Author: Pavel K. Baev / Eurasia Daily Monitor

Questions about the drivers, participants and consequences of the Wagner Group mutiny on June 23 and 24 are set to remain unanswered as the Russian leadership finds it necessary to close that shocking page. President Vladimir Putin has executed a sharp turn from describing Yevgeny Prigozhin’s escapade as “high treason” and a “stab in the...

The summer economic forum in St. Petersburg used to be a vanity fair of Russian opulence and corruption. But last week’s modest, if not frugal, event was rather an exercise in self-reassurance of sustainable stagnation. The international profile of the event was seriously curtailed, and the guest of honor was Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who...

The protracted deadlock in the trenches of the war in Ukraine is giving way to high-intensity battles, and this escalation instantly generates widespread international resonance, in which expectations of a Ukrainian victory are mixed with concerns about a Russian defeat. Now, the initiative is clearly with the Ukrainian forces, which, from June 5, started a...

Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military philosopher, was rarely studied in Soviet military academies, but the Ukrainian high command – seeking to “win first and start fighting after” – appears to be taking a page out of his treatise, “The Art of War.” Naturally, the intentions for a spring offensive have now become a plan...

The noise of jingoist propaganda and anti-Western hysteria emanating from Moscow is not as monotonous as it often seems, and the variations expose significant differences between and within Russian elite groups. Recent military setbacks, such as the destruction of a mixed air group over the Bryansk region on May 13 and the incursion of a...

From May 19 to 21, Japan hosted the most recent meeting of the seven heads of state (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) as well as the European Union in the so-called Group of Seven (G-7) format. Overall, the key point on the agenda was certainly strengthening the unity...

Victory Day in Russia continues to resonate throughout Russian society, and official propaganda in the past decade has strived to change the meaning of this emotionally charged and solemn day of remembrance into a feast of militarism and jingoism. The slogan “we can do it again” (mozhem povtorit) pervaded loud festivities even during the pandemic-caused...

The sea of mud in southern Ukraine is hardening into solid, tank-accessible ground, and political battles in and between all stake-holders in Russia’s war against Ukraine are escalating to a culminating point, the result of which will be determined by the course of forthcoming battles. Policymakers, planners and salesmen from Brussels to Beijing – particularly...

Combat operations in the Donbas trenches remain deadlocked, but their diminishing intensity does not signify an impasse in the course of the Russo-Ukrainian war, which continues to evolve on the ground. One notable change has been the cessation of Russian long-distance missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and other civilian targets since the...

Decision-making in the Kremlin had been so erratic – even before the re-invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 – that the proposition of President Vladimir Putin inhabiting a bubble of servile courtiers and carefully doctored information appeared perfectly plausible. Early April 2023 has brought even more evidence supporting this assumption of detachment from reality...

On March 31, President Vladimir Putin signed a new decree on Russia’s “Foreign Policy Concept,” an odd document that attempts to combine the Kremlin’s distorted worldview with an inflated perception of Russia’s role in the world, with the goal of beguiling the states of the Global South. The decree presents Russia as a particular “state-civilization”...

On March 23, the historic process of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement passed a critical milestone as Finnish President Sauli Niinistö signed into law legislation on accession to the alliance approved by parliament. In response, the Kremlin merely expressed regret about this development and reiterated the absence of any threat from Russia to its...