Russia in Global Affairs

The recent series of terrorist attacks in France has forced Russia and the West to recognize the undeniable fact that there is a common enemy – international terrorism, represented first and foremost by ISIS.

All of the parties with a stake in the conflict are pursuing their own goals

The immense gulf in mutual distrust and suspicion that has characterized relations between Russia and the U.S. in recent years has been laid bare by the degree of misunderstanding “experts” from each side have shown in their attitudes toward the other during the Ukrainian crisis. Why do we appear to know each other less well than during the Cold War?

There are many reasons for the release of Khodorkovsky after 10 years in a Russian prison, some of them known and many that are unknown.

If Cold War II hasn't already started, it is somewhere around the corner.

The ruling class has run into a perplexity it created on its own. On the one hand, there is governable life based on the apathy of some people and petty pragmatic readiness of others. On the other hand, the rulers have to retrieve the genuinely creative sections of society from dormancy. Governable life no longer satisfies the rulers themselves, while the unpredictability of awakening forces frightens them.

Political dormancy and indifference have engulfed the Russian people who have turned their energies to the realm of material rather than political ambitions. The consumer boom is rolling through the country, in some places energetically – occasionally even glamorously.

“Indeed, Putin’s conduct is the one of an absolute monarch,” a top official from the Kremlin remarked frankly. “But you have to govern all that manually and on a daily basis if you want to keep it under control. Forget about any system in the next 20 to 30 years, until the time when people who are 18 to 20 years old today come to power.”

There is a general consensus that it is time for Russia to make a breakthrough into the future. It is almost perfectly clear today what needs to be done, and equally clear how it should be achieved. The greatest paradox, however, is that after fifteen years of post-totalitarian development, a question is looming large: who should Russia make the breakthrough with?