Omelicheva: Review of “Russia’s Foreign Policy”, ERIS Vol. 4, Issue 1/2017, pp. 90–92 David Cadier and Margot Light (eds.), Russia’s Foreign Policy: Ideas, Domestic Politics and External Relations (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015), pp. 245, ISBN 978-1-137-46887-1 Reviewed by Mariya Y. Omelicheva University of Kansas Russian foreign policy has arguably been the subject of growing attention since Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in 1999. The country’s leader has spoken confdently about Russia’s resurgence in regional and global afairs, and has sought to secure its international position through an increasingly assertive foreign policy. Notwithstanding these trends, Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 has caught many Western analysts by surprise. The Kremlin’s continuing violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ukraine, despite the economic impact of Western sanctions, marked a qualitative change in Russia’s relationship with its neighbours, Europe, and the US. The new volume, Russia’s Foreign Policy: Ideas, Domestic Politics and External Relations edited by David Cadier and Margot Light is one of the few monograph- length works that examines ways in which Russia’s domestic imperatives have shaped its recent foreign policy decisions and actions. The book grew out of the 2013 conference held at the London School of Economics and was envisioned as a volume providing deeper and longer-term insights into the various aspects of Russia’s foreign policy under the leadership of President Putin (p. 3). While the individual chapters retain this original focus, they also utilise the Ukrainian crisis as a timely case study for illustrating the arguments they make about the determinants of Russian foreign policy. The volume is divided into three parts looking at the ideational context in which Russian foreign policy is formulated, the infuence of domestic political structures and strategies, and the drivers of Russia’s actions in diferent segments of its external relations. The volume’s contributors, which include academics, think tank analysts, and former practitioners, ofer a range of interpretations of Russian foreign policy, but in the end they all agree that Russia’s international behaviour is fundamentally driven by objectives linked to domestic regime consolidation (p. 205). The edited volume accomplishes its main goal of analysing the evolution and main determinants of Russia’s foreign policy rather successfully. However, much of this analysis will not be new for the area studies specialists, particularly those familiar with the works of several contributors renowned for their expertise in the feld. For instance, the frst chapter, ‘Russian Foreign Policy Themes in Ofcial Documents and Speeches: Tracing Continuity and Change’ by Margot Light shows