Carnegie Politika Podcast

The war in Ukraine has fundamentally altered the strategic environment for Russia on its western border. The conflict has expanded the line of contact with NATO and the alliance’s partners in Ukraine, and it now stretches all the way from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea. The nature of the relationship has also changed profoundly, with NATO viewing Russia as a generational threat, and Ukraine emerging as an aggrieved and highly militarily capable nation keen to settle scores with the Kremlin. Advancements in technology have also revolutionized the war and made the strategic landscape far more worrisome for Russia. How does Moscow perceive these changes? And how might future generations of the state security establishment address the challenges?

For more in-depth analysis, read Eugene Rumer’s paper, Belligerent and Beleaguered: Russia After the War with Ukraine.

Putin’s Russia has always been China’s pragmatic junior partner while trying to balance its dependency on Beijing, but since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the relationship has become ever more tilted in China’s favor. What are the current dynamics between the two countries, how is China promoting its interests, and what have Putin and Trump’s recent visits to Beijing changed in China’s relationship with Russia?

As the conflict between the West and Putin’s Russia escalates without guardrails, would the Kremlin dare to launch a military incursion into NATO territory in coming years? With the mercurial Donald Trump at the helm of NATO’s most consequential power, how might NATO react to an attack against a member state?

These were the questions addressed in a German war game, Ernstfall, co-hosted by Die Welt newspaper and the German Wargaming Center, which has sparked a lively policy debate inside NATO. Alexander Gabuev, who played Vladimir Putin in the exercise, is joined by the two main architects of the war game to take listeners backstage and discuss the making of Ernstfall and its policy implications.

Check out the Politico article about the war game, and read Alex Gabuev’s New York Times piece about it here.

Excerpts from the Ernstfall podcast are copyrighted by Die Welt and are reproduced here with permission. Listen to that podcast here.

Viktor Orban was one of the most prominent Russia supporters in Europe, blocking aid to Ukraine and trying to soften EU sanctions against Russia. Now that he is gone, will there be a drastic change in Hungary's foreign policy and relations with Moscow? Was Russia able to influence EU policy at all through Hungary? And what can be expected of the new Russia-sympathetic government of Rumen Radev in Bulgaria?

On February 5, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, the New START, expired. Absent this or a similar agreement, the world is a more dangerous place—particularly given the nuclear buildup in China, proliferation and rapid evolution of military technologies, and ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Still, Rose Gottemoeller, who was the lead U.S. negotiator of the New START, remains cautiously optimistic about the future of arms control. What could lead to a revival of U.S.-Russia and international talks to contain the risks of nuclear war? And what lessons from cooperation between the two countries in areas like civilian nuclear power and space could be applicable for the future?

Rose Gottemoeller’s book Security Through Cooperation: Space, Nuclear Weapons, and US-Russia Relations After the Cold War can be pre-ordered here.