Russia

A series of bizarre theatrics involving Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close circles preceded his decision to invade Ukraine on February 24. In a recorded message broadcasted on February 21, members of the Security Council were visibly nervous. Even Minister...

Translation by Griffin Perrault  The Belorussian ambassador was recently kicked out of Ukraine. Lukashenka has fully surrendered to Putin – his country’s debt is in the red – and he will not receive one cent more from Moscow until...

The governments in Central Asia are treading cautiously in their remarks about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Central Asia, too, was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, and, when some in Central Asia see the news from Ukraine,...

  Executive Summary The time has come to openly regard the Republic of Serbia for what it is: A stalwart Russian and Chinese ally run by a semi-authoritarian government that proactively pursues ideologically irredentist territorial expansion in the Western...

Editor’s note: Arthur Waldron, writing in Orbis in spring 2019, offered his “Reflections on China’s Need for a ‘Chinese World Order.”’ This essay from Shay Stautz examines how those aspirations have fared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of...

  This paper was finalized before the Russian Federation launched an attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. While the ongoing war and the extensive economic sanctions adopted against Russia will affect many of the circumstances discussed throughout the...

Introduction  What is the Wagner Group doing in Mali? Since it rose to prominence after its involvement in the Syrian Civil War alongside the Assad regime, Wagner Group, a Russian-owned Private Military Contractor (PMC), has expanded its footprint into...

For Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is all too familiar. All three Baltic countries were occupied in 1940 by the legal predecessor of the Russian Federation and were forced to live almost half a century...

The shock wave of the Russian attack against Ukraine is sensed worldwide, yet the closer one stands to the epicenter of tragedy, the stronger one feels the trembling of the ground. Riga, the capital of Latvia, is situated less...

  Executive Summary The Russian Federation-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has existed for nearly 30 years, and, during all that time, it had never sent troops into a conflict zone in one of its members states. CSTO members...