Russia – INSIDE RUSSIA AND EURASIA

Armenia Tests the Limits of Post-Soviet Alliances

By Nina Bachkatov and Romain Constantin

On April 1, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s visit to the Kremlin underscored both the fragility of the “peace in the Caucasus” framework and the enduring complexity of post-Soviet institutions, more than three decades after the collapse of the USSR. Armenia has long been a pillar of the evolving structures that emerged from the Commonwealth of Independent States, from economic integration—most recently through the Eurasian Economic Union—to military coordination within the Collective Security Treaty Organisation.

The backdrop has shifted. The war in Iran now threatens all three South Caucasus states, particularly landlocked Armenia. Against this backdrop, Mr Pashinyan and Russian president Vladimir Putin appeared jointly before the press prior to their talks—an unusual move. Their remarks followed familiar diplomatic formulas, yet the tone was notably more direct than in the past.

Zelensky Seeks Leverage as Attention Shifts Abroad

By Nina Bachkatov

On March 21, President Volodymyr Zelensky said talks between Ukrainian and American negotiators would continue for a second day, underlining the urgency of the moment. Timing has become critical. A trilateral meeting aimed at ending the war, scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi on February 28, has been postponed indefinitely for obvious reasons. Zelensky went further, stating that he was “requiring” from Washington a “clear” timetable for the next round of negotiations with Russia.

What he described as a “political delegation” has been tasked with persuading its interlocutors, including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, that Ukraine seeks peace—unlike Russia—and that it is therefore incumbent on the US to sustain diplomatic efforts.

Ukraine War: Negotiations Under Bombs

By Nina Bachkatov

There was little to expect from the trilateral summit in Geneva beyond the fact that it took place and ended without drama. Ukraine and Russia described the meeting as “difficult” — diplomatic shorthand for an inability to move forward on the two recurring obstacles: security guarantees and territorial questions. Still, Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, and later President Volodymyr Zelensky, hinted at possible progress on the concept of a demilitarised zone. The devil will be in the detail, but at least the discussion is inching forward.

Both sides travelled to Geneva largely to signal goodwill about ending the war. Above all, however, they are anxious to keep President Donald Trump engaged — as are NATO and individual European governments. They fear that the multiplicity of crises, some of his own making, could distract Trump from Ukraine in particular and Europe more broadly.

War in the social media era

By Nina Bachkatov and Romain Constantin

On February 2 2026, a video circulated on the pro-Russian Telegram channel Voin DV bearing the caption: “Units of the Vostok Battle Group liberated the settlement of Pridorozhnoe.” The footage shows a succession of drone shots capturing the assault, bombardment and eventual seizure of the single street and handful of houses of this tiny settlement of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

The capture of Pridorozhnoe was not, in itself, strategically significant. It merely marked another incremental step in Russia’s grinding local advance. The manner in which it was communicated, however, is notable as an illustration of a new model of wartime communication that has gradually taken shape during the conflict in Ukraine, on both sides

War in Ukraine Reshaping Russia’s State System

By Nina Bachkatov and Romain Constantin

On January 19, Russia’s presidential administration and the ruling United Russia party announced the figures who will lead the party’s campaign for the September 2026 parliamentary elections — the first national ballot since the launch of the “special military operation” in Ukraine. The five-man list includes former president Dmitry Medvedev and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, both advocates of a hardline foreign policy; two Heroes of Russia active in patriotic youth movements; and a Hero of Labour who is a prominent war correspondent.

The move could result in veterans accounting for up to one-fifth of the 450-seat State Duma and nearly one-third of United Russia’s parliamentary group. But similar advantages were extended to veterans ahead of the 2023–24 regional and local elections, with limited success: few candidates were elected, and many faced resistance from entrenched local elites accustomed to distributing candidacies among themselves.

STRANGE PEACEMAKERS

By Nina Bachkatov

The American intervention in Venezuela has reverberated far beyond Latin America, including in Ukraine, and was the unspoken backdrop to the 6 January gathering in Paris of 35 representatives of the Coalition of the Willing. The sight of Nicolás Maduro in shackles before the world’s cameras was greeted with quiet satisfaction in Kyiv, if only because he had been a Russian ally. Some Ukrainians briefly imagined Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin gripped by the fear that he, too, might one day share Maduro’s fate.

That moment of schadenfreude was short-lived. What if Donald Trump were to send marines not to Moscow but to Kyiv, to depose what he might label an “illegal president” of a “corrupt country” unwilling to accept his grand peace designs?

Peace Plans for Ukraine – Trump in Majesty

By Nina Bachkatov

From plans to counter-plans, last-minute mini-summits, telephone or video round tables, the salami-slicing diplomacy deployed in the search for an end to the war in Ukraine has quickly shown its limits. One problem is that it involves too many actors with divergent — sometimes contradictory — interests, many keener to appear in the picture than to contribute to a solution. Another is that it lays bare the agony of traditional diplomacy in an age of instant media exposure.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30