Journal on Baltic Security

In this article, I am going to focus on how the radical nationalist movement in Russia fares in the current situation, given the political consolidation of the current regime, and the war in Ukraine and the government's reaction to it. The article describes the situation as it stood at the end of 2014, which makes it predictably incomprehensive because new updates on the conflict still arrive every day, and there has also been more news about Russian ultra-right forces over the past few months.

I would like to steer your attention to the Black Sea region, not because I come from Bucharest, and Romania has a stretch of the Black Sea shore, but because Crimea's seizure and annexation by Russia changes dramatically the geopolitical and strategic balance in the Black Sea region, which forces the US and NATO to re-evaluate strategically and tactically

The annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the subsequent

Events in Ukraine have made many re-evaluate their view of Russia and suggest new approaches. While there are good reasons to do so, there is also every reason to revisit some old lessons and draw the right conclusions from events further back in time than the annexation of Crimea. First, Russian domestic politics will continue to play a prominent role in deciding Russia's room for manoeuvre in its security policy. Second, change can only come from within Russia - the West (mainly the US and Europe) will be able to influence events only on the margins and perhaps not always receiving the intended response. Finally, and perhaps at first a bit paradoxically taking the first two points in view, what the West does will matter. It will matter because it will influence developments inside Russia in a long-term perspective if there is an alternative model. But even more importantly, what the West does will decide what position it finds itself in when Russia does change.

Any foreign policy strategy is based on ambitions, objectives, apprehensions and values of a state's leadership. So before addressing directly the subject of my essay, I am compelled to devote some time to