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“Letting China in would be a big step in practical cooperation. It has a security element to it,” says Senior Researcher Andreas Østhagen with the Fridtjof Nansen Institute. China has been very visible in Murmansk this week. On Monday, a groundbreaking memorandum on extensive cooperation in Artic
As a result of recently proposed reforms, the Russian Navy’s four fleets—Pacific, Northern, Baltic and Black Sea—as well as the Caspian Flotilla would become directly subordinate to the central headquarters of the Russian Navy, as they were prior to the military reforms of 2009–2012, instead of to the respective commanders of Russia’s military districts (TASS, April 23). This announcement, while …
Moscow very much hopes to strengthen both itself and its alliance with Beijing by helping China corner the rare earths market in response to American plans for a blockade of Chinese technology producers. Russia could do so by providing supplies of these critical minerals to China and by blocking other countries, such as Mongolia, from shipping them to anywhere but …
Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Moscow has viewed Kaliningrad as an important Russian outpost in the West—first under Boris Yeltsin as a bridge to Europe and then as an advanced post for projecting Russian power. More recently, in response to Finland’s decision to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Kremlin has expressed the hope that it …
The Russian Federation is rapidly losing its historical dominance over the Northern Sea Route to China and to a lesser extent to Turkey