Russia
Reports
[Vladimir Putin] only paid lip service to warmongering comments, but he spent most of the speech assuring Russians that he was aware of day-to-day hardships...It’s amazing how much time he spent talking about sewage.”
That engagement [with Hungary] appears to have led nowhere. … It looks like enabling policy. They [the Hungarians] already are deeply engaged with both Russia and China, and it’s not apparent to me that what this administration calls its engagement policy has changed that.
The political will isn’t there to push as hard as they’d have to to convince the oligarchs Putin can’t guarantee the security of their assets...if they do go so far...there are second- and third-tier knock-on effects because of Russia’s integration into the global economy.
The Kremlin sees conspiracies everywhere primarily because they don’t believe in the idea of independent media or civil society...This is how the Russian government justifies its very real interventions in the U.S. and other democracies.