Russia

Voice of America's Russian service quotes EWI's Jacqueline McLaren Miller and Danila Bochkarev in an article about Russian-Italian relations. Miller and Bochkarev discuss the importance of South Stream, the proposed gas pipeline that would connect Russia to Italy through Bulgaria.

"There is a clear political momentum growing for South Stream in Europe. What is in sharp question is the economic momentum," says Miller. "This is an expensive project—some estimates have put it at twice the projected cost of Nabucco."

"There are important cultural and scientific contacts between the two countries," adds Bochkarev. "Italy strongly supports Russia’s integration with the rest of Europe."

On October 20, 2009, The Washington Post reported on EWI's recent publication, Reframing Nuclear De-Alert: Decreasing the operational readiness of U.S. and Russian arsenals.

"The study does a good job of trying to move the debate away from the old fear of nuclear forces being on a 'hair trigger alert,'" writes Walter Pincus, author of the Post story.

Placing EWI's study in a broader policy context, Pincus adds: "De-alerting is among the issues being analyzed in the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review. When completed by the end of this year and approved by the White House, the review will set out the administration's strategic nuclear policies, including the appropriate alert levels."

EWI is working to ensure that the report informs these strategic nuclear priorities and paves the way towards more constructive U.S.-Russia relations.

The Russkiy Mir Foundation, a Russian cultural organization, interviewed EWI Vice President Andrew Nagorski about his book, The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II.

This piece appeared shortly before the release of the Russian translation of Nagorski’s book.

Ria Novosti, the Russian News agency, covered EWI’s report, Euro-Atlantic Security: One Vision, Three Paths. “The principle of equal safety should be realized for all,” said Russian Ambassador Vadim Lukov in his interview about the report. 

A analysis of Gazprom's strategic engagement with Central Asia by EWI Associate Danila Bochkarev is featured in the June 2009 issue of Pipeline and Gas Journal.

Bochkarev, who initially wrote the piece for EWI's web site, identifies the commercial interests of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, and lays out the ways in which these interests translated into a regional pricing strategy. "An understanding of Gazprom’s strategic imperatives in Central Asia could have helped to predict the conglomerate’s new pricing strategy towards Ukraine," he writes. "Further, it could have avoided – or at least attenuated – the January 2009 gas crisis between Moscow and Kiev."

Click here to read Bochkarev's article in Pipeline and Gas Journal

MOSCOW — After months of prelude, Russian and American teams sat down in Moscow on Tuesday to begin renegotiating the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, a key plank in the promised “reset” of relations between the countries... Separately, a report released Tuesday by the EastWest Institute, a New York-based policy organization, concluded that a European missile defense system — a bone of contention between Russia and the United States — would not protect against a nuclear threat from Iran. The group recommended canceling plans to station radar facilities and interceptor missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, deployments the Kremlin sees as a threat...

A planned U.S. missile shield to protect Europe from a possible Iranian attack would be ineffective against the kinds of missiles Iran is likely to deploy, according to a joint analysis by top U.S. and Russian scientists.

Click Here for a Russian Translation of the Washington Post piece

The United States and Russia on Tuesday began the first round of negotiations aimed at replacing a landmark Cold War-era nuclear disarmament treaty that expires in December, officials said.

The Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) should prepare for possible instability as the economic outlook darkens, a counter-terrorism official said.

Andrei Novikov, head of the CIS Anti-Terrorism Centre, added that nowhere in the world was safe from dangers like suicide bombers but it was clear that economic development or the lack of it in places like Afghanistan affected regional stability.