Carnegie Moscow Center

The Carnegie Moscow Center was the Russia-focused office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the US-based non-partisan foreign-policy research institution. Established in 1994 following the Soviet Union's collapse, it was one of the few Western-affiliated think tanks operating continuously inside Russia for nearly three decades, producing analysis on Russian domestic politics, Foreign Policy, and security affairs that was respected by both Western audiences and — selectively — the Russian foreign-policy establishment.

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Carnegie closed its Moscow office and relocated its Russia-focused researchers, many of whom are Russian nationals, to offices in Berlin, Brussels, and other European cities. The centre continues to publish analysis under the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center brand but no longer operates on Russian territory.

In the context of the 2026 Iran conflict, Carnegie's Russia analysts provided some of the most detailed English-language analysis of the Russia-Iran relationship: the strategic logic of Russia's continued arms supply to Iran, the limits of Sino-Russian-Iranian coordination, and the significance of Putin's reception of Araghchi at the Kremlin. Carnegie's Russia researchers were among the few Western analysts with deep personal knowledge of the Russian foreign-policy elite, giving their assessments of Moscow's Iran calculus unusual credibility.