What is happening in Russia and how should the EU respond?

„Until recently, most Europeans believed that their post–Cold War security order held universal appeal and could be a model for the rest of the world.…They mistook Moscow’s failure to block the post–Cold War order as support for it, assumed that Russia’s integration into the world economy would invest the country in the status quo, and failed to see that although few Russians longed for a return to Soviet communism, most were nostalgic for superpower status.“, writes Ivan Krastev in his recent text, co-authored with Mark Leonard, entitled „Europe’s shattered dream of order“.

It is hard to explain to the average European what is happening inside Russia and often only the extremely brutal actions, such as the killing of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in the city centre of Moscow, reach Europe. Mariya Lipman, former Editor-in-chief of the magazine Pro et Contra,published by „Carnegie Moscow“, creates a much more detailed picture in her analyses of the current domestic situation in Putin’s Russia. She analyses the basis of the Russian hatred towards the West, the actions against everyone who criticizes the regime, and shows with real-world data the support that the President receives from the people and the way in which the media and the public sector work towards this goal. After the Ukraine crisis, the EU saw a lot of its own mistakes and managed to respond unanimously but what are its possible future moves?