Russian police officers check the identity papers of migrant workers arriving at Red Square ahead of New Year’s Eve festivities, Moscow, Russia, Dec. 31, 2013 (AP photo by Ivan Sekretarev).

Earlier today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov acknowledged that Russia is bracing for a rough year. “We will survive any hardship in the country—eat less food, use less electricity,” Shuvalov said. Russia, whose economy has been pummeled by falling global energy prices and Western sanctions in response to the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, has seen a steep drop in the value of the ruble since last month. But Russia is not the only country affected by the ruble’s collapse. Russia under President Vladimir Putin has been one of the world’s […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Astana, Kazakhstan, May 29, 2014 (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev).

On Jan. 1, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s flagship geopolitical project, the Eurasian Union, formally came into existence. Building on the existing Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, the Eurasian Union’s official goals are to enhance its members’ economic prosperity and political influence by promoting the free flow of capital, goods, labor and services, and by coordinating their agricultural, energy, industrial and transportation sectors. Back in the fall of 2011, when still prime minister, Putin made establishing a Eurasian Union among the former Soviet republics a major theme of his successful presidential campaign. He argued that by coordinating their […]