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Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***RussiaThe Russian leadership has been pushing forward its agenda on multiple fronts recently. Domestically, the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison on Feb. 16 signals a potential new round of repression. Russian opposition leaders believe that Navalny was poisoned, possibly once again with Novichok, the nerve agent that almost killed him in August 2020. The Russian government’s delay in returning his body to his family has lent credence to these claims. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians were detained while laying flowers at impromptu memorials to Navalny around the country, and younger generations of Russians are increasingly feeling hopeless about their future prospects.Russia has also achieved gains in its war against Ukraine with the capture of the town of Avdiivka. While the town has been basically destroyed and the victory has reportedly come at an enormous cost for the Russian military in terms of casualties and equipment losses, Ukraine’s final withdrawal from the city is both another potential blow to morale in the Ukrainian armed forces and an opportunity for President Vladimir Putin to highlight a military success in the runup to the mid-March Russian presidential election.On the larger foreign policy front, Putin sought to push forward his personal views on Russian and European history in an interview with Tucker Carlson. The interview is part of an ongoing Russian effort to build connections with the right-wing side of the political spectrum in the West, primarily through emphasizing shared beliefs in traditional values.Alexei Navalny on trial in Russia in 2021. Photo by Evgeny Feldman via Wikimedia Commons.North KoreaIn February, North Korea continued to ratchet up tensions on the Korean peninsula, raising concern about its local provocation on the maritime border between the two Koreas. This maritime dispute surfaced in