April, 2022

• 13 April

  Russia’s ‘Return’ to Africa Is Less Than the Sum of Its Parts

  

  Over the past several years, international policymakers, primarily in the West, as well as journalists and commentators have frequently called attention to Russia’s renewed interest in expanding its footprint in Africa. These discussions of “Russia’s return” to Africa are usually couched in a fearmongering, manichean framework of competition, ostensibly within …

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• 13 April

  Afghanistan Will Put Russia’s Regional Ambitions to the Test

  

  While the failure of the United States’ two-decade campaign to reshape Afghanistan was a source of no little schadenfreude in Moscow, the collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s U.S.-backed government has thrust Russia into a challenging position. Even as President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia has no intention of deploying troops to …

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• 13 April

  Russia May Never Recover Its Status as an Energy Giant

  

  In the aftermath of U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement last week that he was banning Russian oil imports in the U.S., global markets delivered a stark message to Russia’s leading energy giants: No one wants to buy what they’re selling. No one, that is, other than India, which is the …

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• 13 April

  Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine: Don’t Mess With Us—But Let’s Talk

  

  For the first time ever, the Russian government has publicly released a document laying out the logic and principles underpinning its approach to nuclear deterrence. Formally titled “Fundamentals of Russian State Nuclear Deterrence Policy,” the report was approved by President Vladimir Putin and posted on the government’s official information web …

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• 13 April

  NATO Is Focusing on the Wrong Russian Threat in Eastern Europe

  

  As NATO has focused its attention on Russia’s offensive military capabilities in Eastern Europe, an equally significant and, in practice, more problematic issue has been largely ignored: Russia’s preponderance of “anti-access, area-denial” capabilities in the borderlands between the Baltic and Black Seas. Is NATO focusing on the wrong Russian threat …

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• 13 April

  Putin’s Big Plans for Russia’s Far East Aren’t Panning Out

  

  In early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, a port city on the Pacific coast, to issue a call to action. Russia, he said, needed a new generation of pioneers to revive the country’s eastern frontier. “The development of the Far Eastern region …

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• 13 April

  Russian Mercenaries Won’t Make a Bad War Worse

  

  News headlines this week warned that Russia is recruiting mercenaries to scale up its operations in Ukraine. Some 16,000 fighters from Syria and other Arab states have already volunteered, joining the hundreds of Russian mercenaries that were already reportedly operating in Ukraine. The whiff of guns-for-hire was seen as a …

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• 13 April

  Putin’s War on Ukraine Is Spreading Global Shockwaves

  

  Just before midnight on Monday, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo appeared on television to declare an unprecedented state of emergency for Lima, the capital. All the city’s residents, he said, were to stay indoors for 24 hours, beginning just two hours after his announcement. The controversial decision, which would later be …

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• 13 April

  Naiv in Moskau

  Der österreichische Bundeskanzler Karl Nehammer besucht Wladimir Putin – eine Mission ohne Erfolgsaussicht. Die kleine Republik Österreich gefällt sich schon lange in dem vor allem von heimischen Politikern gepflegten Image, eine “Brückenbauerin”, eine diplomatische Größe im Konzert der Großen zu sein. Was immer Bundeskanzler Karl Nehammer beflügelt haben mag, sich …

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• 11 April

  Mekke’de Kral ile Bayram Namazı: Kaşıkçı pazarlığı mı?

  

  Dün akşamüzeri havuz medyasında bir sevinç dalgası yayıldı. Hayır, enflasyon düşmemişti. Türk lirasının değer kazanmaya başlamamış, elektrik ve doğal gaz zamları biraz olsun düşürülmemişti. Bir Lübnan gazetesi, Suudi kaynaklara dayanarak Kral Salman’ın Cumhurbaşkanı Tayyip Erdoğan’ı Bayram Namazını birlikte Mekke’de kılmaya davet ettiği için heyecanlanmışlardı. Ekonomik krizden gayet kötü etkilendiği halde …

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