PONARS Strategic Conversations

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has upended its relations with neighbors in the region. Over the last several decades, countries across Eurasia have varied widely in how they have engaged with Moscow, with some advancing more favorable views (both at the elite and the societal levels), while others remaining highly critical of Russia’s often domineering approach. But, now in its third year, the war in Ukraine has forced every country to reevaluate its relationship with Russia. The challenges are many, from managing the effect of international sanctions (and Russia’s attempts to evade them), handling waves of Russian emigres and the societal tensions they create, and assessing new threats to their own sovereignty in light of Russia’s aggression. This eBook shifts the focus from Russia to the other countries in the Eurasia region and gives the floor to experts on and from these societies to analyze the broader fallout of the war in Ukraine.

Nargis Kassenova is a senior fellow and director of the Program on Central Asia at the Davis Center at Harvard University. Kassenova is a member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division, the U.N. High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, the Central Eurasian Studies Society board, and the Steering Committee of the OSCE Network of Thinktanks and Academic Institutions. She is on the editorial boards of the journals Central Asian Survey, Central Asian Affairs, and REGION: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.

Eric McGlinchey is Associate Professor of Politics and Director of the International Relations Policy Task Force at the George Mason University. He is the author of Chaos, Violence, Dynasty: Politics and Islam in Central Asia (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). McGlinchey has published widely in academic journals and the popular press and has contributed to U.S. government studies on China’s reception in Central Asia, Political Party Assistance in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and Violence and Insurgency in Central Asia.

Mariya Omelicheva is a Professor of Strategy at National War College. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Purdue University and JD in International Law from Moscow National Law Academy. Omelicheva’s research and teaching interests include international and Eurasian security, counterterrorism and human rights, democracy promotion in the post-Soviet territory, Russia’s foreign and security policy, gender and security, and crime-terror nexus in Eurasia.

Ryhor Nyzhnikau is a Senior Research Fellow in Russia, the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Eurasia programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He works on Russia’s and the EU’s policies towards Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, and studies the institutional transformations and political developments in these countries. His publications include EU-Induced Change in Post-Soviet Space: Promoting Reforms in Moldova and Ukraine (London: Routledge, 2019), and Russian policy towards Belarus after 2020: At a turning point? (Lexington Books, forthcoming), co-edited with Arkady Moshes.