Project at HIAS
The Russian Decoupling: Where the War in Ukraine brings Europe and the World
During his fellowship at HIAS Sergey Utkin will be finalising a book which will represent a comprehensive analysis of the ongoing process of Russia-West decoupling, i.e. severing of the ties, which developed over decades. This work was started at the University of Southern Denmark and received support of the Carlsberg Foundation for the calendar year 2024. Since both Russia and western governments intend to use the crisis as an opportunity to strengthen their positions, the book will critically consider these claims and the actual outcomes. The book would be of interest to the vast network of foreign policy professionals and to the wider public, which is trying to decipher the meaning and prospects of the developing confrontation.
His Tandem Partner is Ursula Schröder, Professor for Political Science, and Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg.
Website
Sergey Utkin
Funding
The HIAS Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.
Tandem
Prof. Dr. Ursula Schröder, Political Science and Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH), University of Hamburg
Biography
Sergey Utkin is resident research fellow at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg since July 2025. In 2022-24 he was associate professor of international politics at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Odense. Prior to that he worked in Moscow-based think-tanks, primarily the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences, while teaching part-time university courses on political science and European integration. He received his PhD in political science (international relations) from IMEMO in 2006 for a thesis on common foreign and security policy of the European Union.
Sergey Utkin is researching on the troubled relationship between Russia and the West, Russian foreign policy as well as the EU’s and NATO policies and the functioning of international organisations. Along with a monograph on EU-Russia interaction published in Russian, his publications include Suspicious Neighbour: Russia’s Role in the Quest for the EU’s Strategic Autonomy. In: European Foreign Affairs Review (2022), Unrealised Potential: the EU and Russia in regional multilateral institutions. In: The Routledge Handbook of EU-Russia Relations. Structures, Actors, Issues (2021).
Sergey Utkin’s IFSH-HIAS Fellowship is provided by the IFSH and the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.
Image Information
Photo by Sergey Utkin shot on the Friendship Bridge across the Narva River at the border between Estonia (the Narva Castle on the right) and Russia (the Ivangorod Fortress on the left) with the Lutheran Alexander’s Church far back on the Estonian side.