Russia’s Stealth Invasion of Ukraine
It appears that the Russian invasion of Ukraine that I have feared since March has now begun in earnest, with the opening of a new front in the vicinity of…
Russia’s Decorative Discursive Mimicry
The most persistent component of a variety of Russian pro-Kremlin discourses is its mimicry and imitation of the West. This was so in the 1990s and it still remains the…
Why Sanctions Against Russia Might Backfire
(Huffington Post/Berggruen Institute) Will Western sanctions against Russia work? It's not clear what that question means, since it isn't obvious what Russia has to do to end them. It doesn't…
Nationalism and the Logic of Russian Actions in Ukraine
(Carnegie Forum on Rebuilding U.S.-Russia Relations) It is not very productive to interpret the current international situation as a new Cold War or to see Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a…
A Tale of Two Russian Narratives
(Carnegie Forum on Rebuilding U.S.-Russia Relations) Two broad narratives have come to dominate debates about the sources of Russian foreign policy toward Ukraine. The “domestic politics” view argues that concerns…
Why Russia Intervenes
(Carnegie Forum on Rebuilding U.S.-Russia Relations) The ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine has attracted extensive news coverage and political commentary in the United States. Reading the commentary, one often…
Personalization and Patriotism
(Carnegie Forum on Rebuilding U.S.-Russia Relations) American media narratives generally tend to excessively personalize politics and international affairs, and recent coverage of Russia is no exception to this overall trend.…
Will Eastern Ukraine Turn Into Northern Ireland?
Since the downing of MH-17 the Ukrainian government has intensified its military campaign against the separatists in Ukraine’s east. In short order, the military was able to recapture a dozen towns and villages…
Q: Is Vladimir Putin Running a Proxy War in Ukraine? Here is What Twelve PONARS Eurasia Experts Say
I cannot exclude the possibility that Vladimir Putin is really afraid of NATO expansion into Ukraine and, unable to keep a pro-Russian president there, opted to destabilize the state in…
Who Shot Down MH17?
Today’s press conference by the Russian MOD shows that the Russian government has decided to double down on its narrative that the Ukrainian military is responsible for shooting down Malaysian Airlines…
Will the Malaysia Airlines tragedy change the trajectory of events in Ukraine?
The crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over rebel-controlled area of eastern Ukraine thrust the conflict between the Ukrainian government and the Russia-backed rebels into renewed international focus. The three…
Latvia’s 2015 EU Presidency – Already Devising Pathways through Thorny Environs
The recent German-Nordic-Baltic Forum in Riga was an exercise in furnishing new ideas for the forthcoming half-year Latvian EU presidency starting in January 2015. Along with brainstorming ways to strengthen…