Executive Summary: Russian businesses have experienced serious losses since the beginning of the war in Ukraine due to Western sanctions, but many continue to trust the Kremlin. Some companies viewed the sanctions and the isolation of Russia as an opportunity for growth in the domestic... MORE

Executive Summary: Moscow hopes the protests in Armenia about the return of four villages to Azerbaijan will spread and force Yerevan to slow its efforts to integrate with the West. The belief that Moscow is backing these protests is having the opposite effect, prompting Yerevan... MORE

Executive Summary: Russia passed legislation creating a Cossack “mobilization reserve,” a reflection of Moscow’s broader efforts to use the state-registered Cossack movement as a recruitment tool for the war in Ukraine. The Cossacks loyal to the Kremlin are playing an increasingly active role in Russia’s... MORE

Executive Summary: The deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a political signal to unnerve the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) easternmost member states and a practical preparation for nuclear escalation. Russia’s storage of nuclear warheads on Belarusian territory suggests that the Kremlin... MORE

Executive Summary: To avoid mass mobilization, Moscow has called on Russian regions to start forming “volunteer battalions” to assist and even act in place of the regular armed forces. Battalions have formed in the North Caucasus, a region that suffered disproportionately high losses at the... MORE

Executive Summary: Russia’s State Statistics Service’s (Rosstat) newly published data on the military-industrial complex in Q1 2024 demonstrates limitations for arms production. The increase in some manufactured goods is in part due to Russia evading sanctions to continue importing electronic devices, demonstrating its dependence on... MORE

Executive Summary: Consolidation and refinement of military information power capabilities within the new Information Support Force (ISF) continues to reflect the PLA’s outsized emphasis on battlespace information control in multi-domain integrated joint operations. The April 2024 reorganization eliminated the Strategic Support Force and subordinated the... MORE

Executive Summary: The Comprehensive National Security Concept has expanded over the last decade to cover areas the People’s Republic of China (PRC) perceives to be its territory, which now includes the deep sea, space, and digital networks. Xi Jinping has pushed the totalizing conception of... MORE

Executive Summary: The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force likely was designed principally as a transitional structure meant to provide a home for disparate space, cyber, and informatization forces until their force structure could be developed enough to stand as independent branches. The successor... MORE

Executive Summary: Neither Russia nor Ukraine will win or lose the war solely based on what happens at the front, rather, both Moscow and Kyiv seek to bring the war home to the other to gain an advantage. Each has attacked the other with bombs... MORE