The Last Year of Soviet Inertia

Abstract

This article addresses the radical changes in Russian foreign policy that took place in 2014. By the end of 2013, Moscow had exhausted the potential for progressively raising its international status by evolutionary means. As 2014 approached, Russia started to define its own habitat. The trigger was a clash between comprehensive and mutually exclusive integration projects.

Notes

English translation © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text. This article is previously unpublished. Fyodor Lukyanov is chief editor of the journal Rossiia v global'noi politike and research professor in the Faculty of World Economy and World Politics of the National Research University–Higher School of Economics. Translated by Stephen D. Shenfield.