Ariel Cohen is Henry Salvatori Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. He has published widely on U.S.-Russian relations and democratization in the former Soviet Union.
Russia has witnessed a growing rapprochement between some of its nationalists and some of its democrats, but this trend is threatened by divisions over the annexation of Crimea.
Events last November confouned expectations set by the failure of democratization in Russia and other ex-Soviet republics, and should prompt new reflections on how fragile openings to democacy may be…