This article focuses on a little-explored aspect of Russia’s intervention in Syria: the new and diverse expeditionary forces engaged on the Syrian frontlines alongside Russian regular armed forces.

Russian Foreign Policy and Security

The Foreign Policy and Security research axis whithin Ifri's Russia / Eurasia Center analyses the relations of Russia and the Eurasian States with the rest of the world, with a special focus on security issues.
Director of Ifri's Russia / Eurasia Center
...Research Fellow, Russia / Eurasia Center
...Project Officer, Russia / Eurasia Center
Associate Research Fellow, Russia / Eurasia Center
...Associate Research Fellow, Russia / Eurasia Center
...Associate Research Fellow, Russia / Eurasia Center
...Associate Fellow, Russia / Eurasia Center and Geopolitics of Technologies Program
...By reinforcing hostility between Russia and the West, the Ukraine crisis has shone a spotlight on the limits and contradictions of any Russo-Japanese rapprochement. Russia has grown more dependent on China, just as Japan has become more reliant on the United States.
On the eve of the Vladivostok Summit, should we expect any significant progress in the laborious rapprochement between Japan and Russia?
This paper examines how the large Russian-speaking population outside Russia has been ideologically constructed and politically instrumentalized by the Kremlin’s leadership.
As the US-led international system struggles under the strain of multiple challenges, the complex web of relations between Russia, China, and India will be critical to the formation of a new world order.
Twenty-five years after the fall of the Soviet Union and the declaration of independence by the republics of Central Asia, the issue of guaranteeing stability and security still looms large on Central Asia’s agenda.
Current hostilities between the United States, NATO and Russia, though they might not be at Cold War levels, do indicate real danger. NATO’s continued expansion toward the east and the deployment of defensive American antimissiles in Europe constitute serious strategic problems for Moscow.
Since the start of the Ukraine crisis in early 2014, the states of East Central Europe have become increasingly important targets of Russian economic, political and military pressure. Russia finds itself in the trajectory of geopolitical retreat on the Western “front”, and seeks to slow...
From the very beginning, the armed conflict that broke out in the Donbass in the spring of 2014 drew in right-wing radicals, on the Ukrainian as well as on the Russian side. Organised ultra-nationalist groups and individual activists established their own units of volunteers or joined existing...
With the Democratic Presidential Nomination in sight, Hillary Clinton must still contend with a continuous conversation about her email practices. How will this scandal, or non-scandal, affect the presidential race yet to come? A look at the perspectives of the American constituency and ...