A one-year extension to the current aid arrangements would be no one’s first choice—but would ensure civilians in Idlib continue to receive help
The next international showdown on Syria is quickly coming into view. After ten years of conflict, Bashar al-Assad may have won the war, but much is left to be done to win the peace. This is nowhere more so than in the province of Idlib, which is home to nearly 3 million people who now live under the control of extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)...
... other hand, has drawn increasingly closer to Islamist radicals, who have nothing in common with the Western values. Ten years after the conflict broke out, the US maintains a largely symbolic military presence in Syria’s northeast regions, while the European Union is plainly unable to settle on a new strategy in Syria.
Should Russia be considered a winner? Tactically—yes. Russia’s successful and relatively low-budget military operation quickly made Moscow the principal external actor in Syria....
Report 65/2021
Report 65/2021
The report analyses the application of foreign sanctions against Russian citizens, companies and economy sectors. It also considers global trends in the use of sanctions and restrictive measures against Russia within individual areas (the “Ukrainian package,” sanctions against pipeline projects, “cyber sanctions,” etc.). The report is based on Sanctions Event Database compiled by the Russian International Affairs Council. It contains data for 2020 into early 2021....
... EU’s own sanctions policy
One of the important decisions of the new US administration was its revision of the sanctions policy inherited from President Donald Trump. The “toxic” assets of the departed team include deterioriated relations with the European Union. The divisions between Washington and Brussels have existed since long before Trump’s arrival in the White House. The EU categorically does not accept US extraterritorial sanctions. Back in 1996, the EU Council approved the so-called ...
Although sanctions have affected the Russian economy, it continues to grow and become resilient towards increased trade barriers
Since 2014, Russian and American diplomacy has been defined by economic sanctions. This has become the default, expected option for U.S. policymakers—but Russia has refused to concede, repent and ask for forgiveness. The U.S. had hoped Russia would experience just enough economic hardship that they would revert their course, retract their reunification with Crimea, and...
We will not see an early US-Russian summit in 2021
1. Narratives
Russian leadership tried hard to avoid any statements that would indicate its preference for Donald Trump. Still, it is clear that the election of Joe Biden does not quite fit into the official Russian narrative on the contemporary international system. Biden’s predecessor in the White House with his explicit nationalistic, unilateralist, and transactional approach to foreign policy, was regarded in Moscow as a graphic manifestation...
The conference was attended by the representatives of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Interfax Group, Russian and foreign companies, as well as leading Russian experts on sanctions policy
On December 11, 2020, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), together with
Interfax Group
, with the support of
X-Compliance
, held an annual conference on sanctions risks for Russian and international business: 2020 results and 2021 perspectives. The conference was attended by the...
... the EU
has never had
either the power or the political will to transform those theories into a practical policy;
(3) with the USA’s impending return to the heart of the Euro-Atlantic solidarity, these theories will lose their relevance to some degree.... ... its member states; it should now be a matter of bolstering their power and solidarity. “The worst that can happen for the European Union is that the outcome of the U.S. election allows us to slip back into that state of apathy, complacency and resignation ...
Even a partial restoration of transatlantic unity under a President Biden will be a blow to the official Kremlin narrative about the inexorable movement of the international system toward a polycentric world order
For several long years now, the European Union has been waging onerous trench warfare on two fronts. On the eastern front, Brussels has been in conflict with a malign Moscow since 2014: refusing to repeal sanctions against Russia, deflecting all the Kremlin’s new information attacks,...
... Russian-Chinese relations have gained potential. This is not a military alliance. However, Russia and China have acquired a significant reserve of confidence. Growing US pressure is pushing the two powers closer together.
Under these conditions, the European Union is becoming important for America. Almost all EU countries are US military allies in NATO. However, the North Atlantic Alliance is not even remotely focused on containing China. It was indirectly involved in the fight against international ...
