What characterizes today’s Russia more than banal corruption or inadequate rule of law is the rebirth of feudal attitudes between rulers and ruled, and the reconstitution of a multilayered, highly stratified social structure.

The Helsinki summit may represent a triumph of sorts for Putin and his worldview, but it’s not likely to be a long-lasting one.

Reforms have stalled and the Ukrainian President is overseeing a state captured by its elites. What can be done?

It’s time to think creatively about how to help Ukraine. Giving more money to an increasingly corrupt government is not working.

A modest, low-cost proposal to remove an existential threat to the United States.

A new book urging the West to reconcile with Russia gives too much credit to Russia and too little to the West.

Russia should be counted among the European colonial empires—and as the only one left standing. That’s the key to comprehending its future.

Politically and poetically, Yevtushenko pushed to extend—but never to break—the limits of the permissible in Soviet society.

The false dichotomy of “liberals vs. étatists” obscures the real divisions in Russian society.

By standard scholarly definition, Russia today is not an illiberal democracy: It is an early-stage fascist state.