This is a pretty good little article on Russia's use of soft power. Besides this, there's the recent signing up of Serbia and Hungary to the South Stream gas pipeline. Russia is winning this economic battle vs. the U.S. and EU...

RUSSIAN SOFT-POWER INCREASING IN AZERBAIJAN

By Fariz Ismailzade

Friday, February 29, 2008


Following Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, political analysts predicted that the Kremlin would step up its efforts to conquer the hearts and minds of people living in the post-Soviet region. This “soft diplomacy” has long been a powerful tool for Western democracies, and it is no longer a secret that Russian political experts have advised official Moscow to use similar tactics to overcome the Soviet successor states’ obsession with Euro-Atlantic integration.

http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article...cle_id=2372845