GEOpolitics Issue №20

For almost two years, GEOpolitics has chronicled how Russia has sought to defy gravity—geopolitical, economic, and historical—by attempting to restore its imperial power. Twenty issues later, it is time to say what should have long been evident: the mission has hitherto failed and must fail in the future. The dream of a new Russian century, cemented by the annexation of Crimea and launched into full-scale war in Ukraine, now lies in strategic and moral ruin. Russia may still occupy territory, take lives, shatter cities, and spread fear. Still, its deeper objective—to build a durable empire recognized by the world and welcomed by its neighbors—has proved impossible. What Moscow holds today, it holds by force, not legitimacy; what it destroys, it cannot rebuild. Even where it wins, it loses.

And yet, the Kremlin clings to its imperial delusions, lashing out from Ukraine to Africa, from Georgia to the Arctic, as if destruction alone might compensate for decline. This is not a rising empire—it is a power trapped in regression, armed with nuclear weapons, flush with oil money, but lacking genuine allies, economic dynamism, or an attractive model of governance. The tragedy is that Russia’s failure does not make the world safer. Quite the opposite: the wreckage left behind—frozen conflicts, broken societies, destabilized regions—will take decades to repair.

This issue of GEOpolitics focuses on Russia, the tools Moscow employs to feign strength, the cracks it exploits in the international order, and the costs borne by those forced to live next to a neighbor that mistakes fear for influence.