BOOKSHELF: The Russia connectionRussia’s “Neo-Imperialism” Is a Product of Complex Factors

By Simon Saradzhyan

Published 13 November 2020

Since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, there has been no shortage of commentaries, articles, papers and entire volumes by Western academics, think-tankers, former policy practitioners and journalists on how Russian President Vladimir Putin is rebuilding the Russian empire or how the Kremlin has never actually stopped building one. Still, there are some books on Russia’s external policies that I could not have missed, and Russian Imperialism Revisited by long-time Russia scholar Domitilla Sagramoso is one of them.

A review of Domitilla Sagramoso, Russian Imperialism Revisited:From Disengagement to Hegemony (Routledge, March 2020)

Since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, there has been no shortage of commentaries, articles, papers and entire volumes by Western academics, think-tankers, former policy practitioners and journalists on how Russian President Vladimir Putin is rebuilding the Russian empire or how the Kremlin has never actually stopped building one. Even trying to skim all these books (which I have to in my line of work) could easily become overwhelming. As I have discovered since 2014, there are many more individuals claiming to be experts on the drivers of Russia’s actions in Ukraine and elsewhere than I could have ever suspected in previous years of writing and reading about post-Soviet Eurasia.

Still, there are some books on Russia’s external policies that I could not have missed, and Russian Imperialism Revisited  by long-time Russia scholar and lecturer at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies Domitilla Sagramoso is one of them. Yes, some career Russianists may have had a hunch about her book’s main argument, that Moscow did not set out to restore its influence over former Soviet republics right after the demise of the USSR in 1991, but that it eventually began to do so and that this process accelerated soon after Vladimir Putin’s ascent to the presidency on Dec. 31, 1999. However, Sagramoso’s Russian Imperialism Revisited, which argues that Russia’s “neo-imperialist policies became prominent during the mid-to-late 2000s, as disappointment with the West grew,” is still a must read and a must keep for at least four reasons, in my view.

First, Sagramoso explains Russia’s policies toward its neighbors not just in terms of agency, as some of the harshest critics of Putin in the West have done time and again, with some largely blaming the Russian leader’s aggressive steps on a single facet of his character acquired in his juvenile years on the streets of Leningrad. Rather, she explores structure for clues behind some of the most forceful moves ordered by the long-time leader of Russia, such as the annexation of Crimea and the intervention in Syria.