At the same time, Moscow is strongly opposed to the collapse of Ukraine. Indicative of this is Vladimir Putin’s address to the leadership of Donetsk and Lugansk, requesting them to maintain the formal territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Although Russian political scientists do not believe the plans pose a serious threat, they are not ruling out a disproportionate reaction by the Kremlin, citing suspicion dictated by historical experience as a key factor.
Discussion of Russia’s North Caucasus, which dominated the press in the run-up to the Sochi Games, has been replaced by the conflict in Ukraine, but the region should not be ignored.
During the two wars Russia fought in Chechnya in the 1990s, the militants’ primary goal was to create a state separate from Russia. In the 2000s, however, the militant groups changed character and took on more explicitly religious goals and an ideology that shared more with the militant Islam of groups such as Al-Qaeda.
Negotiations on the fate of the Russian humanitarian convoy of nearly 300 trucks, which has already been on the Russo-Ukrainian border for nearly a week, are drawing to a close. The sides have agreed on all issues related to customs clearances, and observers have not found any weaponry at all in the trucks.
One issue here cannot be ignored. The new round of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh is occurring against a background of reformatting the territory of the former Soviet Union. This process includes the changing of the status of Crimea and the civil strife in southeastern Ukraine, all with unpredictable consequences.
Western governments locked up in short electoral cycles are bound to continue same policies towards Russia.
In the current context of perpetual Washington-Moscow browbeating, this narrative finds Moscow supporters in the Middle East and elsewhere. However, Russians have enough to worry about for themselves as IS not only has significantly influenced regional geopolitics, but has served asinspiration for extremist sympathizers in other parts of the world, breathing new life into their activities, such as for the Caucasus Emirate (CE) operating in the Russian North Caucasus.
Russian-Iranian relations have a much longer history and in many ways a more nuanced agenda. But if one would coin a concise definition for their current dealings, it could easily be "compelled adversaries, pragmatic pals."
The Foreign Policy Analysis Group is a strategic intelligence and research organization based in Moscow, Russia. We analize and advise on foreign policy and international affairs since 2014 with an aim to produce the most accurate analysis of current affairs in international relations from non-Western perspective.
To top