A new PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo by Peter Rutland calls attention to two biting warnings against a new invasion of Ukraine coming from within Russian military circles, arguing these could be early signs of broader opposition emerging in Russia. Polls also show an invasion would be out of step with current mass opinion in Russia, write Henry Hale, John Reuter, Bryn Rosenfeld, David Szakonyi, and Katerina Tertytchnaya.
 
Russian President Putin, though, wants to compensate for the Kremlin’s loss of influence in Ukraine even if this means invasion, says Samuel Charap. Should this happen, Richard Arnold writes, Russian Cossacks may be poised to play a role. China may not help much, writes Pavel Baev, summarizing the first in-person meeting since November 2019 between Putin and Xi Jinping: China is too preoccupied with its own “greatness” to recognize Russia’s attempts to restore its own. China also faces opprobrium for its systematic repression of the Uyghur people, Sean Roberts reports.
 
Regarding Ukraine’s future, Oleksandr Sushko suggests that, instead of a full-blown occupation, Moscow might try to create a “Bosnian system” in Ukraine. Sergiy Kudelia points to many reasons why “Finlandization” would be unacceptable for Ukraine. Volodymyr Kulyk examines debates in Ukraine on language policy, arguing policies borrowed from Switzerland or France will not be viable.

On COVID-19, a new PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo by Daniel Shapiro and Dylan Hebert finds that cross-regional variation in mask-wearing in Ukraine reflects socioeconomic and cultural factors rather than political orientations. And a new issue of Problems of Post-Communism argues the virus has had extensive impacts across the post-Soviet space, featuring articles by Şener Aktürk, Anar Valiyev, Mariya Omelicheva, Lawrence Markowitz, Andrey Makarychev, Serghei Golunov, Andrey Shcherbak, Sarah Wilson Sokhey, Yulia Nikitina, Erik Herron, and more.
 
On trends toward greater authoritarianism in the region, Ivan Kurilla argues that the impending closure of civil society organization Memorial is primarily about Kremlin efforts to control narratives about Russian history. In Central Asia, writes Sebastien Peyrouse, countries appear to be copying Chinese authoritarian practices.