Summary This essay focuses on three ways the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic influenced arms control and non-proliferation diplomacy. The pandemic affected the way diplomats were able to communicate with each other to negotiate on the arms control and disarmament issues. The initial response — postponing events or hosting them on makeshift platforms — was acceptable as a temporary solution but dedicated channels of communication will be needed to prepare for similar disruptions in the future. COVID-19 also had an impact on the implementation of the agreed arms control and non-proliferation accords. As on-site verification activities became impossible, remote monitoring proved its resilience, which could make it a more prominent arms control tool. Finally, the pandemic raised the profile of global health issues and led to their securitisation. This revived a discussion over international regulation of biological security through existing and new mechanisms.

The development of Russian-Georgian relations is determined by both long-term factors and situational circumstances. The former include disagreements between the two countries over security in Transcaucasia: the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the attitude toward NATO activity in the region. Another persistent factor concerns the debate over interaction with Russia in Georgia’s domestic politics. These factors limit the possibilities for expanding bilateral ties. Situational constraints include such phenomena as the COVID-19 pandemic or the domestic political crisis in Georgia after the 2020 parliamentary elections. Taken together, the longterm and situational factors set the general tone for bilateral relations, which are characterized by predictability and low dynamics. Despite the existing limitations, Russian-Georgian cooperation holds promise in areas of trade and societal contacts.

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Developed in recent decades, the understanding of cyberspace as an environment in which a state can face serious threats to its security has contributed to a search for ways to prevent such threats. In the military and political spheres, the concept of deterrence has become one of the ways to solve this problem. During the Cold war, the policy of deterrence became central to the strategic thought in the leading countries, but the direct transfer of conventional approaches to a new reality turns out to be problematic. On the one hand, this opens up a debate about the ways to attain deterrence in cyberspace via traditional and new mechanisms. However, theoretical discussions on cyberspace deterrence highlight the limitations of this concept. At the same time, despite some uncertainties that stem from such a transfer, in practice, the leading states use the concept of deterrence in the context of their activities related to cyberspace, although they implement it differently. In this regard, the article suggests focusing on states’ interpretation of deterrence when designing and implementing their policies in this area, rather than on the problems of applying the concept of deterrence. Such a constructivist approach allows to reveal the peculiarities of the understanding of deterrence without considering them predetermined and identify common aspects of views. Using Russia and the United States as examples, we studied specific features of the application of the deterrence concept in respect to cyberspace in official documents and in the course of the practical implementation of their provisions. The analysis shows that countries interpret the concept of cyberspace deterrence in diff erent ways, with an emphasis on specific deterrence strategies. At the same time, Russia and the United States influenced each other while developing views on deterrence.

This article examines how increased tensions between Russia and the West in the wake of the Ukraine crisis impact the conflict management work of the osce. It first looks at Russian perspectives of the osce and focuses on how these changed in the post-2014 period. It then proceeds with an overview of implications resulting from geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West that could positively or negatively affect the role of the osce in conflict management in the long term. The article ends by laying out 4 scenarios on how the situation and the osce could evolve and argues that in the near future a continuation of the status quo is most probable.