Prénom de l'expert

Marlène

Nom de l'expert

LARUELLE

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Russian government has been proactive in the ideological realm to ensure the sustainability of the war for Russian society. 

While Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a decoupling with the West on a scale not seen since the worst years of the Cold War, Russia has not been isolated from the non-Western world and has even reinvested its diplomatic energy toward the Global South.

Russia’s Islam has been much more than the two Chechen wars, and regular terrorist actions that have shaken the Russian territory. Islam constitutes an integral part of Russia’s history and culture, and the Putin regime regularly celebrates Islam’s contribution to the country and its great power reassertion.

This paper argues that Russia’s soft power should be understood as a niche soft power, microtargeting some specific audiences based on four particularisms:

The charge of "fascism" has become a strategic narrative of the current world order.

Like the proverbial cat, some concepts have several lives. Or, like the mythological phoenix, they can be reborn from the ashes. This is certainly the case of the Intermarium, a geopolitical concept that envisaged an alliance of countries reaching from the Baltic Sea over the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea that would serve as a third power bloc between Germany and Russia.

Of Russia’s 146 million citizens (if we include those in Crimea), 63 million—or 43 percent—are under 34 years of age. Of these, 30 million belong to Generation Y (millennials in their 20s and early 30s), 15 million belong to Gen Z (teenagers), and a further 18 million are part of the youngest generation (less than 10 years of age).