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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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.
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Andrea Lee's "Russian Journal": A Tapestry of the Late Soviet Era

Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon February 19, 2021 Partner Posts
As part of the Kennan Institute's Black History Month programming, Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon reflects on a travelogue from the 1970s by Andrea Lee titled "Russian Journal," which is a fast-paced tour through Brezhnev's so-called “stagnant” Soviet Union.
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The Russian Military is Facing a Looming Demography Crisis

Ethan Woolley February 01, 2021 Partner Posts
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the newly formed Russian Federation’s demography essentially walked off a cliff.
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Russian Imperialism Revisited: From Disengagement to Hegemony

Domitilla Sagramoso October 29, 2020 Partner Posts
Sagramoso challenges the assumption that Russia intends to restore an informal empire over its ‘Near Abroad’. Rather, she argues that Russia’s policies are much more complex, multi-faceted and incoherent than is often assumed.
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Have America’s Russia Watchers Been Getting It Wrong?

Center for the National Interest October 27, 2020 Partner Posts
Washington's surprise at Russia's behavior over the past few decades suggests that American experts — now more than ever — are struggling to assess and predict Russian actions.
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Putin, Putinism and the Domestic Determinants of Russian Foreign Policy

Michael McFaul October 19, 2020 Partner Posts
For a complete understanding of Russian foreign policy today, individuals, ideas, and institutions—President Vladimir Putin, Putinism, and autocracy—must be added to the analysis. Putin's ideas about illiberalism, orthodoxy, sovereignty and the West shaped his decision-making in unique ways. 
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Time For Russia and Other Great Powers to Move From Words to Actions to End Karabakh War

Simon Saradzhyan October 08, 2020 Partner Posts
Russia remains the only country capable of single-handedly compelling Armenia and Azerbaijan to end the conflict in Karabakh. Yet, it has so far been unwilling to back its calls with the deeds needed to compel both sides to lay down arms, even if only temporarily.
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Why Russia’s Alliance With China is Improbable, But Not Impossible

Simon Saradzhyan September 21, 2020 Partner Posts
The relationship between China and Russia is getting stronger by the hour. While some might say that Russia and China are in a de facto non-aggression pact, a deeper alliance is still unlikely, though not impossible.
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Belarus At the Eye of the Storm

Center for the National Interest August 25, 2020 Partner Posts
The rapidly developing situation in Belarus could potentially trigger the most significant shift in the European status quo since events in Ukraine in 2014. The Center for the National interest and some of the leading Russian and American foreign policy experts discuss the potential effects of the ongoing protests in Minsk.
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Trump and Putin's Pandemic Duet: Trump's America Is Far More out of Tune

Judyth Twigg and J. Stephen Morrison August 21, 2020 Partner Posts
Russian president Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump share a playbook that has led each country into deep turmoil. But Trump's policies have led America's coronavirus outbreak to far outstrip Russia’s.
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Exposing Putin's Hidden Riches Won't Stop Russia's Election Meddling

Lincoln Pigman August 19, 2020 Future Policy Leaders
The deep flaws in one of Washington’s more popular plans to stop Russia’s election meddling shows just how much work remains to be done on deterring foreign adversaries from undermining the integrity of U.S. elections.
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Belarus’s Protests Aren’t Particularly Anti-Putin

Rajan Menon August 19, 2020 Partner Posts
Although some Western experts have warned about a Russian military intervention in Belarus, Russia may sit largely on the sidelines in hopes that whatever government succeeds Lukashenko will be pro-Russian.
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