Russia and the West – 2026

With Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine approaching its sixth year, the Kremlin finds itself in an increas­ingly challenging situation, both on the battle­field and at home.

The Russian army’s advances in south-east Ukraine have slowed sharply over the past year. Moscow has been trying to compensate for this lack of success by inten­si­fying drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s cities and infra­structure. Starting in spring this year, Kyiv has demon­strated new mid and long-range counter­strikes against energy infra­structure and military targets across Russia, triggering a country-wide fuel crisis, and threat­ening to turn occupied Crimea into an island. The war has finally come home to Russia.

While Putin has so far managed to preserve domestic stability, he is facing increas­ingly negative economic trends. Large sections of the population can no longer ignore the impact of the war.

Although there is no indication that regime collapse is imminent or indeed likely, tensions are becoming more visible. Ultra-nation­alist hardliners are calling for a more aggressive war strategy, tougher domestic repression, and open confrontation with the West. At the same time, internet restric­tions lobbied for by the FSB have caused anger among sections of society that were previ­ously indif­ferent to the war.

The conference will focus on three major questions:

• What do these devel­op­ments mean for Russia’s domestic dynamics, the prospects for ending the war, and Europe’s Eastern policy?
• How should Europe deal with a post-war Russia? What are its key interests, and how should it balance deter­rence and condi­tional cooperation?
• How can Europe incen­tivize the Russian elites to move away from a policy of confrontation in a post-Putin era without compro­mising the European normative order and making conces­sions at the expense of others?