Russia

Executive Summary A small group of Russian nationalists has been calling to “reclaim” Russia’s colonial territories since the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991. After the Kremlin finally acted on these aspirations by invading parts of Ukraine, the number...

Introduction For much of the post–Cold War period, Central Asia was framed as a space of Sino-Russian coordination, institutionalized through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and underwritten by a tacit division of labor: Russia provided security, and China delivered...

Vladimir Putin, 73, has been Russia’s leader for over a quarter of a century and the driving force behind Moscow’s efforts to reassert control over its former Soviet and Tsarist empire. His eventual departure from the world stage will...

The following analysis was originally published on Two Marines, a newsletter on Russia’s war in Ukraine, defense technology, and modern warfare, on April 3, 2026.  During 2025, the Russian military continued to experiment with improving its employment of uncrewed...

An estimated 1,800 African men (17 South African, 272 Ghanaian, and over 1,000 Kenyan) have reportedly signed contracts to work in Russia as drivers, security guards, and other civilian jobs only to find themselves shipped off to the frontlines...

Emily Holland, Eurasia Program Director With the world still reeling from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one fifth of global oil is shipped, Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Qatar’s LNG infrastructure have sent...

The sudden outbreak of war in in Iran has snapped the world’s attention away from Eastern Europe toward the Persian Gulf and wider Middle East. Yet for Ukraine, the implications of this new conflict are anything but peripheral. The...

Executive Summary Russia’s policy execution structure decentralizes responsibility for the reintegration of war participants, while centralizing credits for success stories, because the execution of the policy is rife with political risks but keeping the narrative of reintegration under tight...

Bottom Line The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has become a central pillar of the Kremlin’s political and informational warfare strategy, which shapes narratives by fusing spirituality with nationalism. Through doctrines like the “Russian World” (Russkiy Mir) and appeals to...

The Tomahawk cruise missile is a near perfect machine. Its development followed advances in guidance and turbofan engine technology in the 1970s. It has been tested for decades. And it has been upgraded and augmented for the same amount...