From April 25-27, 2024, Saint Petersburg hosted the Second Saint-Petersburg Congress on International Studies “Global and Regional Challenges in the Changing World,” which was organized by the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University. The congress featured several dozen sections on various country, regional and functional topics, with the participants successfully addressing the full range of pressing international issues.
Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) staff participated in the congress. RIAC also organized and co-organized several thematic sections.
From April 25-27, 2024, Saint Petersburg hosted the Second Saint-Petersburg Congress on International Studies “Global and Regional Challenges in the Changing World,” which was organized by the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University. The congress featured several dozen sections on various country, regional and functional topics, with the participants successfully addressing the full range of pressing international issues.
Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) staff participated in the congress. RIAC also organized and co-organized several thematic sections.
On April 26, RIAC and Tomsk State University (TSU) held a section themed “Educational Cooperation Between Russia and Central Asian Nations Amid Internationalization of Higher Education.” The welcome remarks were delivered by RIAC Director General Ivan Timofeev and TSU Vice Rector for International Affairs Artyom Rykun. Reports were presented by Galina Savchuk, Head of the Department of Integrated Marketing Communications and Branding at Ural Federal University; Olga Bakumenko, Head of the Universities and Marketing consultancy; Elizaveta Solodukhina, RIAC Program Coordinator; and Anastasia Pogorelskaya, Associate Professor at the Department of World Politics of Tomsk State Univesity. E. Solodukhina and A. Pogorelskaya moderated the section as well.
On the second day of the conference, RIAC Program Manager Natalia Vyakhireva delivered reports on the priorities of Canada’s defense strategy in the “Canada in the Modern World” section and on bolstering defense cooperation between Canada and the U.S. in the Arctic in the “Arctic Cooperation in the Age of Turbulence” section. RIAC Program Manager Yulia Melnikova offered insight into the China thrust of EU foreign policy as a driver of the bloc’s agency as part of the “European Integration in a Changing World Order” section, and RIAC Program Assistant Gleb Gryzlov addressed Afghanistan’s impact on the security landscape in South Asia in the section “South Asia in Regional and Global Politics: Hard and Soft Security Issues.”
On April 27, RIAC held three sections: “Impact of Evolving European Security Threats on Union State,” “Analyzing Situation in the Arctic and Policies of Arctic States” and “EU Sanctions Policy Toward Russia Before and After February 2022: A Comparative Outlook.”
During the session on the evolution of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, experts from both sides reviewed the challenges Moscow and Minsk face amid the European security crisis. The speakers included Vladislav Vorotnikov, Director of the Center for European Studies of the Institute for International Studies of MGIMO University; Svetlana Krivokhizh, Head of the Department of International Relations and Political Processes in Asia and Africa at the St. Petersburg School of Social Sciences, HSE University; Artyom Sokolov, Research Fellow at the Center for European Studies of the Institute for International Studies of MGIMO University; Igor Avlasenko, Associate Professor at the Faculty of International Relations of Belarusian State University; Olga Lazorkina, Analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies; Yulia Melnikova, RIAC Program Manager; Alexander Chekov, Research Fellow at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security of the Institute for International Studies of MGIMO University; Alexandra Mikhnyuk, Teacher of Law at the Environmental and Agrarian Law Department of Belarusian State University; and Olga Khоtko, Associate Professor at the Department of Public Administration of Belarusian State University.
The “EU Sanctions Policy Toward Russia Before and After February 2022: A Comparative Outlook” session focused on key trends in the development and specific features of EU sanctions policy toward Russia before and after the start of the special military operation, methods of empirical research of EU sanctions policy and its impact on the shaping of the EU’s strategic sovereignty concept. The participants also discussed the effectiveness of sanctions policies pursued by the countries that imposed them in terms of improving their competitiveness on the global stage, prospects for developing a win-win cooperation between Russia and the UAE amid Western sanctions and ways to overcome sanctions, drawing on the case of Iran.
The session speakers included Anastasia Likhacheva, Dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, HSE University; Tatiana Romanova, Associate Professor at the Department of European Studies, St. Petersburg State University; Sergey Shein, Associate Professor at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs and Research Fellow at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, HSE University; Maria Chizhevskaya, Senior Lecturer at the Department of International Relations and Political Processes in Asia and Africa; Yulia Bondarenko, Associate Professor at the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University; Ranjbar Meshkin Daniyal, Assistant at the Department of Theory and History of International Relations, Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University; and RIAC Program Coordinator Polina Chupriyanova. The discussion was moderated by RIAC Director General Ivan Timofeev.
On the final day of the conference, RIAC and the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University also held a session titled “Analyzing Situation in the Arctic and Policies of Arctic States.”
The Arctic has seen dramatic changes in the past years, with extra-regional actors increasing their engagement in the region’s development. Yet it remains important to monitor, analyze and understand the ongoing processes involving traditional Arctic states, to evaluate military and non-military security risks, policy shifts of traditional Arctic states and the impact of these processes on Russia’s efforts in the region. These and many other issues were raised during the session.
RIAC Expert and Program Manager Natalia Vyakhireva and Natalia Markushina, Professor at the Department of World Politics of the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University moderated the discussion.
The speakers included Andrey Zagorsky, Head of the Department for Disarmament and Conflict Resolution Studies at IMEMO RAS and RIAC Member; Andrey Krivorotov, Assistant Professor at MGIMO University; Maria Lagutina, Professor at the Department of World Politics of St. Petersburg State University; Daryana Maksimova, Head of the International Research Department of the Institute of Foreign Philology and Regional Studies at the Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University and Executive Secretary of the Russian-Asian Arctic Research Consortium; Bhagwat Jawahar Vishnu, Associate Professor at Northern Arctic Federal University, Natalia Vyakhireva, RIAC Expert and Program Manager; and Natalia Markushina, Professor at St. Petersburg State University.
Valery Konyshev, Professor at St. Petersburg State University; Alexander Shestakov, Expert at the Marine Research Center of Moscow State University; Marina Panikar, Associate Professor at Northern Arctic Federal University; and other experts contributed to the discussion.
