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.
article

The HMS Defender Incident: What Happened and What Are the Political Ramifications?

Dmitry Gorenburg July 01, 2021 RM Exclusives
Inadvertent escalation poses the greatest risk of a political confrontation between Russia and NATO resulting in armed conflict, and as long as one or both sides believe that it is beneficial to use their military forces to make political points, we should expect more incidents of this type to take place.
article

Potential Fruits of the Biden-Putin Summit

Simon Saradzhyan June 04, 2021 RM Exclusives
At the Putin-Biden summit, both sides will likely be looking for low-hanging fruits—issues they can easily agree upon that stand to advance U.S. and Russian interests with minimal concessions. In our latest exclusive, Simon Saradzhyan considers low-hanging fruits, like scientific cooperation, and more ambitious topics, such as rules of the road in the cyber domain.
podcast

The US-Russia-China Triangle

Sean's Russia Blog June 03, 2021 Partner Posts
In this episode of Sean's Russia Blog, host Sean Guillory talks with Thomas Graham about the new “Cold War,” the United States, Russia and China.
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Macron’s Dialogue With Russia: A French Attempt to Fix the European Security Architecture

Juliette Faure May 12, 2021 RM Exclusives
While Macron has attempted to shape Europe’s strategic autonomy in the management of its eastern neighborhood, lack of support from the EU has impeded the success of this policy, as has Russian behavior throughout 2020.
article

Displaced Conflict: Russia’s Qualified Success in Combatting Insurgency

Mark Youngman and Cerwyn Moore April 29, 2021 RM Exclusives
In both Syria and the North Caucasus, Russia claims success in fighting insurgency and terrorism. Closer examination, however, shows this “success” carries major caveats and is more illusory than it first appears.
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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.
article

Five Years After Russia Declared Victory in Syria: What Has Been Won?

Thomas Schaffner March 18, 2021 RM Exclusives
Has the intervention paid off or has Obama’s 2015 prediction that the operation would end in a “quagmire” for Russia come true? An assessment of some key costs and benefits generated by Russia’s intervention in Syria.
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.
podcast

Protests in Belarus

Sean's Russia Blog September 11, 2020 Partner Posts
A few weeks ago, Lukashenko’s rule seemed on the verge of collapse. But now things appear at a stalemate. For the larger context for these mass protests and what they mean, SRB turned to Elena Gapova for some insight.
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Where US Sees Democracy Promotion, Russia Sees Regime Change

Benjamin Denison July 29, 2020 RM Exclusives
If U.S. officials were to critically assess the track record of American regime change, they might see that Russian statements against U.S. democracy promotion reflect genuine anxiety about regime security.
podcast

At the Brink: Loose Nukes

Lisa Perry with Ash Carter, William Perry, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and Sam Nunn July 20, 2020 Partner Posts
article

Unplugging the Baltic States: Why Russia’s Economic Approach May Be Shifting

Emily Ferris July 01, 2020 RM Exclusives
The probability of Russia resorting to a Crimea-style intervention in the Baltics remains low. As a key energy supplier and major trading partner for the region, Russia has more to gain by using economic levers as opposed to military ones to retain influence.
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