Managing Moscow

Your monthly overview of major recent developments in Russian politics, economy, and society. June 2026 Issue.

History shows that Russia rarely changes its behavior out of goodwill. But it has repeatedly changed its calculations when confronted with sufficiently strong and persistent pressure.

Why the Russian Military Fights the Way It Does

Your monthly overview of major recent developments in Russian politics, economy, and society. May 2026 Issue.

Any long-term U.S. strategy toward Tehran must recognize that the stakes extend well beyond the Arab world or the Persian Gulf. They also encompass the geopolitical future of the South Caucasus and the broader contest over power, influence, and connectivity across Eurasia.

This is part IV of four-part series on historical perspectives on Crimea and the Dniester: What 120 contemporary factors and 2,500 years of historical evidence imply about combined deprivation.

This is part III of four-part series on historical perspectives on Crimea and the Dniester: What 120 contemporary factors and 2,500 years of historical evidence imply about combined deprivation.

A sharp analysis of how Russia’s Victory Day parade has evolved from a symbol of historical remembrance into a tool of ideological control and geopolitical messaging under Vladimir Putin. Ambassador Eitvydas Bajarūnas examines how the Kremlin’s growing reliance on World War II mythology reveals both the strengths and deepening insecurities of the Russian regime amid the war against Ukraine.

This is part I of four-part series on historical perspectives on Crimea and the Dniester. What 2,500 years of evidence tells us about combined deprivation.

Russian social media influencer Viktoria Bonya’s unexpected appeal to Vladimir Putin revealed a new form of discontent emerging not from opposition circles, but from Russia’s apolitical mass audience.

Your monthly overview of major recent developments in Russian politics, economy, and society. April 2026 Issue.

In recent years, Russia has most often been viewed through the prism of the war in Ukraine. That is understandable, but this limited view of Russia can obscure important things happening there. The global noise contributes to this as well: US domestic politics, the increasingly transactional stance of Donald Trump, changes in Europe, rising tensions in the Middle East, and so on. All of this overshadows one essential question: What is actually happening inside Russia itself?

Russia’s and Ukraine’s battles in the Black Sea following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine will intrigue military historians for decades as they marked a major change in naval warfare.

Your monthly overview of major recent developments in Russian politics, economy, and society. March 2026 Issue.

This report explores Russia's use of war crimes as part of its strategy in Ukraine. It aims to understand what Russian civilian targeting behavior tells us about Moscow's strategic logic.

This report aims to describe a microcosm of the overarching economic war between Western states and the Russian Federation.

The Strait of Hormuz is virtually closed. Tanker traffic has slowed sharply, vessels are pooling on both sides, and war risk insurance has become the binding constraint for physical trade. This is where a geopolitical story meets a market mechanics story.

What makes Vladimir Putin tick? Many Russian analysts focus on what he is going to do next, what his health is like, and who would seize power if he were incapacitated. Others opine about Putin’s desire for peace or war, the war crimes he committed during the occupation of Ukraine, or how he gets along with President Donald Trump.

If war sustains legitimacy, what would peace mean for the regime? This article examines how Russia’s internal resilience architecture shapes its strategic behavior, and where its vulnerabilities lie.

Your monthly overview of major recent developments in Russian politics, economy, and society. February 2026 Issue.

In attempting to persuade the United States to support Russia’s objectives in Ukraine, lift sanctions, and rebuild a bilateral relationship, Moscow is enticing the Trump administration with the lure of untapped resources of the Russian Arctic. 

Your monthly overview of major recent developments in Russian politics, economy, and society. January 2026 Issue.

Breaking Russia’s kill chain requires making escalation ineffective rather than trying to manage it or wait it out. The aim is to ensure that each step of a hybrid campaign, up to and including controlled military escalation, produces strategic losses for Moscow instead of gains. This is where resilience and all domain defense become operational concepts that directly deny the Kremlin’s expectation that pressure and blackmail will eventually pay off.

Despite the momentum gained at the end of 2025 in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, driven by President Donald Trump, there is no sign of a compromise acceptable to both sides.

It came as no surprise last month to learn that the Russian Federation was luring able-bodied Africans to come, fight, and die at the front in Ukraine. Duped by promises of training and professional advancement, young Africans grab for the few available life rafts, even when chimerical.

When a flock of Shaheds crossed the border into Poland on Sept. 10, 2025, NATO forces had two choices. The first was to send up NATO-supplied F-16 fighters armed with $500,000 apiece Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. The second was to ignore the Russian drones and pretend nothing was wrong — the choice that Romania made in response to a similar Russian incursion days later.

By the end of 2025, it became clear that the Trump administration is prepared to sacrifice both Ukraine and Transatlanticism to the quest for better ties with Moscow.  President Trump’s recent interview with Politico and the administration’s National Security Strategy espouse a view of a Europe where leaders are weak, societies are decadent and at risk of “civilizational erasure,” and values must be resisted by Washington along with far-right European parties.

The term "Deep State" in the Russian context describes a purported shadow global governing structure that is believed to have an impact on international affairs, including US and EU decision-making. Russia uses this narrative to justify its own geopolitical goals, sow discord within pro-Western cultures, and undermine confidence in democratic governance both at home and in targeted states.

Autumn is fading to winter in Ukraine’s east. The battle lines with Russia are soon to freeze over, though Russia is squeezing out some last-minute victories in key fortress cities. The situation leaves Ukraine tallying the results of the past year. Despite critical hits to the Russian economy, Ukraine’s situation is only bleaker.

Mali’s junta has been caught on the back foot by the al-Qaeda affiliate known as JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin) and by public opinion in the capital, Bamako, leading to a growing chorus of reports that Bamako might fall. Amongst a host of concerns, this outcome would mean that al-Qaeda would take de facto control of a key Sahelian state and could increase the pressure on Mali’s neighbors, Niger and Burkina Faso, to succumb as well.

The United States and Russia have fundamentally different models of how the world works. If this remains to be the case, Russia will continue to be a problem for the US – if not an outright threat – and the US will be the same for Russia.

The brief assesses Russia’s strategic options for continued westward aggression, concluding that the Danube Mouth axis represents the most rewarding, probable, and operationally realistic path. Since 2022, the US has strengthened its security posture in Romania, recognizing the region's strategic vulnerability, while the EU maintains its conflict-averse posture, emphasizing negotiation over deterrence

US policy toward the wars in Europe and the Middle East could make war crimes and nuclear blackmail more common, to the detriment of US national security and global stability.