Russia’s strategy to reintegrate the Eastern and Central-European area in a “Post-Soviet Commonwealthâ€

The elaboration of any analysis concerning the risk factors for national security in the next period it must take into account the "Russian factor". The Russian elites are currently resurrecting the Russian idea by recovering the imperial past and by obsessively invoking the geopolitical catastrophe that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented. The connection between the construction of contemporary Russian identity and Russia’s actions in the face of the potential NATO and EU enlargement to include ex-soviet states (Russia’s near abroad) and Russia’s strategy to reintegrate the Eastern and Central-European area in a “post-soviet commonwealth†have not been investigated. The way Russia employs its political connections, commercial agreements and historical legacy to undermine democratic institutions in this area and to bring it closer to its interest are in need of research. Rather than acting as the USSR during the Cold War, Russia, as several times before in history, is taking advantage of the realignment of global centers of influence and of the absence of a deterring foreign power to impose a neo-imperial political project in the Central and Eastern European area.