Dr Maria Shagina

Since World War II, export control regimes have been used as a trade mechanism to restrict the proliferation of military-use technology by hostile states. The rapid development of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, and cyber surveillance technologies has created the need to amend export control restrictions to address new security threats. A growing number of states resorted to export controls as a key tool of economic statecraft to manage the trade flows of these strategically important items. This chapter examines how emerging technologies shape export control regimes – unilaterally in the US and EU and multilaterally through the US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC). Imposing new guardrails on emerging technologies requires a balancing act between avoiding protectionism and compromising national security interests.

Washington and Berlin have settled their differences over the gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. For the time being, this has halted the spiralling energy security dilemma. While Washington is sending a clear signal that constructive relations with Berlin are important, the German government is now called upon to implement a variety of measures. Still, the project remains a political issue. Kyiv and Warsaw have already signalled their opposition. A grand bargain that is not only bilaterally agreed upon but also involves Ukraine and commits Russia has not yet been achieved.

The contentious Nord Stream 2 pipeline has revived the fundamental differences of opinion that divided the allies during the Cold War and created new inter-European tensions. A closer look at the crises in the
Western alliance occasioned by the Druzhba oil pipeline in the 1960s and the Yamal–Urengoi gas pipeline in the 1980s reveals the continuity of disagreements between Europe and the US, as well as showing similar
patterns of weaponizing Western technology and sanctions. If history is any guide, lessons from the past might provide an indication of how to resolve the ongoing crisis over Nord Stream 2.

Since 2014 and Russia's annexation of Crimea and the start of hostilities in Donbas, the West has shown unprecedented solidarity in imposing sanctions on Russia. Yet Asia-Pacific's response to the Ukraine crisis has been different. While Japan and New Zealand imposed symbolic sanctions, South Korea refrained from introducing any measures at all. The main objective of this paper is to explore the response of the Asia-Pacific region to the Ukraine crisis and the underlying motivations behind these stances. From a perspective of sanctions coordination and alliance behaviour theory, this paper examines the interaction between domestic and international factors when states decide whether or not to join international sanctions coalitions.

Over the last 20 years, the Russian Federation has voiced repeatedly the willingness to embrace its Asian potential. Harnessing the economic prowess of the Asia-Pacific for the development of Siberia and the Russian Far East was the underlying motivation of Moscow’s pivot to Asia. Before the Ukraine crisis, the gravity of Russia’s pivot was protracted. Its engagement with Asia was seen as a counterbalance to the West rather than as a genuine embrace. This instrumentalized approach gave Russia’s policy a disingenuous feel, leaving no particular imprint on the Asia-Pacific’s economic and security architecture. Since the onset of the Ukraine crisis, Russia intensified its engagement, marking a qualitative shift in its relations with the People’s Republic of China. With the flourishing Sino-Russian strategic partnership at the forefront, the relationship developed mutual economic necessity and geopolitical underpinning.

In response to Western sanctions, Russia launched a policy of import substitution with the aim of safeguarding its economic and technological sovereignty. Over the last five years, the program of import substitution has failed to achieve full economic sovereignty. Due to the lack of domestic capabilities, poor inter -sectoral cooperation, and rent-seeking, progress on substitution was protracted and weighed down by uncompetitive prices and poor-quality products. As a result, Russia adapted its approach. Moscow resorted to import diversification to non-Western markets and localization of foreign goods and technology—two strategies that have gradually replaced Russian-made import substitution. Russia’s pivot to Asia has proven to be crucial in buying time and alleviating external pressure. But the turn to the East has its own pitfalls and does not present a panacea to Western sanctions.

The crisis in Ukraine stunted the institutional development of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Having lost Ukraine as a potential member, the EAEU got caught in the tensions between Russia and the West. Moscow's retaliatory measures against Western sanctions have backfired against the Union and have undermined its fundamental objective-the creation of free trade. Russia's uncoordinated sanctions caused collateral damage and unleashed unintended consequences on its fellow members. Going beyond the economic realm, the unilateral measures have hampered the Union's further integration. Given the current stalemate on a common sanctions policy, stricter customs control remains the only viable option in the long-term.

How have countries in the post-Soviet space responded to the intensified clash between the Russian Federation and the West since 2014? Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its war in eastern Ukraine forced post-Soviet states to re-evaluate their foreign policy orientations and economic relationship with Russia. Due to their geopolitical vulnerability, members of the Eastern Partnership and the Eurasian Economic Union took a careful stance on the Ukraine crisis, siding fully neither with Western sanctions nor with Russia’s counter-sanctions. Placed between Russia and the West, these states rewired their political allegiances and reinforced their long-standing multi-vector policy. To mitigate the destabilizing economic effects, post-Soviet states opted for a strategy of diversification, pivoting to third countries and altering previously Russia-centric trade structures, labour migration, and remittance flows. The new geopolitical reality has shown the limitations of the European Union’s and Russia’s leverage over the region, while a gradual rise of third powers has given post-Soviet states more ability to balance West and East.

Despite the ongoing sanctions regime, many foreign companies continue their operations in Crimea without any legal repercussions. The purpose of this article is to highlight the common patterns of sanctions circumvention used by Western firms in order to keep their businesses in Crimea. By juxtaposing the companies’ justifications and their behavior, this article assesses the companies’ activities vis-à-vis the sanctions’ legal framework. The article reveals the weaknesses within the sanctions regime and makes policy recommendations for the enhancement of the effectiveness of sanctions.

In 2016, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched an eight-point economic plan to reform Japan's relations with Russia. Abe's aim was to foster economic interdependence between the two countries rather than allow a stalemate to continue on the longstanding dispute over the Kuril Islands.

Looking beyond the territorial dispute, the main objective of this article is to analyze Japan-Russia economic relations. It aims to explore factors that impede progress on the eight-point economic cooperation plan, and asks to what extent U.S. sanctions constrain the scope of Japan-Russia economic deals. In addition, it examines the ways in which Japanese businesses have adapted to the sanctions.

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 the framework of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s eight-point economic cooperation plan and President Moon Jae-in’s Nine-Bridges initiative, Japanese and South Korean companies actively participate in Russia’s ambitious energy projects, such as Yamal LNG, Arctic LNG-2, and projects on Sakhalin Island. As U.S. sanctions expand further, intensifying energy relations will put Japanese and South Korean companies in the line of fire.
Looking at existing and planned joint energy projects, this report will analyze the countries’ rationale for deepening cooperation. It will then examine how Japanese and South Korean energy companies adapt to Western sanctions—in particular to U.S. secondary sanctions—and highlight the strategies that companies use to navigate sanctions’ loopholes. Finally, it will assess potential challenges for energy cooperation stemming from additional U.S. sanctions, Russia’s import substitution policy, and China’s growing energy demand.

Showing solidarity with G7 countries, Japan Imposed sanctions on Russia, albeit reluctantly. The Ukraine crisis occurred amid Japan’s efforts to reinvigorate its relations with Russia in the hope of solving the territorial dispute. While Japan felt obliged to support the international community and bandwagoned on Western sanctions, the geopolitical dynamics in Asia-Pacific forced it to take a conciliatory approach to Russia.
Addressing its strategic interests, domestically the Abe administration was challenged to keep the balance between the West and Russia. Despite its wrongdoings in Ukraine, Russia was perceived as the resolve to Japan’s strategic concerns. Tokyo’s balancing act resulted in symbolic sanctions to avoid any irritations for Moscow. The evaluation of Russia’s role in Japan’s strategic concerns in the region, however, questions the country’s calculations and the expedience for symbolic sanctions.

Due to Western sanctions, Russian energy companies were banned from using Western advanced technology. This special report looks at Russian energy companies’ response to Western sanctions, their pivot to the Asia-Pacific and evaluates the import substitution programme.

Brussels’ idea of a “wider Europe” implies that Europeanisation is not limited to EU member states. The EU can, so it claims, also exert impact beyond its borders. One of the channels of external EU influence is cooperation between Europarties and parties outside the Union. Through mutual visits and joint activities, non-EU parties become internationally socialized, i.e. are exposed to the Europarties’ norms as well as values, and experience the rules as well as practices that shape European party-building.
What are the incentives for Europarties and non-EU parties to cooperate with each other? What kind of, and how much, impact did cooperation have on party development in post-Soviet Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine? Based on eighty interviews with party officials, international donors and academics, this book, first, outlines the set of motivations that trigger cooperation between Europarties and non-EU parties. It, second, analyses the impact of cooperation on party ideology, organisational structure and inter-party behaviour in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The book explores the implications of this cooperation on the standardisation, consolidation, and democratisation of the non-EU party systems. 
The findings shed light on how prestige and domestic factors impede the penetration of EU norms and values in the non-EU party structures, and points to the failures of Europarties to adequately address problems of party-development in Eastern Europe. The book reveals the ways in which cooperation with Europarties has paradoxically contributed to the ossification of the status quo and oddly impaired the development as well as consolidation of democracy, in the three Eastern Partnership states.