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Informal Economy and the Fiscal-Military State: Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object

Jem Morrow on why Russia’s fiscal-military state keeps crashing into the immovable object of mass economic informality — and why the war only sharpened the paradox
Riddle Political News Week
Kozak’s Return?
Andrey Pertsev sums up the political week (December 22−26)
Andrey Pertsev sums up the political week (December 22−26)
By Andrey Pertsev
Riddle Economic News Week
Quality, Not Quantity
Nicholas Trickett with the economic summary of the week (December 15−19)
Nicholas Trickett with the economic summary of the week (December 15−19)
By Nick Trickett
The End of Russian Hegemony: How Azerbaijan Rewrote the Rules in the Caucasus

Roman Chernikov on the transformation of the South Caucasus in 2025
Irkutsk and Kemerovo: warning signs for regions at war

Andras Toth-Czifra on how declining extractive rents, stagnant wages, and unsustainable social obligations signal rising fiscal fragility in Russia’s industrial periphery
Russia’s Pivot to the Eastern Route: Balancing Azerbaijan with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan?

Nurlan Aliyev on the International North-South Transport Corridor Eastern Alternative
Russia-Africa Ties Catch Global Tailwinds in 2025

Ivan U. Klyszcz on Russia — Africa dynamics in 2025
Neighbors of Strategic Importance

Anton Barbashin on how post-Soviet countries have become crucial pillars of the Russian economy
Top reads
  • Europe as the Chief Adversary: How Moscow Has Rewritten Its Threat Hierarchy

    Anton Barbashin on Russia’s contradictory stance toward the European Union

  • Taming the Machines: How Russian Propaganda is Training AI Language Models

    Anna Andreyeva on how Kremlin-aligned disinformation is seeping from obscure websites into the responses of popular chatbots

  • The Decline of Russia’s Railroads

    Jeff Hawn on Russian railways as a diagnostic indicator of broader economic crisis

  • Not a Bloc, but a Mosaic: A Portrait of Russia’s War Opponents in Numbers

    Vsevolod Bederson on the groups that make up Russia’s anti-war minority

  • Neighbors of Strategic Importance

    Anton Barbashin on how post-Soviet countries have become crucial pillars of the Russian economy

  • Russia-Africa Ties Catch Global Tailwinds in 2025

    Ivan U. Klyszcz on Russia — Africa dynamics in 2025

  • Russia’s Pivot to the Eastern Route: Balancing Azerbaijan with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan?

    Nurlan Aliyev on the International North-South Transport Corridor Eastern Alternative

  • Irkutsk and Kemerovo: warning signs for regions at war

    Andras Toth-Czifra on how declining extractive rents, stagnant wages, and unsustainable social obligations signal rising fiscal fragility in Russia’s industrial periphery

Authors
  • Jem Morrow

    Political scientist
  • Roman Chernikov

    Political scientist
  • Andras Toth-Czifra

    Political analyst, author of the analytical blog «No Yardstick»
  • Nurlan Aliyev

    Senior Research Fellow in the European Neighbourhood Chair at the College of Europe in Natolin
  • Ivan U. Klyszcz

    Research fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) in Tallinn, Estonia
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