Russia is becoming harder to study, but understanding it is crucial. To ensure their work is cogent, unbiased, informed, and thus as useful as possible, scholars must engage in debate, question assumptions, and be open to new technologies.
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In the last few months, there has been a flurry of discussion about the lack of support that the United States and its European allies have received from the Global South. To some, its reaction to the war raging in Ukraine might even seem counterproductive. But why did we ever expect it to be different?
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In the same way that it is difficult to say whether a single event in the last few decades marks Russia’s decisive breaking away from democratic path of development, it is difficult to say the same about the events of the last decade in Georgia. Nevertheless, this breaking away has taken place, although Estonia, the European Union, the United States, all Georgia’s Western friends have made powerless attempts to keep Georgia on track.
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Russia’s war in Ukraine has undoubtedly been game-changing for Europe’s security, challenging the long-held beliefs and assumptions of many Western nations and prompting dramatic shifts in policy, for example, in Germany, Finland, and Sweden. The war’s conduct has also produced significant surprises, not least the unexpectedly poor performance of Russia’s supposedly reformed military.
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Eight years ago, Russo-Western relations took a pivotal turn for the worse when Russia resumed its gaze on Ukraine and set out on a quest to subordinate its independence to Russia’s. That quest, capitalising on the promotion of regional separatism and internal insurgency through information weapons, cyberattacks and proxy militias, found initial success with the bloodless annexation of Crimea. Implications for the place and nature of hybrid war in Russian strategy were misdrawn by Russia and the West alike.
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The tenth Brief in the “Russia’s War in Ukraine” series concerns the Western military assistance to Ukraine.
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Russia’s war in Ukraine, Germany’s Zeitenwende, Finland and Sweden’s likely accession to NATO, and Denmark’s opting into the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy have produced fundamental shifts in the Baltic region.
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Despite Vladimir Putin’s success in painting the Internet in a dark light, global connectivity has re-emerged as a force for good in his war on Ukraine.
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Most readers will have been shocked by President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch wage large-scale war on 24 February. They will also have been shocked to learn about the crimes that Russian troops have committed in the so-called ‘special military operation’ zone. And they will have been shocked for a third time upon reading the results of the surveys conducted by the Levada Centre and others showing 80% approval levels among Russians for Putin’s and the military’s actions.
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