... puts it bluntly: the main reason for the ongoing Ukrainian crisis is NATO’s expansion towards the East. In your recent interviews (to German news outlet “Spiegel” and the Greek “Kathimerini”) you argue the same thing: reckless promises of NATO membership made to Ukraine provoked Russia to the highest degree. This narrative, however, is at odds with the Western mainstream media mantra about “Russia’s hostile and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.” Will U.S./EU audience one day realize what in fact went wrong?
Andrey Kortunov:
Restoration, Reformation, Revolution? Blueprints for the World Order after ...
... government support from the “Green” party in the process.
What we are curious to see, is whether the US and Euro economies will survive or experience a crash and depletion of confidence worse than 2009. Western voices say that “Russia has brought NATO together”. Well—after the current Western songs and hymns are replaced with realism or despair (or a new US President Trump in 2024), we are actually curious whether the Atlantic alliance will survive much longer.
Debate is good. We see different things. Dr. Andrey Kortunov started a ...
... South.
In practical terms, the challenge is to square the circle: move towards the equivalent of the Stalin-Mao 30-year treaty of Friendship and Cooperation while reshaping it in a manner explicable and acceptable to India.
The interlock of the U.S.–NATO–EU in the West and the AUKUS in the East can only be balanced off by an alternative Eurasian community or system, with its structures and superstructures, embracing Russia and China, and constituting an alternative antipode or counterpoint.
Sovereignty & Self-determination
...
... a rapid modernization of its armed forces, pursuing programs of import substitution, accumulating foreign exchange reserves, expanding trade with China and deepening political and military-technical cooperation with its partners across the CSTO. The West has established various formats and mechanisms of sanctions pressure, boosting NATO’s eastern flank and increasing policy coordination both within the Alliance and within the European Union as well as military-technical assistance to Ukraine, while consistently attacking Russia in a variety of international settings ranging from ...
... Economy of Confrontation
The campaign around Russia’s alleged imminent aggression in Ukraine is also good for Washington and its Euro-Atlantic allies. It provides a distraction from their own domestic problems, allowing for cohesion within the archaic NATO and diverting attention from the ignominious flight of the Western troops from Afghanistan. By focusing on what is going on around Ukraine, the White House is trying to counter the Europe-wide perceptions that the Atlantic string of U.S. foreign policy is finally receding into the background of U.S. priorities,...
... strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Extending this step to include the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the P5) would be an especially powerful statement in the NPT context.
Step 2: Deepen U.S.-Russia and West-Russia crisis management dialogue.
Leaders should direct their respective governments to renew dialogue on crisis management—both bilaterally and multilaterally, for example via the NATO-Russia Council, or as a separate working group. In either case, the mandate should be focused on addressing concerns generated by day-to-day military events and activities, not political or strategic issues.
Step 3: 1,400 in 2021.
With New START ...
... oligarchs to move into and exploit.
The worst-case scenario would be a Polish-dependent, weak state dominated by an opportunistic, Western-oriented, new capitalist oligarchic class that would privatise state assets, close many factories and create mass unemployment ... ... there a future for Belarus as an independent nation, or must it now choose between being absorbed by the Poland—Lithuania—NATO constellation of power, or by metropolitan Russia, which is the real cultural homeland for most of its people? These are ...
... nuances determine the content of the relations between the two sides.
Twelve Steps Toward Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region. Twelve Steps Toward Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region
Put bluntly, these nuances are NATO and the European Union. Together, they form the Euro-Atlantic community, which unites most of the planet’s economically developed military powers. This contradiction was barely noticeable during the initial post-Soviet years when Russia was still ...
... we put rather important moral and ethical considerations to one side, as a long-term strategy, this route will not necessarily bring the desired results. First, it is entirely possible that the requirements for candidates may be revised at a future NATO summit. The western expert community is already actively discussing proposals to “make an exception” for Tbilisi so that Georgia can accede to the organization despite its unresolved problems with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Once this issue is resolved, nothing ...
... the USSR, and the depiction of large Russian-speaking communities as a fifth column leading to tensions that exist to this day. After a while, problems have accumulated, and Russia's unchanging attitude pushed the three Baltic republics towards the Western institutions: NATO and the European Union. In the midst of these problems, Russia has yet to change its attitude towards the Baltic states. Moscow preferred to talk to the 'old Europe' over the heads of Russia's closest Western neighbors. Russia still expects that ...
