Conference on Russia Papers

In the evolving post-Cold War order, Russian revanchism has emerged not merely as nostalgia for Soviet or tsarist legacies but as a neo-imperial project framed in narratives of historical injustice and civilisational mission. Since Crimea’s 2014 annexation and especially after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it has shown overt disregard for smaller states’ sovereignty, notably in the Baltic region. Central to this agenda is the manipulation of historical memory, where anti-fascist rhetoric serves less as reckoning and more as a weapon to delegitimise states resisting Moscow’s influence. Recent monographs – History of Ukraine (2022) and History of Lithuania (2025) – illustrate this by presenting archival evidence while advancing state-aligned narratives that prioritise ideology over analysis. As Lithuania responds with heightened securitisation, the fusion of sponsored historiography, and weaponised identity politics reveals history’s role in geopolitical disruption. These trends signal a twenty-first-century recalibration of imperial influence, where the battle for meaning precedes that for territory. This article introduces Litvinism as a hybrid threat within the Kremlin’s memory wars, offering the first systematic analysis in English of how Russia weaponises medieval history to destabilise Baltic statehood.

This chapter examines whether Russia’s war in Ukraine has fostered a Nordic-Baltic variant of “magical realism” – a strategic narrative in which improbable scenarios are normalised as politically plausible. Drawing on regional history and contemporary threat perceptions, it traces how Russia’s brutality and ambiguity amplify anxieties while institutional assessments (NATO, EUCOM) risk overemphasising Russian reconstitution and underestimating allied advantages. The analysis situates quantitative claims within their social-scientific limits – constructed metrics, neglected error margins, and technocratic drift – and contrasts them with structural realities: Russia’s military attrition, economic strain, and likely preference for sub-threshold coercion over large-scale invasion. It argues that the centre of gravity in the Nordic–Baltic region is not the Baltic Defence Line but the confidence-based social contract that binds ministers, mayors, police chiefs, and citizens. The strategic task is therefore twofold: pierce magical realism with contextualised appraisal, and prioritise resilience against hybrid operations – sabotage, cyber, influence, and aerial incursions – designed to erode public trust and allied resolve.

Under shifting global power dynamics, Europe faces a dual challenge: Russia’s protracted confrontation with Europe and growing questions over the reliability of US security guarantees. These pressures expose Europe’s vulnerability and demand accelerated defence self-reliance. While recent initiatives have aimed at boosting budgets, industrial modernisation, and procurement, deterrence requires more than resources. The critical gap lies in the capacity to transform investments into deployable capabilities and to engage society across the continent. Two priorities are highlighted: establishing a permanent European multi-domain command-and-control structure to integrate land, maritime, air, space, and cyber components into coherent operational planning, coordinated with political and interagency governance, and strengthening civilian preparedness and resilience; ensuring that governments, private actors, and societies can respond effectively to crises and hybrid attacks. Together with industrial modernisation, these measures provide the foundation of Europe’s strategic autonomy and the most immediate steps towards credible deterrence and resilience in a volatile international environment.

Russia has been using trade to balance its domestic and foreign policy interests in a world where the prospects of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) have limited the prospects for direct military confrontation between great powers. This article looks at the role of trade, or more broadly commerce, as it is being used strategically to constrain Russia. It suggests that Russia has turned trade into a domain of warfare, and to this end, the question of whether or not it can constrain Russia is the wrong one.