• Coverage, analysis, photo and video coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup from Brazil

  • Check out the photos from the Group H matchup between Belgium and Russia at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil - Belgium vs Russia Pictures

  • Check out the photos from the Group H matchup between South Korea and Russia at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

  • The searchlight stops at Ukraine, full of neo-Nazis, corrupt oligarchs, nuclear reactors, a wrecked economy, a simmering civil war. God help us. Old animosities and ideological divisions come back to life. The United States and NATO stand off against Vladimir Putin

  • Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea and threat to Ukraine are causing damage he perhaps did not anticipate: disorientation of the United States and profound division in Europe, especially in Germany, and in NATO. A real risk of war

  • Archie Brown -- Oxford professor of politics and author of 'The Myth of the Strong Leader' -- explains why strong leaders are overrated and a collegiate style yields better results

  • In the aftermath of Crimea, attention is focused on the efficacy of the West's response in the form of economic and travel sanctions. More important for the longer term is what Moscow will learn from the Western response

  • After a quarter of a century of relative calm since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians are coming again. The regime of President Vladimir Putin has swiftly pivoted to much more serious gamesmanship in neighboring Ukraine

  • Will everyone please stop talking about a new Cold War? However badly things work out between Russia and the West, a new Cold War isn't in the cards because Russia today isn't the Soviet Union. Sure, there are similarities, but ...

  • Here again in the Ukrainian affair we see the Manichean habits of mind of the Cold War, still the most powerful precedent in the last 50 years of American and Western political history and policy studies

  • Hopefully, leaders from both sides of this East-West conflict will calm down and start thinking of their own long-term interests -- which might be more similar to the other side's long-term interests than the leaders on both sides realize

  • Obama's response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's power move in Crimea can hardly be compared to Neville Chamberlain's fateful surrender to Adolf Hitler's blatant theft of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938

  • Things are moving far too fast in Kiev, Moscow and Crimea to write about events there. But the past isn't going anywhere. Though you wouldn't know that from the way the Obama administration talks about it

  • Ukrainians are in uproar about how to force their distressed government to accept the majority will in Ukraine to join Western Europe, via association with the European Union. Their effort has produced rebellion and spilled into violence

  • Ceding to protestors' demands, Ukrainian parliament members voted to impeach President Viktor Yanukovych and hold early elections. Various media outlets responded by breathlessly declaring the situation a 'revolution.' Except that it isn't at this point

  • Vladimir Putin is the focus of attention in Russian politics. He is the policy setter and the final decision-maker. However, for a clearer insight into how Russian politics works this focus on President Putin is too narrow

  • Edward Snowden has fallen into the open arms of Mother Russia, where he was greeted at Moscow's airport by a Russian security service contingent. The plan reportedly was for Snowden to pass through Russia en route to another country, after sharing America's stolen secrets

  • The Syrian war is spreading fast, engulfing all of its Middle East neighbors and risking even larger conflicts, while leaving the pertinent question: What's to be done before the region explodes? So what should the United States and Russia do now?

  • The war in Syria is Russia's to lose. Arguably, it could very well end up being Russia's biggest test as a player on the world stage since the end of the Cold War. The outcome in Syria is largely dependent on Russia's willingness to lead. No doubt it's a strange angle

  • What if America's ultimate exit strategy for the Syrian conflict is to have it grind on ad infinitum because there's very little advantage to doing anything else? Increasingly, it's Russia that has the most to lose from the ongoing hostilities in Syria

  • Among many other demographic problems, Russia is confronting a rapidly ageing population. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has fallen from having the 6th largest population in the world to 9th. By 2050, it will fall to 15th place

  • After years of protracted negotiations, Ukraine is almost ready to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union. Robert Cutler describes how the agreement might impact the fate of Ukraine's Russia-to-Europe gas transit system

  • We have lived in the post-Cold War world since 1991. The post-Cold War world had two phases. The first lasted from Dec. 31, 1991, until Sept. 11, 2001. The second lasted from 9/11 until now. We are now entering a new period

  • The recent Russia - China presidential summit in Moscow yielded a clear message. Both governments want a comprehensive relationship, but they want one that is practical and based on common interests. Shop-worn Cold War ideology has nothing to do with it

  • The European Union's bailout plan for Cyprus has nothing to do with socialism but rather with much greater stakes. This is the EU attempting to outmaneuver an uncharacteristically flat-footed Vladimir Putin and Russia in a key battleground

  • The so-called 'reset' aimed at improving ties between the United States and Russia did bring concrete results. But now, analysts say relations between the two countries are deteriorating again

  • From an economic perspective, Russia has been unable to avoid the effects of the global financial crisis. From a geopolitical perspective, the position is rather different. Since the crisis began, Russia has taken a number of steps to strengthen its positions in Europe

  • It would seem that we're now at the stage of global economic lunacy where the worldwide socialist slide is so far gone that the president of Russia is lecturing about the risks of socialism

  • Russia and Brazil will cross paths for the first time in an Olympic Final after they edged Bulgaria and Italy respectively in the semis played on Friday at Earls Court

  • In what was a classic semi-final match, Russia advances after edging Bulgaria 3-1 (25-21, 25-15, 23-25, and 25-23). Russia will be playing Brazil in the Olympic Gold Medal Match

  • China has become the world's workshop and Europe has an insatiable appetite for its exports. Most now arrive on giant container ships. But as ports become clogged and delivery times critical, China is once again looking to the old land routes across Asia

  • Russian officials reported that a meteor hit in the Chelyabinsk region, near the country's Ural Mountains, setting off blasts that injured more than 750 people, mainly by broken glass

  • The past decade has seen a literary renaissance in Russia, with new authors producing ambitious works in all genres. But Western reader beware: they are likely to take you out of the comfort zone

  • Brazilian striker Hulk has signed a five-year deal with Zenit St. Petersburg of Russia after completing a transfer from Porto for a reported $62.9 million fee

  • As the world struggles to deal with its two largest foreign-affairs dilemmas, Syria and Iran, resolutely standing in the way are the BRICs

  • The Russians may have been left behind in the medal race, but they came up with some exceptional feats like when Sergey Kirdyapkin clinched the grueling 50km race walk title with an Olympic-record

  • The United States is trying to pressure Russia to put pressure on Syrian President Assad

  • Unless the Central Asian states, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Russia jointly contribute towards ensuring stability, Afghanistan is likely to fall to the Taliban again or even break up

  • The interesting thing about Israel and Russia is that while they seem to be operating in the same areas of interest and their agendas seem disconnected, their interests are not always opposed

  • Putin's support for the Assad regime will have long-term cost implications for Russia

  • The Russians could be very useful in finding a settlement and seem to ask simply that their own interests in the Middle East be respected

  • The way the world works now, and the way Russia has inserted itself into absolutely everything, it's impossible to avoid dealing with them on virtually any international issue

  • Both elections were both exercises in political theatre, in which the middle classes were absent, the grateful poor voted en masse, the opposition protested, and fraud was alleged

  • Lodged between Russia and China, Mongolia is looking to Japan to play the role of its 'third neighbor'

  • Having secured a new presidential term, Putin is trying to show the world that he still has control of Russia

  • While Russia remains centrally important to most of the post-Soviet space, Moscow's direct influence across this region is far from assured

  • This is an opportunity to review Washington's strategy is in Korea and how the countries around North Korea (China, Russia, South Korea and Japan) view the region

  • An offer to build natural gas storage facilities may help Russia gain leverage in Turkey

  • So Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has just been re-presidented for at least another six years

  • Vladimir Putin has built his political reputation on a perceived ability to enforce order and revive the country's economy. But economic data suggests that Russia has moved backwards under Putin

  • Politics dominate now, but long-term draws include middle-class and infrastructure growth

  • Vladimir Putin's reaction to Moscow protesters perfectly illustrates how he masterfully leverages classic subversion strategies to undermine the opposition and even ridicule the concept of democracy

  • The de facto authorities in the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have expressed concern and outrage over the implications of the Swiss-mediated compromise between Georgia and Russia that paves the way for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Whether they could thwart the signing and implementation of that agreement was doubtful, however

  • It has been two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but for those who witnessed the drama of 1991, memories remain vivid

  • One sign of the how highly Lawrence Sheets is esteemed as an analyst of Central Asia and the Caucasus was the large turnout of his fellow journalists for his presentation of his new book, 8 Pieces of Empire: A 20-Year Journey Through the Soviet Collapse

  • Why is Medvedev bothering to symbolically make this distinction in denouncing the federal bureaucracy? The answer to this question is highly instructive to those of us in the Western world, particularly as we implode economically under the weight of public-sector costs, among other things

  • In an attempt to boost economic ties with Community of Independent States (CIS) nations, Russia inked free-trade agreements with Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Tajikistan

  • Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev's decision to swap jobs may put an end to the diarchy in Russia but is unlikely to lead to any tectonic policy shifts. Instead, it will further cement the system of 'managed democracy', which in time will become so inflexible that it may fail to cope with a protracted crisis

  • Welcome, world, to 'Cold War Reloaded: The Arctic Frontier.' Time to pull the pin out of the top of that dusty globe you have on your desk and have a look at the battle line of the future -- rife with oil and high-value raw minerals

  • Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has outlined a grand vision for integrating ex-Soviet states in his first major policy initiative since he announced his intention to return to the Kremlin

  • Russia has entered election season, with parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections in March 2012. Typically, this is not an issue of concern, as most Russian elections have been designed to usher a chosen candidate and political party into office since 2000. Interesting shifts are under way this election season, however

  • Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Obama met privately before the G8 meeting in Deauville, France, and discussed the longstanding dispute between the two countries over missile defense, says CFR Russia expert Stephen Sestanovich

  • On April 24, officers from the anti-kidnapping unit of Moscow's Criminal Investigation Department and the Russian Federal Security Service rescued 20-year-old Ivan Kaspersky from a dacha in Sergiev Posad, a small town northeast of Moscow. Kaspersky, the son of Russian computer software services billionaire Eugene Kaspersky, was kidnapped April 19

  • Of the rapidly growing BRIC countries Russia has always been a sort of odd man out. While the others have registered double-digit or near double-digit growth for years, the Russian economy has grown at a much more moderate pace. But lately, Russia's economy has been benefiting from what many other nations, including the United States, are struggling with

  • For the first time in memory, millions of oppressed people worldwide, living under the heavy boot of venal leaders, are standing up, fists raised high. For the first time in memory, vicious dictators all over the world are visibly afraid. Though significant risks still lie ahead, freedom fever is spreading around the world

  • Russia's international behavior during the last decade has puzzled many U.S. observers. As seen from Washington, the greatest challenges of the moment -- terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change -- are global ones that threaten all states. The United States has been trying to organize multilateral responses. Yet the Kremlin has proved singularly unhelpful

  • While the Senate and White House wrestle over New START ratification, another U.S.-Russia nuclear agreement is coming into force with little debate or fanfare. Instead of cutting nuclear arms, the civil nuclear cooperation deal, dubbed '123,' opens the door to new peaceful nuclear engagement between U.S. and Russian companies

  • Belarus is a land between, now neither part of Russia nor a real European nation. Its president, intent on rallying the voters in this month's election, has cast Moscow as a threat to its very survival. The reality, as he is re-elected, is likely to be another balancing act between Russia and the west.

  • An international disorder unmatched since the interwar 1930s has been created by the drama of Ukraine and the Russians. At least no ideological dictatorships are on the march, only confusion, incompetence, and intellectual and moral disorder

  • After the tenuous deal struck aimed at de-escalating the Ukrainian crisis, Secretary of State John Kerry cautiously called it 'a good day's work.' Whether it will turn out to be more than that depends of course on Russia's willingness to follow through

  • Russia and the West are both warning of the risk of escalation to a civil war in Ukraine between pro-Russian and pro-Western factions. Except 'Cold War Reloaded' is different this time -- and the differences are worth keeping in mind as events unfold

  • President Obama is right. 'Mr. Putin's decisions aren't just bad for Ukraine. Over the long term, they're going to be bad for Russia.' But here's the thing: Putin disagrees. And on the matter of Ukraine, Putin is immune to persuasion

  • As I write, the next step in the Ukraine crisis is unknown. The new authorities in Kiev have sent forces to try to recover the official buildings taken over by pro-Russian forces in the East of Ukraine

  • After Vladimir Putin's speech in the Kremlin justifying and welcoming Russian annexation of Crimea, the western press now asks what next will Putin do? How far will he go? That question was answered by Vladimir Putin himself in his address

  • Vladimir Putin's land grab of Crimea, with more threatened to come, has Republican neoconservatives eagerly lining up to denounce President Obama as a deplorably weak leader who settled for throwing snowballs at Putin rather than military muscle

  • Today's fight for Ukraine began with the Maidan uprising in November, but the struggle has its roots in an earlier period of political ferment -- 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became an independent state

  • When Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Moscow is seeking to establish a military presence in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, many of us dismissed it as a private comment by a top official who may have had one vodka too many

  • The Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel sits on a hill overlooking the Black Sea. The Russian Orthodox house of worship is the oldest in the city, commissioned by a Russian noble in the late 1800s

  • Pussy Riot are now global celebrities. Since the amnesty of Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina in December, their lives have been repackaged into simple cinematic narratives of heroic defiance to Putin's authoritarianism

  • A chess piece has fallen in Latin America. The road to prosperity and peace for the citizens of many countries -- probably even yours -- runs through the recent death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and a counterintuitive deal between two nations

  • While Georgia's politicians believe that reforming the country's armed forces is essential, they remain divided over what roles civilians should play in national defense. Eugene Kogan outlines the issues surrounding Tbilisi's military reforms and what Russia thinks about them

  • Clearly, Russian leaders are keen to catch up with the world's leading manufacturers. What cannot be produced fast enough can be bought. As one observer put it, 'the Russian drone programme remains pragmatic'

  • Russia is calling for a political transition process in Syria, but has stopped short of saying President Bashar al-Assad should relinquish power as part of a deal to end Syria's conflict

  • A borderland is a region where history is constant: Everything is in flux. Turkey, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Poland occupy the borderland between Islam, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity

  • It would have taken a brave analyst to predict that BP would end the year having negotiated its exit from TNK-BP, the highly profitable but troubled Russian venture created in 2003

  • Although the technical implementation of the blocking has been subject to informed criticism by industry bodies, the powers granted over Russian website content are in fact nothing new

  • After two and a half sets it looked like Brazil would cruise to their third Olympics title, but the Brazilians eventually missed out to Russia

  • Russia's Dmitriy Muserskiy set a new scoring record of 31 points for an Olympic Games volleyball gold medal match

  • A prison cell in Siberia? Or exile in the West? Russian dissidents faced this choice under the czars, and under the rulers of the Soviet Union. Now this choice has returned to Russia under President Putin

  • With Russia's political clan system in shambles, no strong Kremlin figure is managing Chechnya

  • Almost the entire world wants to see Syrian President Bashar al-Assad thrown out of office -- every nation save for Russia, China and a few other states like India that revel in being contrary

  • After a decade in the doldrums, during which the Kremlin co-opted or marginalised all competition, Russia's political scene has come alive

  • The anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system under construction by the US and NATO in the Black Sea Region poses no threat to US-Russian nuclear strategic parity. On the contrary, it holds cooperative potential for the two leading nuclear powers. It could also stabilize the broader Eurasian security situation in the light of Iran's policy of nuclear blackmail

  • Russian billionaire and owner of the New Jersey Nets, Mikhail Prokhorov, will challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the March presidential elections as an independent candidate

  • The stage is set for the 2012 Euro Cup following Friday's draw that saw host Poland and Ukraine getting the top draws while Spain placed in a tougher group. Poland was drawn in Group A along with Greece, Russia, and Czech Republic

  • Dmitry Medvedev's and Vladimir Putin's apparently amicable decision to swap jobs is being touted by the Kremlin as a way to ensure Russia's stability. Yet if Russia's historical tradition is any guide, changing places is a move fraught with uncertainty

  • When it comes to dealing with the United States and NATO on security issues in Central Asia, Russia is acting tough while operating from a position of increasing weakness

  • Ankara's new independent image in Moscow could be threatened by the radar decision

  • The expectations of the last ten years that the states surrounding the Black Sea would follow the example of the Balkan region and shape themselves into a security community have not been realized. Perceptions of stagnation have replaced the hopes of a working and stable geo-strategic framework, based on a balance of cooperation and conflicts

  • The Russian government will embark on an ambitious privatization plan in 2012 by selling its stakes in state companies such as OAO Rosneft, the country's biggest oil producer, and VTB Group, its second-biggest lender

  • North Korea and Russia may be chummy, but South Korea and Japan remain suspicious of North Korea's motives.

  • For the first time ever, Russia is selling weapons to Bahrain, whose government has been given the cold shoulder by the West for a violent crackdown on anti-government protests, as part of an effort by Moscow to capitalize on the Arab Spring to increase arms sales in the lucrative Middle East market

  • Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has won a rare pledge from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. While on a state visit, Kim said North Korea was ready to abandon nuclear testing and allow a gas pipeline through its territory

  • A great deal is at stake in the Syrian uprising, arguably more than in any other Middle East revolt to date. That makes Russia's and China's adamant opposition to critical Security Council resolutions especially shameful. What's worse, Russia is selling arms to the Syrian government

  • Russia currently holds the dubious distinction of being the world's top source of Internet attack traffic. Russian-based IP accounts drive 10 percent of attacks, most of which target port 445.

  • In 2014, Russia will host the Winter Olympic Games in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi. Potentially an opportunity to project a strong image of the country and develop international partnerships, the Games also run the risk of drawing attention to a number of issues Russia might prefer stayed hidden

  • Russia's energy supplies ensure that Moscow maintains a geopolitical foothold in the European part of the former Soviet space

  • Now that Vladimir Putin is Russia's president once again, the result of still another fraudulent election, we should expect ever more hostile relations with Moscow

  • Putin's return to the presidency was not unexpected. But it comes as an anti-incumbent trend is developing in Europe. In response to these changes, Putin will have to adjust Russia's approach in Europe

  • For Russia, the recreation of a union is a strategic geopolitical necessity

  • In recent years, a new threat has emerged: the mafia state. Across the globe, criminals have penetrated governments to an unprecedented degree

  • So the Taliban is going to get out of the heroin business because someone convinces them that planting corn or some other crop is a better alternative?

  • Russia's burgeoning oil and natural gas exports are underwriting Russian efforts to regain status as a world superpower

  • The contest between Russia and Romania for influence in Moldova will focus on economics and security, given Moldova's politics

  • Poland has a limited hand to play as tensions between Russia and NATO increase

  • As Belarus grows more isolated from Europe and the West, it becomes more likely to integrate further with Russia

  • Vladimir Putin is likely to be returned to the Kremlin by the presidential election. The West will have to live with this result. But what sort of Russia will the world be dealing with?

  • As the Arab League agreed to go to the United Nations Security Council with a resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to step down, Russia was reportedly doing a major arms deal with the beleaguered regime

  • Russians are coming out onto the streets to transform their country once again

  • Reading through these dispatches last year, I was struck by the slightly desperate but nevertheless creative way American analysts tried to make sense of impenetrable Kremlin politics

  • Energy-starved Bangladesh signed a landmark deal with Russia to finalize arrangements for installing two nuclear power plants in the north of the country

  • Perhaps of all the painful developments in Russian society since the Soviet collapse, the most surprising -- and dismaying -- is the country's demographic decline. Over the past two decades, Russia has been caught in the grip of a devastating and highly anomalous peacetime population crisis

  • Ukraine, no stranger to crisis, is again in turmoil. President Viktor Yanukovych has failed to deliver on any of his campaign promises -- economic reform, increased prosperity, and an end to corruption -- and instead has rolled back democracy and the rule of law, deepening political, regional, and linguistic divisions in the country

  • NATO, Russia and Missile Defense mark a triangle which contains political promises but also the danger of failure and friction

  • Russian officials think the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a bloc of friendly ex-Soviet republics, can develop into a security grouping on par with NATO. But recent CSTO military exercises show that Moscow lacks a clear vision for how to utilize the alliance

  • In the 20 years since the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union became independent, the influence of the Russian language has been declining in these countries

  • David Cameron's Moscow reset resolved few of the fundamental issues afflicting UK-Russian relations. Yet by moving the relationship beyond politics, the visit proved to be a rather useful one

  • BP and the Russian state controlled company Rosneft have announced a strategic global alliance that involves the first major equity-linked partnership between a national and international oil company. While the potential rewards are high, so are the risks. Is this really an 'alliance fit for the 21st Century'?

  • Russian policymakers have often viewed the historical narrative of their country in ways contrary to actors in the west. Debate and free speech are the lifeblood of a democracy; that includes debates about history. Russia has often had a difficult time with its history

  • The last year has seen considerable change in the U.S.-Russian relationship -- or at least the desire and promise for change. But the prospects for Russian relations and Russia's foreign policy cannot be discussed in isolation from wider questions: In what direction is Russia moving? What will Russia be like ten or 20 years from now?

  • Around the world religion is on the rise. It is growing in countries with a wide variety of religious traditions and levels of economic development, suggesting that neither poverty nor social exclusion is solely responsible. The religious resurgence is not simply defined by the growth of fundamentalism but is occurring through a variety of renewed rituals and practices, both public and private