Featuring a special section on "Russian Foreign Policy Towards the 'Near Abroad'" Issue 4,2 deals with Russia¿s post-Maidan foreign policy towards the so-called "near abroad," or the former Soviet states. This is an important and timely topic, as Russia¿s policy perspectives have changed dramatically since 2013/2014, as have those of its neighbors. The Kremlin today is paradoxically following an aggressive "realist" agenda that seeks to clearly delineate its sphere of influence in Europe and Eurasia while simultaneously attempting to promote "soft-power" and a historical-civilizational justification for its recent actions in Ukraine (and elsewhere). The result is an often perplexing amalgam of policy positions that are difficult to disentangle. The contributors to this special issue are all regional specialists based either in Europe or the United States.

George Soroka received his PhD in Political Science from Harvard University. He is currently working on a book regarding how contentious historical interpretations function in defining contemporary foreign-policy objectives between Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. Tomasz St¿pniewski is associate professor at the Institute of Political Science and International Affairs, Faculty of Social Sciences, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. He is also coeditor (along with Soroka) of the book Ukraine after Maidan: Revisiting Domestic and Regional Security (Stuttgart: ibidem 2018). Julie Fedor is lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Melbourne. She has taught modern Russian history at the Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Melbourne, and St Andrews. She is the author of Russia and the Cult of State Security (2011); coauthor of Remembering Katyn (2012); and coeditor of Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (2013) and Memory, Conflict and New Media: Web Wars in Post-Socialist States (2013).