The Geopolitical Polygon: why India would not join sanctions against Moscow
India has unequivocally condemned the war in Ukraine, but has not supported the Western sanctions policy. Maintaining a good relationship with Russia is important to India in order to counter China's hegemony, writes Frédéric Grare, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
In particular, India remains dependent on Russian arms supplies. Although it has gradually drifted away from Russia towards the West in recent years, Western leaders should take India’s conflicting interests into account.
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Reliable Inferiority: What Russia's experience of living under sanctions teaches us
'Grey' schemes and parallel payment systems enable Russia to sustain foreign trade with relative success, but they do not resolve the core problems of a sanctioned economy. Instead, they merely postpone them and create an illusion of 'normalisation'. In other words, they appear effective in the medium term while increasing the accumulated costs over the long term.
Cutting Off The Tail Piece By Piece: As a result of Trump's new sanctions, oil and gas exports may decline by more than 25% in 2026, and the budget could lose more than 1 trillion roubles
The introduction of sanctions against Russia’s largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, marked a turning point in Donald Trump’s policy. Having moved away from the idea of tariff pressure, he returned to the sanctions-based approach characteristic of Joe Biden’s administration. This strategy appears less ambitious, but more realistic.
An Ultimatum With a Triple Bottom Line: Why Trump is demanding that NATO impose tariffs on China
As is often the case, absurd populist demands, rational arguments and practical aims in Trump’s ultimatum are tightly interwoven. He manages both to refrain from imposing new pressure on Russia and at the same time to force Europe into buying American gas.