Russia
Russia and Vietnam: An alliance of convenience
Russia is one of the biggest suppliers of weapons to Southeast Asia, with Vietnam alone a major customer for Russia’s arms. While it is estimated that throughout the 1980s Moscow…
Why China and North Korea decided to renew a 60-year-old treaty
Sixty years have passed since the China-North Korea Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance was signed on 11 July 1961. On the anniversary this month, China’s…
Russia’s National Security Strategy: Same book, new cover
“The weak get beaten,” declared Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2004 after the Beslan tragedy.
Russia’s recently-unveiled new National Security Strategy bears the stamp of…
Putin has his generation of fans – even in Australia
The international cult-like fascination with Russian President Vladimir Putin, evident at various times among US Republicans during the Trump era, appears to have a foothold in…
Believing Biden
At the conclusion of US President Joe Biden’s one-week visit across the continent and to the United Kingdom, Europeans appear to believe in the need to push back against the…
Russia’s energy sector: Accumulating effects of Western sanctions
Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and incursion into eastern Ukraine, the West imposed targeted sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, the most revenue-generating part…
Nord Stream 2: Assessing Russia’s “serious geopolitical victory”
Europe doesn’t appear likely to reduce its dependency on Russian energy any time soon. The much-discussed, much-debated construction of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline…
Biden-Putin summit: Managing expectations
The United States and Russia are both carefully managing down expectations of any dramatic breakthroughs when US President Joe Biden meets his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin…
Russia–China: An Unholy Alliance?
Russia and China’s verbal sparring with the US over competing visions of multilateralism last week in the UN Security Council exemplified the closer ties forged over recent years…
Authoritarians seek advantage in India’s Covid crisis
As India grapples with an apocalyptic Covid-19 crisis at home, the Modi government put a temporary halt on its “Vaccine Maitri” (vaccine friendship) program shipping millions…