Russia's Pivot to Asia: A History and Perspective

Russia has been trying to reorient its trade towards Asian markets over the past decade, especially since the 2014 start of the war in Ukraine. Russia's relationship with its traditional export markets, Europe, is not great, but it was perfectly manageable before February 2022 invasion. The sense of urgency that we need to reorient our export infrastructure to the east and resolve all these problems suddenly became very urgent came only with a delay of a couple of months, and then they all came crushing down.