter anymore. How much of that story is true? And what genuine challenges underlie it?
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The Eternal Collapse of Russia

Paul Starobin August 28, 2014 Recommended Reads
Russia is “a country that’s falling apart,” as a New Republic cover story put it. It’s a hardy theme. It’s also a completely bogus one.
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