How Putin ran out of ideas and won
Russia has changed and Vladimir Putin has run out of ideas. Although he will still win the Russian presidential election, Putin faces the biggest ever challenge to his power once he re-enters the Kremlin.
Experts & Staff
Nicu Popescu
Distinguished policy fellow
Areas of expertise
Russian domestic and foreign policies. Eastern Partnership countries and their relations with the EU, post-Soviet conflicts, cybersecurity
Languages
English, Russian, French, Romanian
Biography
Nicu Popescu is a distinguished policy fellow of the European Power programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in the Paris office. His areas of focus include how the EU should adapt itself and its policies in light of the war in Ukraine, including the development of a ‘war economy’, as well as EU enlargement to the east and Europe’s relations with Russia.
Popescu served as Moldova’s deputy prime-minister and minister for foreign affairs and European integration between August 2021 and January 2024, and foreign minister between June and November 2019. In his second mandate, he managed the country’s foreign policy in the extremely tense regional environment shaped by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Under the leadership of President Maia Sandu, he steered efforts to build wide-ranging international support for Moldova’s aims to maintain peace and stability. He helped mobilise international attention to Moldova and concrete support for the country’s efforts to overcome the negative consequences of the war in the security, humanitarian, energy, and economic spheres.
As deputy prime minister, he was lead coordinator of the EU accession process. Under his mandate, Moldova applied for EU membership, obtained EU candidate status (2022), and the European Council approved the start of its EU accession talks (2023). In this period Moldova had been widely applauded for its reform record, having most successfully implemented the EU acquis among all candidate countries (2023).
Popescu previously worked as director of the Wider Europe programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations (2011-2012, 2018-2019, and 2020-2021), senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris (2013-2018), senior advisor on foreign policy and EU affairs for the prime-minister of Moldova (2010, and 2012-2013), and research fellow at ECFR in London (2007-2009) and at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (2005-2007).
Popescu has been associate professor at Sciences Po Paris since 2016. He also taught at the University of Barcelona (IELPO). He holds a PhD in International Relations from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. He has authored and co-edited several books and
over 60 policy papers, book chapters and academic articles, including authoring EU foreign policy and post-Soviet conflicts: stealth intervention (Routledge 2010), and co-editing Russia Rising: Putin’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa (with Dimitar Bechev and Stanislav Secrieru, I.B. Tauris 2021) and Democratization in EU Foreign Policy (with Benedetta Berti and Kristina Mikulova, Routledge 2015).
He has been decorated by Maia Sandu, President of Moldova, with Moldova’s highest order – The Order of the Republic.
Russia’s liberal-nationalist cocktail: elixir of life or toxic poison?
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The beginning of the end for Putin?
Russia's election results are bad news for Putin for two reasons. Firstly United Russia did badly despite the election being biased in its favour, and secondly it shows that Putin can no longer rely on an apathetic population.
Dealing with a post-BRIC Russia
Learning to deal with a changing Russia under a familiar leader
How the eurozone crisis affects EU power
The economic crisis has huge implications for EU foreign policy. There is less time for it, less money available, and Europe's ability to project soft power is in a coma.
A Chance to Reform: How the EU can support democratic evolution in Morocco
Helping Moroccan democracy through evolution not revolution
Turning Presence into Power: the EU in its eastern neighbourhood
The EU needs to be more influential in its eastern neighbourhood
After the revolution: Europe and the transition in Tunisia
Tunisians need European help to turn their revolution into a democracy
Of euro-pessimism and failures
Should we be depressed or happy about the state of Europe? In truth, no one knows
Publications
Push back, contain, and engage: How the EU should approach relations with Russia
The bloc should reframe how it speaks of human rights and democracy, while developing closer security and military links with select neighbours
A new transatlantic bargain: An action plan for transformation, not restoration
The Trump years galvanised Europeans’ efforts to strengthen their own sovereignty; they now need to agree concrete offers they can make to the new administration
The best defence: Why the EU should forge security compacts with its eastern neighbours
If the EU is to be more geopolitically influential in its own neighbourhood, it needs to start developing strategic security partnerships with key neighbours to the east and the south
Defender of the faith? How Ukraine’s Orthodox split threatens Russia
Introduction An average Westerner may well have overlooked the potentially seismic geopolitical event of 6 January 2019. On that snowy Sunday – Epiphany in western…
Transnistria: A bottom-up solution
How to defrost Moldova’s frozen conflict
Dealing with a post-BRIC Russia
Learning to deal with a changing Russia under a familiar leader
A Chance to Reform: How the EU can support democratic evolution in Morocco
Helping Moroccan democracy through evolution not revolution
Turning Presence into Power: the EU in its eastern neighbourhood
The EU needs to be more influential in its eastern neighbourhood
After the revolution: Europe and the transition in Tunisia
Tunisians need European help to turn their revolution into a democracy
European and Russian power in the troubled neighbourhood
The EU’s strategy for influence in the eastern neighbourhood
Articles
Need for speed: The case for a European defence production act
The EU’s red tape is preventing it from responding quickly enough to major crises. An EU defence production act could help
A digital agenda for the Eastern Partnership
By reforming the Eastern Partnership, the EU can capitalise on the huge opportunities for economic and social development created by digitalisation
Vaccine passports: How the EU can win the next round of covid diplomacy
A new EUROVAX scheme should be at the heart of the EU’s new offer to help its neighbours tackle covid-19 in the years ahead
Why the EU should stop waiting for the Godot of Russian decline
Many in Europe think Russia is in decline, but basing EU policy on such deterministic thinking is a mistake. The EU should deal with Russia of today, not with that of 2050 or 2070
Why attempts to reset relations with Russia fail
Offering ‘resets’ to Russia does not work. On the contrary, a more muscular approach to the country will yield results
The geopolitics of covid vaccines in Europe’s eastern neighbourhood
Many of the EU’s neighbours are hoping it will help them secure vaccines – leaving offers from China and Russia to flood in
How Russia and the West try to weaken each other
The West and Russia are both worse off for their efforts to try to weaken each other. This competition will only end when one side feels it is losing the race
Europe needs to nurture security partnerships or face growing isolation
No matter who wins the US election, the EU will need to play a bigger security role in its neighbourhood
How the EU became marginalised in Nagorno-Karabakh
EU diplomacy could facilitate a conflict settlement process by pressuring Armenia and Azerbaijan to start implementing the Madrid Principles
A captive ally: Why Russia isn’t rushing to Armenia’s aid
Russia appears willing to allow Azerbaijan to recapture some areas around Nagorno-Karabakh, betting on Armenian dependency and Azerbaijani gratitude
Podcasts
Russia, Ukraine, and Europe’s war economy
Mark Leonard welcomes Jana Kobsova and Nicu Popescu to discuss Russia, Ukraine, and the EU’s changing response to the conflict
Towards stability: A new concert of powers
Could a “concert of powers” be the solution for the increasing power competition between the US and China and the current crisis of democracy?
Belarus’s brutal politics
What kind of implications do the developments in Belarus have for the wider neighbourhood and Europe?
Stranger in Moscow: Borrell’s unwelcome visit
What lessons can be drawn from Josep Borrell’s controversial visit to Moscow?
Europe’s new transatlantic bargain for Biden’s America
When Biden enters the White House, he will look for a Europe that brings solutions rather than problems. Europeans should show they can be an equal partner & offer him a new transatlantic bargain
Nagorno-Karabakh: Armenia and Azerbaijan’s thawing of the ‘frozen conflict’
The contested Nagorno-Karabakh region is at the heart of a decades-long armed standoff between neighbours Armenia and Azerbaijan. The…
Russia’s Syria, Turkey’s Libya?
The attempt of a peace process in Libya is facing several substantial hindrances, where a variety of actors keep on inducing significant upheavals in its…
As covid-19 arrives, Putin disappears – Russia in the age of corona.
How is Russia dealing with covid-19? What impact does the pandemic have on the other underlying political issues in Russia – such as the change…
Geopolitics in the coronavirus era – who will be crowned winner?
Last week’s episode saw our experts dissecting the coronavirus’ implications for Europe. In today's episode, we’re breaking down how the crisis is unfolding in the…
Europe’s Eastern Neighbourhood: Ukraine and Moldova
Standing in for regular host Mark Leonard, Anthony Dworkin, senior policy fellow at ECFR, looks at Europe's Eastern neighbourhood and interaction with Russia. He is…
Events
11 Jun
What to expect from the Putin-Biden summit?
What, if anything, can one say about the longer-term perspectives for the US-Russia relationship?
12 May
An ambitious Eastern Partnership policy for a strong Europe
What policy changes do the EU and its member states need to envisage if the EU is to act more geopolitically and increase its influence in the Eastern neighbourhood?
27 Jan
The EU and Belarus in 2021
How is Europe planning to keep Belarus on the agenda and will it provide more political support for Belarusian civil society?
23 Nov
Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh: winners, losers, and a new status quo in the Caucasus
The relatively short-lived flare-up between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has ended in early November with a ceasefire brokered by Russia
In the media
From a symbolic point of view, the presidency will allow Hungary to give greater prominence to its positions
Nicu Popescu on the Hungarian EU Council Presidency
By inviting Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to become candidate countries and accelerating talks with Western Balkan countries, the EU has responded to war by deciding to expand its peace project
Laurence Boone and Nicu Popescu explain why the EU should promote greater defense integration with accession countries
Those elections could be a signal for other countries facing similar issues in Eastern Europe
Nicu Popescu is quoted in Le Journal du Dimanche on the Moldavian elections
It’s a significantly bigger win than anyone expected… It’s a once in a generation opportunity to defeat, and push back against and combat corruption, and that’s what this mandate is for
Nicu Popescu comments on what the landslide election victory of the pro-EU Action and Solidarity Party means for Moldova
Nicu Popescu talks in this podcast about the elections and state of politics in Moldova