Russia

At last week’s NATO Summit in Ankara, President Trump was hosted warmly by Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Trump, who generally attends NATO summits with a petulant attitude, reportedly said that he would not have attended this year’s summit had...

In mid-May, Belarus and Russia announced that they would conduct military exercises involving the delivery of nuclear weapons to units in the field. Over the next three days, imagery emerged of Russian and Belarusian forces practicing for the employment...

The following analysis was originally published on Two Marines, a newsletter on Russia’s war in Ukraine, defense technology, and modern warfare, on June 5, 2026.  One of the Russian military’s most important developments in 2024-2025 was the establishment of the...

Executive Summary Russia’s war against Ukraine has precipitated a large-scale structural decline for the Kremlin across economic, military, and geopolitical dimensions. Domestically, its war-driven economy is consistently strained by rising fiscal pressure, inflation, and structural imbalances linked to continuous...

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...