What makes Russia’s ascendance so surprising is that on almost all indicators of power – soft and hard - the European Union continues to outrank Russia, by some measures even more than in the 1990s. The EU’s combined economy is almost 15 times the size of Russia’s. Even with all the oil wealth, Russia’s GDP is barely as big as Belgium’s and the Netherlands’ combined. 1 The EU’s population is three and a half times the size of Russia’s; its military spending is seven times bigger 2 ; the EU has five seats on the UN Security Council (of which two.
