Among Russia’s strategic priorities, Asia traditionally played a secondary role compared to the West. In the mid-1990s, then Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov initiated a rapprochement with China and India. Then, in 2014, deteriorating relations between Russia and the West...

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
...Moscow's approach to the Middle East has undergone real changes from Soviet times to the present day: it evolved from creating zones of influence against the background of confrontation with the West to seeing the region through the prism of mainly economic interests, and, finally, to Moscow’s...
The discussion about the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) opposes two narratives. The first considers they play an increasing role in the international relations as the West is loosing power; the other sees the BRICS as a charade. But the key role played by the...
The Eurasian axis of Russian foreign policy has been given several impetuses over the last two years. The most important of these has been the sharp deterioration in relations with the West against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis.
Over the last few years both the United States and Russia seem to have changed their conception of how to deploy force.
Julien Nocetti outlines the new geopolitical challenges posed by the current stand-off between Russia and the West over Ukraine, which have added to the general defensive leitmotiv in the Russian domestic internet governance with a tighter grip on online communications and transactions...
Since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine, Russia has been waging an information war that reflects its perception of its relationship towards the West as being that of a state of permanent conflict which needs the use of alternative tools to weaken both the enemy’s will and the capabilities...
During the Cold War, Algeria was one of the Soviet Union’s favored partners. Ties between the two countries deteriorated during the 1990s before going through a renewal around fifteen years ago.
To implement the “grand strategy”, Moscow’s strongest card is the energy weapon. However, the fall in oil prices and the conflict in Ukraine have brought things sharply into perspective. The traditional military dimension of the army is currently resigned to waging “limited wars” in localized...
Russia’s economic crisis was not caused by decisions taken by the West following the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It was predicted and widely mediatized.