Baltic Studies in 2017
Baltic studies comprise a noteworthy fragment of research on political and economic processes in Europe. The special status of the Baltic countries is accounted for by their geographical and historical closeness to Russia. Moreover, the former were part of the latter at different stages of their development. Russia's international opponents tend to use the Baltic States as an irritant to Russia. Russian researchers direct their efforts to reveal the actual - rather than the artificially generated - processes taking place in the Baltics. An important area of research is to study the relations between the Baltic States and other countries, as well as the former's participation in various groups. In this article, we focus on the bilateral relations between Russia and the Baltics considered both as a group and individually. We stress that, in 2017, Baltic studies covered all the important aspects of the Baltic States.