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.
podcast

What the Experts Got Wrong (and Right) About Russian Military Power

Christopher Dougherty, Gian Gentile, Michael Kofman, Dara Massicot and Ryan Evans May 30, 2022 Recommended Reads
It is now widely understood that many observers, in advance of this war, over-estimated Russian military performance and underestimated Ukrainian military performance.
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.
multimedia

Navalny and Next: Possibilities, Prognosis and Perceptions in Russia

Sean's Russia Blog March 27, 2021 Partner Posts
Sean Guillory moderates a roundtable discussion with Ilya Budraitskis, Svetlana Erpyleva, and Greg Yudin on Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition and the prospects of political pluralism in Russian society.
column

We Need to Have a Talk About Alexei Navalny

Terrell Jermaine Starr March 01, 2021 Recommended Reads
If Navalny is serious about challenging the current regime, Russians—and the outside world—have a right to know precisely whom we’re dealing with.
podcast

Black Radicalism and the USSR

Sean's Russia Blog November 13, 2020 Partner Posts
In this episode of Sean's Russia Blog, Sean Guillory talks with professors Meredith Roman and Minkah Makalani on Black experiences and engagement with Soviet communism.
column

The Curious Case of ‘Russian Lives Matter’

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon July 11, 2020 Recommended Reads
In Moscow, the Kremlin attacks U.S. racism while the liberal opposition ignores it, or worse.
multimedia

Plots Against Russia

Sean's Russia Blog June 19, 2020 Partner Posts
In this episode of Sean's Russia Blog, host and Eurasia expert Sean Guillory speaks with Eliot Borenstein, professor of Russian and Slavic studies at New York University, about conspiratorial thinking at the Russian state level.
podcast

Political Diary from Russia

Sean's Russia Blog March 13, 2020 Partner Posts
In this episode of Sean's Russia Blog, host and Eurasia expert Sean Guillory speaks with Ilya Budraitskis and Ilya Matveev, co-hosts of the podcast "Politicheskii dnevnik" on their podcast and on Russian domestic politics in general.
podcast

What Does Putin’s Government Shakeup Mean for His Role in Russia?

Brookings Institution January 17, 2020
In this podcast, Angela Stent interprets Putin’s latest moves, the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the rest of the current government and what to watch for during the next few months.
research paper

Russia’s Military Posture in the Arctic: Managing Hard Power in a ‘Low Tension’ Environment

Mathieu Boulègue June 28, 2019 Recommended Reads
If Moscow is indeed militarizing the Russian Arctic, the military build-up and the Kremlin’s intentions are, at least for now, defensive in nature.
research paper

Lessons for Leaders: What Afghanistan Taught Russian and Soviet Strategists

Simon Saradzhyan February 28, 2019 RM Exclusives
Moscow’s military intervention in Afghanistan lasted nearly a decade (1979-1989). It cost the USSR dearly in blood, treasure and power, but imparted lessons as well. Can some of these prove useful to the U.S. today?
podcast

Of Russian Military Reforms From Georgia to Syria

Center for Strategic and International Studies May 22, 2018 Partner Posts
In this episode of Russian Roulette, CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program expert Olga Oliker sits down with defense analyst Anton Lavrov to discuss Russian military reforms, what new capabilities Russia demonstrated in Syria and where the Russian military may (or may not) be heading.