a Kennan Institute Blog
Well-informed American friends once told me that a campaign that highlighted “getting along” with Russia and heaped praises on a Russian leader would be impossible in the United States. There is no constituency that wants it, I was told, and…
As part of its “mainstreaming Russia expertise” project, the Kennan Institute is sending experts on Russia to the 2016 Republican and Democratic presidential nominating conventions to assess the potential new administrations’ vision for their relationship with Russia and Ukraine. E.…
Russians have always been deeply interested in what is happening on the European continent. Europe matters to Russia so much that the past 500 years of our history have been driven by relations between the two. Will this centuries-old bond…
Russia has taken a number of cautious steps aimed at normalizing its relationship with the West; both Moscow and Washington seem to be ready for military cooperation in Syria; Moscow and Ankara are busy patching up their relationship; and Moscow…
Brexit will have some good consequences and some bad consequences, Russian president Vladimir Putin said in the immediate aftermath of the British vote. The president sounded restrained and impartial, leaving to lesser players the chance to cheer in public. “The…
Russia is constantly constructing something. And when it’s not constructing, it’s busy preparing far-reaching plans for more building (or re-building) projects. This may sound counter-intuitive given Russia’s economic decline, but in some select fields Russia has done a lot of…
“Without international revolution, neither the Soviet Union nor any other [socialist] country can triumph… We have to increase the number of our friends,” Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet premier and wartime Minister of Foreign Affairs, once said. Such wisdom from the…
Political forces catering to frustrated publics are rising throughout the world. Movements and political parties that for decades have been known as “fringe,” have become mainstream in Austria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, India, Latvia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, South Korea,…
Living in Russia and being involved in politics (or just writing about it or worrying about it) creates an odd sense of time. Political time in Russia moves at a carefully measured pace. It creeps along, rather than passing. New…