Russia’s Sharp Power: Tools and Practices of Implementation

Abstract

Abstract The Russian Federation is the state that aims at achieving world leadership and restoring its former status as a superpower. Within the framework of such a strategy, the projection of ‘sharp power’ rather than ‘soft power’ gains its significance, since the former expands the wide range of tools for influencing the states and the world community per se. Due to the analysis of the main dimensions of ‘sharp power’, i.e., commerce, media, academia, technology, culture and entertainment, it was determined that Russia uses all channels of it in the countries of the post-Soviet space, which are outlined through the concept of the ‘Near Abroad’. In the group of tools, most widely used, are those from cultural, entertainment and media areas. A distinguishing tool for Russia is the dissemination of the ‘Russian World (Russkii Mir)’ model. It has been outlined that Russia is projecting its sharp power in a visible aspect on a number of countries of the Near Abroad, in particular, Kazakhstan, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Georgia. In addition, based on a number of interpretations, it has been hypothesized that among the goals of ‘sharp power’ is the increase and strengthening of authoritarian practices in the states on which this sharp power is projected.