文档介绍：CONTENTS
Foreword 2
Russia’s foreign policy 4
From crisis to crisis:
30 years of Russian policy in its ‘Near Abroad’ 6
The standoff between the Belarusian government
and its people 10
Lukashenka’s departure is a prerequisite for
economic reforms 12
Russia in search of a new head of state for Belarus 14
Russia continues its aggression against Ukraine 16
Violent upheaval in the Caucasus 20
Russia in Africa: ambitions and reality 24
Russia’s domestic politics and economy 30
2020 constitutional amendments 31
Increasing domestic tensions and the Kremlin’s response 35
Russia’s socio-economic downturn 40
The Russian Armed Forces 45
‘New type’ of airborne assault units 50
The ‘Belarus military district’ – military cooperation
between Russia and Belarus 53
Russian special services 59
GRU psychological operations 60
Russian special services’ influence operations in cyberspace 65
Growing pressure from China 69
Chinese influence operations move to the West 73
Sinicising Chinese technology 76
China and Russia – a practical partnership 78
2 FOREWORD
FOREWORD
T
his is the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service’s sixth annual report . The reason why
we continue with this tradition remains the same – to offer the public both
in Estonia and abroad an expert view of the security environment and the threats our service deals with . Consid- ering Estonia’s geopolitical situation, the range of topics should not come as a surprise .
The year 2020 was a good lesson for anyone making predictions . Like every- one else, when finalising last year’s report in January, we failed to predict how strong an impact the pandemic would have on global developments .
Although we have lived in a changed world for the last 12 months in many ways, the security environment around us has largely remained the same .
National interests and patterns of be- haviour do not change overnight . Still, the coronavirus crisis offered new op-