This report will examine Russian-Japanese and Russian-South Korean energy cooperation. Neither Japan nor the Republic of Korea imposed energy sanctions on the Russian Federation, and both U.S. allies continue to expand their energy deals despite Western sanctions
In December 2018, the Russian Federation sent two Tupolov-160 supersonic bombers around the world to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. On January 23, 2019, the U.S. and a series of Latin American countries recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.
The People’s Republic of China is actively engaging Black Sea littoral states through various initiatives to open new markets for Chinese goods, facilitate the acquisition of valuable or strategic local industries, and offer loans for large development projects
The Russian Federation’s recently provocative foreign policy results in part from structural weakness in the Russian domestic regime, a quasi-feudal system that requires certain actions abroad to maintain itself in power at home.