The newly established quadrilateral platform between Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and the U.S. complements the prior such platform between the former two states, China and Tajikistan back in 2016 as well as the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan (PAKAFUZ) railway project that was agreed upon in February to prove that Islamabad’s new geo-economic…

The Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship On June 28, 2021, President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping announced the extension of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship, first ratified in 2001 by President Putin and Jiang Zemin, the then President of the People’s Republic. The treaty is intended to formalize mutual support for…

Diplomacy is one of the powerful nonviolent instruments of a country’s foreign policy. It is used to strengthen the state by promoting its interests in relation to other countries. Often, it is the failure of diplomacy that leads to war. Yet, even during times of conflict, diplomacy is crucial to the cessation of hostilities. Since it is principally…

The US military’s symbolic withdrawal from Bagram Air Base, the largest in Afghanistan, shows how committed it is to abiding by President Joe Biden’s pledge to leave the country by September 11th. It also prompted questions about the interests of regional nations in a post-withdrawal Afghanistan. Russia has recently emerged as a diplomatic force in…

In fall 2020, U.K. energy giant BP announced plans to slash its oil and gas production targets by 40% in the coming decades as the company makes an aggressive shift towards renewable energy targets. This shift is representative of a larger trend among energy producers worldwide. Pressure from consumers and investors, as well as the dramatic decline in…

Comment by Tatyana Jolivet: This article was prepared by our intern Natasha Mnishi for the Centre of the public diplomacy. She is a student from South Africa, studying international relations at RUDN. Indeed, there are many African students in Russia and there is nothing surprising in that. However, one particular aspect of her decision to study in…

Over a year since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic in March 2020, the disease is far from under control. Although global case rates on the whole have declined, 15 countries remain near or at the peak of their infection curve. Even countries well below their peak daily infection rates – such as the United…

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) maintains a special status in political, economic and military discourse in Russia. The NSR is a critical component of Russia’s identity as an Arctic nation, as a potential source of economic development and as a means to establish the state as a great power. The NSR and Russia’s Arctic borders are also essential to its…

Following Syria’s diplomatic recognition of Abkhazia in 2018, Abkhazia opened its embassy in Damascus in October 2020, attesting to the strengthening of relations between the two sides. For Abkhazia, a territory partially recognized by the international community and diplomatically supported by Russia, this recognition opens new perspectives for…

UN reform talks deadlocked primarily because the U.S. and the developing nations disagreed about the fundamental problem which had to be corrected. In the early post-Cold War era, when most Americans saw their country as the key “decision-maker,” Bill Clinton only reversed George Bush Sr. and agreed to discuss a UN reform in order to reduce…

When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact died, there was much speculation that NATO would consider itself redundant and either disappear or at least transmogrify into a less aggressive body.Source: sarav.netFailing that, Moscow at least felt assured that NATO would not include Germany, let alone expand eastwards. Even the NATO Review…

New Carbon Emissions Bill Bill number 1116606-7 was the first of its kind passing through Russia’s Federation Council, before it was eventually approved by the State Duma on June 1, 2021. In the bill, companies that surpass a threshold of 150,000 tons of C02 annually must begin to limit their total emissions by 2023. In addition, corporations that…