All Policy Analysis by Anna Borshchevskaya

New regional and international factors are creating conditions conducive to ending their decades-long conflict, with potentially important consequences for Iran, the Ukraine war, and Turkey.

Russia’s arms sales, military relationships, and paramilitary activity across the region remain central to expanding its local influence and boosting its anti-Western strategic interests.

If Kyiv does not receive military assistance soon, it may find itself in something worse than a stalemate—the scales would tip decisively in Russia’s favor.

As Russia leans into support for Israel’s enemies, officials should look for ways to show Moscow that the threat of escalation goes both ways—including through outreach to Ukraine.

There is no evidence Moscow knew about the October 7 attack, but it has provided support to Hamas and is taking advantage of the resultant blows to U.S. interests.

The antiaircraft system poses a manageable risk to Israeli operations along its northern border, but Washington must show Moscow and its associates that any benefits to such escalation are not worth the costs.

The Russian leader and Hamas share the goal of undermining liberal democracies, as correctly pointed out by President Biden.

As Russian forces make another push for Ukraine’s heartland, Western officials need to recognize the connections between the Gaza crisis and Moscow’s wider strategic goals.

An in-depth look at how regional states have responded to Putin's invasion of Ukraine—by their actions as much as their words.

The conflict over Karabakh had been the longest-running in the post-Soviet space, with major implications for Moscow's strategic mindset in Ukraine and other regions.

Putin views the Black Sea as an important springboard for projecting power into the Middle East, Europe, and the Mediterranean, and the West should push back accordingly.

An entrenched military junta could jeopardize America’s primary CT partner in West Africa, create ripple effects for security beyond the Sahel, and give Russia’s Wagner Group a new opening on the continent.

Seventeen Russian vetoes have hobbled the council’s ability to keep humanitarian assistance flowing, so Washington and its allies should look to the General Assembly instead—or take matters into their own hands on the Turkish border.

Russia’s domestic military crisis could hold significant consequences for its regional operations, from heightening the risk of clashes with U.S. forces in Syria to putting a public face on its destabilizing activities in Libya.

An in-depth look at how Russian leaders have played the Kurdish card over the past two centuries, including recent engagement in Syria and Iraq.

A former coalition commander joins Washington Institute experts to discuss the war’s legacy, the country’s current challenges, and how U.S. policy should evolve in response.

Amid flare-ups in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Iran and Russia are keeping a watchful eye on developments in the South Caucasus, from Israel’s warming relations with Baku to potentially shifting control over regional transport corridors.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had a ripple effect on global politics, including in the Middle East.

The region has been most receptive to Moscow’s war narrative, which Russian state-run media outlets have been permitted to spread far and wide with no Ukrainian or Western counter-narrative.

As the conflict enters year two, it remains unclear if the West has fully internalized the right lessons about Moscow, its partners in the “Global South,” or the parameters of long-term victory.