Russia

After threatening to shoot Russian law-enforcement forces deployed in Chechnya without his permission back in April and then backing what appeared to be a forced wedding between a 17-year-old girl and a 47-year-old married police chief, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is continuing to embarrass the Kremlin in public.
 

70 years ago, on April 25, 1945, 50 nations opened the San-Francisco Conference that eventually resulted in the establishment of the UN. The Organization became the keystone of the international security system, while its basic principles, such as supremacy of international law, sovereign equality of states and joint approach to the settlement of international problems, remain the unchanged benchmarks of Russian foreign policy throughout decades. 

As a result of the chill in relations between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, Russia has already left the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and the future of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and START treaties hangs in doubt. How serious a threat do these developments represent to global nuclear security and what further steps are the two sides likely to take?
 

The Chechen leader has long promoted himself as more than just a regional head. He tries to play the role of protector of all ethnic Chechens, regardless of where they reside in Russia. And even when the “Chechen trace” appeared in the murder of Boris Nemtsov (which Russia’s leaders described as a dangerous provocation for both state and society), Kadyrov still continued to refer to the “heroic” actions of the suspects.

Although recently Russians have started to pay more attention to its soft power projection in different parts of the world, Moscow has a long way to go to make itself look more attractive on this front. The Middle East is no exception.

The visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Russia on April 6-8 was widely covered in the media and caused a new wave of enthusiasm about the future of Russian-Chinese relations. However, Wang's trip was rather technical in nature, being made in preparation for the visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Moscow to take part in ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the allied victory in World War II.

Russia is ready to soften the food embargo, to finance major projects in Greece and participate in privatization. Experts, however, believe that the gradual normalization of relations with Brussels is more to the advantage of Moscow than an open split in the EU.

The key question for Russia is whether the Operation Atlantic Resolve will become the start of permanent stationing of American and NATO forces in the countries of former Warsaw Pact and the post-Soviet space. Moscow insists that its security needs be taken into account, whereas the American leadership believes that the motives of Russia stem from “misinterpretations and outdated thinking”.