On April 8, 2026, the Moscow Economic Forum hosted a plenary discussion, “Russia and the World After Transformation: New Strategies.” Participants from Iran, India, Brazil, China, Germany, Luxembourg, and Russia discussed the breakdown of the unipolar system and the contours of a future world order. The session was moderated by Ivan Timofeev, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).
On April 8, 2026, the Moscow Economic Forum hosted a plenary discussion, “Russia and the World After Transformation: New Strategies.” Participants from Iran, India, Brazil, China, Germany, Luxembourg, and Russia discussed the breakdown of the unipolar system and the contours of a future world order. The session was moderated by Ivan Timofeev, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).
Kazem Jalali, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, described the past 40 days of U.S. and Israeli aggression as evidence of the failure of “regime change” strategies. “A country with a 250-year history cannot defeat a civilization that is 3,000 years old,” the diplomat stated, calling for the abandonment of the dollar as an instrument of pressure and for the creation of a regional security system without external military bases.
Kanwal Sibal, Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) and former Minister of External Affairs of India, described the world as “fragmented” and proposed a pragmatic hedging strategy. For major countries, he argued, it is critically important to develop self-sufficiency in key sectors in order to reduce risks amid growing unpredictability. At the same time, he warned that if multipolarity becomes competitive, humanity will face not greater fairness, but new chaos. What is needed, he emphasized, is cooperative multipolarity and the reform of existing institutions such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, rather than simply replacing one hegemon with another.
Sergio Rodrigues dos Santos, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Brazil, described the current situation using a metaphor by Antonio Gramsci: the old order is dying, while the new one cannot yet be born. He noted the decline of Europe’s strategic autonomy and observed that politics today is driving economics, rather than the other way around.
Di Dongsheng, Deputy Dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, focused his remarks on technological sovereignty. It was precisely U.S. sanctions, he noted, that compelled China to develop its own technologies. In his view, the current period of deglobalization may last up to 40 years, and Beijing’s task is not to exacerbate the transition, but to stabilize it through development and security initiatives.
Thomas Geisel, a Member of the European Parliament from Germany, called for a return to the idea of a pan-European security system, warning that otherwise Europe will remain on the periphery. Germany and Russia, he noted, are bound by a historical debt, as it was the Soviet Union that liberated the country from fascism. Today, according to the speaker, Europe is acting against its own interests, while the EU’s role in the world is declining.
Fernand Kartheiser, a Member of the European Parliament from Luxembourg, stated that the European Union lacks its own strategic reflection—EU countries, including smaller states, simply follow the U.S. line without mandates from national parliaments or referendums. He recalled that the Minsk agreements were undermined by Angela Merkel and François Hollande, who later publicly acknowledged that they had not intended to implement them. He further noted that in April 2022, when a draft peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine had already been reached in Istanbul, Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv derailed the process. As a result, Europe has lost not only political influence but also public trust in democratic institutions, while sanctions are imposed without parliamentary consultation and without regard for the neutral status of countries such as Austria, Ireland, and others.
Philosopher Alexander Dugin offered a metaphysical perspective on the ongoing transformation. In his view, the current moment marks a transition from the unipolar order that took shape after 1991 to a system of “civilizational states.” He identified the emerging poles as Russia, China, India, the Islamic world (with Iran as a new major power), Africa, and Latin America (with Brazil at the forefront). The central problem, he argued, lies in the absence of a conceptually developed and analytically grounded “vision of the future”: discussions of multipolarity remain largely abstract, whereas there is a need to articulate its concrete mechanisms already today..
Summing up the discussion, Ivan Timofeev, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), highlighted a key paradox of the current historical moment: many forecasts of international relations continue to rely on an economic-rationalist logic. However, as he noted, reality suggests the opposite—armed conflicts, despite their enormous costs, continue to erupt regularly, and their causes lie far beyond economic rationality. The moderator recalled the reference to Antonio Gramsci (mentioned by the Brazilian ambassador) that at certain moments the “political superstructure” can indeed dominate the economic base. It is precisely this dynamic, in his view, that makes the current period particularly unpredictable.
