Author: Pavel K. Baev / Eurasia Daily Monitor

The Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Bali, Indonesia, scheduled for November 15 to 16, certainly presents attractive prospects for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who needs to re-assert his place among the world’s most influential leaders. However, he has yet to confirm his travel plans and not purely out of concern about affronts from the...

The Valdai Club’s annual conference used to be a gala gathering of Western and international experts who appreciated direct access to Russian elites and expected to hear about new trends and ambitions in Moscow’s foreign policy from the traditional speech given by President Vladimir Putin. This year, few veterans opted to come to Moscow, and...

On October 7, celebrations in Russia for President Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday were rather muted and distinctly half-hearted. For the big day, Putin opted to stage an informal gathering of six leaders from post-Soviet states – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan – in St. Petersburg. The formal meeting of the barely functional Commonwealth...

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s September 21 address to the nation could prove to be one of his most fateful blunders in his disastrous war in Ukraine. In his 15-minute pre-recorded speech, Putin announced support for the referendums in four Ukrainian regions, declared partial mobilization in Russia, accused the West of aggressive “Russophobia” and threatened to...

Samarkand did not go well for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit hosted by Uzbekistan in the ancient city gathered many leaders of various Eurasian states, from Belarus to Mongolia. But it was Putin’s meeting with Chinese Chairman (the title Putin addresses him with) Xi Jinping that was of crucial importance...

In early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin spelled out his intention to punish Europe for resisting Russia’s assault on the world order and supporting Ukraine louder and clearer than ever before. Speaking at the high session of an economic forum in Vladivostok, Russia, Putin asserted that the confrontation in Ukraine has reinforced Russia’s sovereignty, so...

The long-promised Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south has not yet delivered any breakthrough, but it still signifies a critical turning point for the war: Russia cannot hope to win by sticking to the pattern of trench warfare and artillery duels. Some “patriotic” commentators have suggested that the failures of Ukrainian attacks would pave the way...

As Russian aggression against Ukraine approaches the half-year mark and combat operations appear to be at a standstill, a new calculus has been developed in the Kremlin: A long war suits Moscow’s interests and can eventually be won. This self-serving proposition follows the failure of two previous war plans: a quick and total victory by...

The meeting in Sochi, Russia, on August 5 between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was more than just another chapter in the long track record of bargaining and testing the limits of mutual patience between the two leaders. Putin’s war on Ukraine has badly damaged Russia’s international positions, and Mr....

The tide of the Ukraine war has subtly shifted as the Russian offensive has exhausted itself and the Ukrainian pushback has started to gain momentum. In retrospect, the pitched battle for Severodo-netsk and Lysychansk in late June and early July could perhaps be recognized as the high-water mark for Russia’s violent intervention aimed at exterminating...

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has clearly lost momentum, but the intensity of its multi-prong confrontation with the West keeps rising. Russian military command announced an “operational pause” in the Donbas after the hard battles for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, implicitly admitting that a regrouping of battalions, which have not been rotated in four months of fighting,...

The post-Soviet transformation took Russia from a fledgling democracy to a corrupt autocracy, but since the start of the war against Ukraine the Kremlin has taken a new turn, which amounts to a resolute top-down effort at reversing what progress has been achieved in modernizing the state system, economy and society. This experiment is unique...