... considered important in the Russian foreign policy system.
The BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) represents one of the most curious phenomena of... ... about what an international organisation should be based on. In short, at the heart of BRICS there is no visible possibility of the participating countries pooling their economic... .... What can we say about such strong and “established” institutions as NATO, the G7 or the European Union? In the first case, we see a real unification of military capabilities...
... perhaps hard to believe now but – only eight years ago – Russia was a full member of the former G8. Since then, there have been dramatic changes
Just before the G7 leaders met at Elmau Castle in Bavaria last week, their counterparts from the five BRICS countries held an online summit under the Chinese presidency. Russia had been discussed as a threat at the G7 gathering but was a key participant in the latter.
Long gone are the days when Moscow could straddle the divide between the West and the non-West. Following the 2014 Ukraine crisis, the G8 reverted to its previous G7 format; in the wake of the Russian ...
... frustrations and claims had been accumulating for many years, and the sad reality of 2014 was either a historical inevitability or at least a completely predictable ending to a protracted play.
When President Yeltsin first submitted an application for Russia’s membership in the G7 back in 1992, there were simply no other alternative associations in the world where Moscow could try to squeeze in. Structures such as the G20, BRICS or SCO did not exist at the time, and Russia’s membership in NATO and the European Union seemed unrealistic even then. Therefore, joining the “Group of Seven” not only pursued situational tasks (access to financial and technical assistance ...