Russia

Conducting free and long-term research on China and collaboration with Chinese researchers is crucial to understanding the second world power. German China scholar Thomas Heberer shares his insights into China’s complex relationship with Russia, the repression of the Uyghurs, entrepreneurs and the social credit system.

The invasion of Ukraine can seem to resurrect the images of the past: conquering armies, cities under siege, widespread destruction. The references to the Second World War abound, but they should not obscure the fact that this conflict, with all its complexity and tragedy, belongs firmly to the present.

As Russia sets out to invade Ukraine, eight years after the Maidan Revolution and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ukrainian economist Volodymyr Vakhitov looks back at the transformations Ukraine has undergone since 2014, and its relationship with Russia and Russians.

During the Soviet era, October 1917 was the central political and cultural reference. One hundred years later, Russian society is still deeply divided over its past. Will the centenary of the Revolution be the great moment of national reconciliation the Russian power wants it to be?

A virulent nationalism is currently being injected along Russia’s newly blurred southwestern border with Eastern Ukraine. As tempting as it my be to slip back into Cold War rhetorics, Monica Eppinger warns us that the old framework and distant gaze of geopolitics are prone to missing much.

Since the year 2000, Russia has seen rapidly increasing inequality and the emergence of a “middle class”. At the same time, the demographic crisis has ultimately led to pro-birth policies. Cécile Lefèvre interrogates the evolution of Russia’s social and demographic predicaments in the context of recent economic and geopolitical crises.

What lies beneath Putinism? Taking a look at Russia’s history and culture, Michel Eltchaninoff shows that the success of Vladimir Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric, though drawn partly from pre-Revolutionary thought, is as much the result of the post-war Soviet Union’s strong nationalist streak that continues to shape Russian society.

How can we explain Vladimir Putin’s extraordinary levels of popularity in Russia? Beyond accusations of poll manipulation and propaganda, Carine Clément traces the history and characteristics of “Putinism”, a system of ideas and practices feeding on patriotism and a general sense of political apathy throughout Russia.

As pundits in the West comment on the rise of “anti-Americanism” in Russia, Americans wonder about the origins of this anti- US sentiment. In this essay, Eliot Borenstein explains that, against all odds, the hostility towards America comes from a place of love.

According to Ukrainian economist V. Vakhitov, the analyses of the Ukrainian political crisis overstate the importance of the Russian tutelage. The country is not as divided as it is said to be, between Pro-European West and pro-Russian East. Today’s revolts against authorities should be seen as a larger protest against a corrupt regime.

Has Russia, amidst rising social discontent and pervasive economic crisis, rediscovered collective mobilization? In this essay, Carine Clément emphasizes the potential for self-organization evident in mobilization “from below,” which is rapidly expanding in daily life.

Already troubled by the recognition of the independence of the Abkhazian and South Ossetian republics, many regional leaders in the Russian Federation are questioning Moscow’s control, and accuse Moscow of managing the economic crisis in an authoritative way. The “power vertical”, the main axis of Putin’s doctrine to maintain control over the Federation since 2000, could be weakened.