Post-Soviet Russia’s Geopolitical Game: Grasping It through Five Circles

The collapse of the Soviet Union implied the need to build and strengthen, but most of all the imperative of territorial and political survival of the Russian Federation. In this article, we analyze the geopolitical games deployed by Russian statesmen, especially during the Putin era. The analysis consists of five rings (domestic, the near abroad, strategic zones, great powers and the rest of the world, as well as soft power). The argument is that a good analysis must take as a departure and arrival point the first circle, that is the domestic consolidation of the new State. To the extent that the first two circles are “secured”, Russia shows greater capacity of action in circles three and four. The fifth circle has special implications for the domestic circle.