This article examines the deepening of strategic alignment between Russia and China through the lens of comprehensive energy cooperation. It provides a systematic analysis of the current state, structural foundations, and long-term prospects of Russian–Chinese interaction in the energy sector, situating this partnership within the broader transformation of the international political and economic order.

The study identifies a combination of internal and external drivers that account for the growing intensity and institutionalization of bilateral cooperation. Internal factors include the complementary structure of the two economies: Russia’s substantial resource base, technological competencies in conventional and nuclear energy, and expanding transport infrastructure, alongside China’s industrial scale, investment capacity, and rising energy demand. External conditions – most notably the fragmentation of global markets, the politicization of economic interdependence, sanctions pressure, and heightened geopolitical competition – have accelerated the reconfiguration of trade, financial, and logistical flows, reinforcing the strategic logic of closer bilateral coordination.

The article argues that the deepening of strategic alignment between Russia and China constitutes a structural response to the geopolitical, economic, and energy challenges of the twenty-first century. Energy cooperation functions not merely as a sectoral dimension of bilateral relations but as a systemic pillar underpinning economic resilience, energy security, and technological development in both countries. Large-scale infrastructure projects, diversification of export routes, settlement mechanisms in national currencies, and collaboration in nuclear and renewable energy illustrate the institutional consolidation of this alignment.

The study concludes that the progressive development of Russian–Chinese energy cooperation will significantly influence the evolution of the emerging multipolar international system. By enhancing mutual interdependence on a pragmatic and mutually beneficial basis, the partnership contributes to greater stability amid global uncertainty while enabling both states to strengthen their sovereign positions within a transforming world order.

This article analyzes the prospects for establishing an Arctic gas trading hub as the foundation of a new, sovereign system for the export and pricing of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG). The study is conducted against the backdrop of two interrelated processes: the structural transformation of global gas markets and the intensification of sanctions pressure on Russia’s energy sector.

The global gas trading system has evolved from rigid long-term oil-indexed contracts toward a more flexible architecture characterized by spot transactions, short-term contracts, financial derivatives, and hub-based competitive “gas-to-gas” pricing. Gas hubs have emerged as key institutional nodes linking physical and futures markets and generating price benchmarks that increasingly determine international trade flows. In this context, Russia’s traditional export model—heavily reliant on long-term contracts and external pricing benchmarks—has become less adaptive to market volatility and more vulnerable to geopolitical disruptions.
The article argues that the Russian Arctic, particularly the Murmansk area, possesses the logistical, infrastructural, and institutional preconditions necessary for the formation of a benchmark-oriented gas hub. The concentration of Arctic LNG production, the development of transshipment infrastructure, the availability of an ice-free deep-water port, and integration with the Northern Sea Route create the potential to accumulate significant primary liquidity. A Murmansk-based hub operating on an FOB basis could facilitate spot trading, enhance price flexibility, and reduce dependence on Western trading platforms. The introduction of a deliverable LNG futures contract—on SPIMEX or within a future BRICS Unified Energy Exchange—is proposed as a mechanism to integrate spot and derivatives markets and establish a regional price benchmark.

The study concludes that the creation of an Arctic gas hub would strengthen the resilience, transparency, and competitiveness of Russian LNG exports, contribute to greater pricing sovereignty, and support the long-term development of Arctic mineral resource centers under conditions of global market restructuring and geopolitical fragmentation.

This article examines Argentina’s energy diplomacy with BRICS countries in 2013–2025 through the lens of asymmetric interdependence. Argentina combines exceptional resource endowments – Vaca Muerta shale gas and globally significant lithium reserves – with chronic macroeconomic instability and recurring debt crises that constrain autonomous development and increase reliance on external partners. While existing scholarship discusses BRICS energy diplomacy and individual sectoral dynamics, fewer studies analyze how a middle-income resource exporter manages simultaneous engagements with multiple emerging powers across several strategic energy domains.

Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative longitudinal design and integrates comparative case analysis, process tracing, and discourse analysis. The empirical base includes Argentina’s Energy Plan 2030, BRICS declarations, EIA and USGS datasets, IMF-related materials, publicly available corporate disclosures and contractual documentation (including Atucha III), as well as expert interviews and triangulated media reporting.
The analysis identifies a pattern of “triple dependency” generated by three sectorspecific mechanisms. First, Chinese investment structures and downstream control in lithium constrain Argentina’s capacity to capture value added and upgrade domestically. Second, cooperation in nuclear power–centered on Rosatom’s involvement in the Atucha III project–creates long-term technological path dependence through fuelcycle and maintenance arrangements, despite Argentina’s residual domestic capabilities (CNEA/INVAP). Third, regional gas integration reinforces Brazil’s positional leverage as Argentina’s principal pipeline export destination, limiting Buenos Aires’ bargaining power over pricing and routing. These mechanisms operate cumulatively, producing what the article conceptualizes as sectoral dependency stacking, whereby overlapping dependencies across strategic sectors amplify structural constraints.
Argentina has pursued “sovereignty hedging” strategies – diversifying partners, inviting Indian participation in lithium, and promoting local content rules–but their effectiveness remains limited under conditions of financial, technological, and infrastructural asymmetry. The article advances debates by adapting Keohane and Nye’s asymmetric interdependence framework to South–South relations and by linking it to dependentdevelopment perspectives to explain how multipolar diversification can reconfigure rather than reduce dependence.

The findings suggest that BRICS engagement offers Argentina tactical options and short-term relief from Western conditionalities, yet does not automatically translate into greater autonomy. Policy implications include the need for more enforceable value-chain and technology-transfer clauses, and for investment models that support industrial upgrading rather than reinforcing extractive specialization.

This article examines the proposed deep-water canal across the Kra Isthmus as a potential alternative to the Strait of Malacca in the context of shifting global power dynamics. Combining historical analysis with economic assessment and geopolitical evaluation, the study traces the evolution of the project from its seventeenth-century origins to its renewed strategic relevance in the twenty-first century.

The canal has re-emerged in policy debates amid increasing congestion in the Strait of Malacca – through which up to 90,000 vessels transit annually – and growing concerns over the vulnerability of critical maritime chokepoints. From a logistical standpoint, the project promises to shorten maritime routes by approximately 700 miles and reduce transit time by up to three days. For Thailand, it could serve as a catalyst for regional development and a means of enhancing its strategic leverage in Southeast Asia.

At the geopolitical level, the canal is analyzed within the framework of China’s “Malacca dilemma” and the broader transformation of maritime connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region. An alternative route linking the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand could reduce China’s dependence on the Strait of Malacca and influence regional balances of power, including the positions of Singapore and the United States. The article also considers the potential role of BRICS and the New Development Bank as alternative financing mechanisms.

However, the project faces significant obstacles, including high capital costs (estimated at over $30 billion), environmental risks, domestic political constraints, and external strategic pressures. Although the Kra Canal remains hypothetical, its strategic implications ensure its continued relevance in regional and global debates. The study concludes by assessing possible implications for Russia within emerging multilateral and transport frameworks.

This article examines the preparation, course, and consequences of the official visit of Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Aleksei N. Kosygin to Canada in October 1971. Drawing on published materials and previously unpublished documents from the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation and the Russian State Archive of the Economy, the study reconstructs both the public and the substantive political dimensions of the visit and situates it within the broader context of early détente.

The article demonstrates that the visit represented a culmination of the gradual normalization and intensification of Soviet–Canadian relations in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It analyzes the strategic calculations of both sides, showing that while Moscow and Ottawa shared an interest in expanding political dialogue and economic cooperation, they pursued different priorities. The Trudeau government sought to diversify Canada’s foreign policy in accordance with the “Third Option,” enhance the country’s international visibility, and secure reliable export markets for Canadian grain. The Soviet leadership, in turn, viewed closer ties with Canada primarily as an instrument of broader geopolitical strategy: promoting European security initiatives, supporting arms control efforts, advancing its position on the German question, and contributing to the gradual erosion of Western bloc cohesion. Economic considerations—particularly grain imports and selective access to Western technology—played an important but secondary role.

Special attention is devoted to the confidential discussions between Kosygin and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the negotiation of bilateral agreements, and the symbolic and domestic dimensions of the visit, including public reactions and protest activity. The study argues that the 1971 visit marked a high point in Soviet–Canadian relations and became one of the significant diplomatic episodes of the détente era. The momentum generated by this exchange shaped bilateral contacts throughout the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, even as relations remained influenced by the broader dynamics of Soviet–American interaction.

Scientific and technological interaction between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s constituted a complex and strategically significant dimension of the final stage of the Cold War. This article examines the transformation of U.S.–Soviet scientific exchanges during the first presidential term of Ronald Reagan (1981–1985), situating them within the broader framework of renewed geopolitical confrontation and technological rivalry. The study is based on digitized materials from the U.S. Department of State, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, CIA records, and unpublished documents from the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History.
Special attention is devoted to contacts between the USSR Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which functioned as a semi-autonomous channel of dialogue even at the height of political tensions. The article demonstrates that, contrary to later triumphalist interpretations, the Reagan administration initially lacked a coherent long-term strategy toward the Soviet Union. While prioritizing military modernization and technological superiority as key instruments of containment, it did not fully sever scientific ties. Instead, a selective approach emerged: several intergovernmental agreements were suspended, yet cooperation in medicine and environmental protection was preserved, and informal academic exchanges continued.

A central argument of the article is that American scientific institutions played an independent and influential role in resisting attempts by conservative officials to impose sweeping secrecy restrictions and curtail academic freedom. The debates over national security versus openness revealed structural tensions within U.S. policy. Ultimately, by the mid-1980s, the administration acknowledged the strategic value of maintaining limited scientific dialogue as both a source of technological insight and a political “window of opportunity” in relations with Moscow. The article concludes that scientific exchanges did not determine the outcome of the Cold War but formed an important arena in which technological competition, diplomacy, and academic autonomy intersected.

This article examines previously unpublished typescripts by Alexander A. Troyanovsky, the first Soviet Ambassador to the United States (1933–1938), preserved in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI). The corpus, comprising 661 manuscript pages, is devoted to the biography and political course of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and constitutes an important yet understudied source for the history of Soviet–American relations and Soviet interpretations of U.S. politics during and immediately after the Second World War. The first group of documents includes the article President Franklin Roosevelt, initially drafted by Troyanovsky in late 1942 for the literary journal Znamya. Subsequent revisions involved Konstantin A. Umansky, Troyanovsky’s successor as head of the Soviet diplomatic mission in Washington and an official of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID). Umansky’s handwritten comments and editorial interventions provide valuable insight into the interaction between the author’s personal interpretation and the official Soviet line in wartime assessments of Roosevelt’s political leadership. They also help clarify the likely reasons for the journal’s refusal to publish the article.

The second group of materials consists of three archival files documenting the preparation of a book on Roosevelt for the biographical series The Lives of Remarkable People (ZhZL) in 1947–1948. These sources illuminate the editorial process and reveal divergences between the author’s perspective and the ideological expectations of the late Stalinist period.

The study situates these materials within the broader framework of Soviet historical policy and editorial control. It also reconstructs the probable chronological sequence of the six surviving versions of the Znamya typescript, as the archival pagination does not correspond to the actual stages of revision.

Book review: Ackrén M. 2025. Foreign Policy in Greenland: 20 Years of Development. London: Routledge. 112 p. ISBN: 9781003387657. DOI: 10.4324/9781003387657