... conflicts do not change a fundamental reality: Russia can be secure and prosperous only if it is surrounded by stable, vibrant and friendly neighbors.
The most recent attempt to approach this daunting task is the concept of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Should the West be concerned about this undertaking? Is it a disguised attempt to resurrect the Soviet Union?
Once again, my answer is “no.” In my view, EEU is either hopeless or harmless. It is hopeless if it remains a “holy alliance” of ...
... economy was the weak link. Foreign policy has compensated for that weakness so far. But this resource is now close to exhaustion. The country has regained its military potential at a qualitatively new level and at still tolerable costs. The expansion of Western alliances to the territories Russia considers vital to its security has been stemmed, although it had to pay a dear price for that. The West is developing the long-awaited awareness that Russia’s interests have to be taken into account. ...
... category I fit into and whether I can be qualified as an analyst at all. Nevertheless, I would like to look at the paper through Russian eyes and to share some of my immediate reactions to it.
Kadri Liik knows Russia better than most of those in the West who write about Russian foreign policy. She was born in the Soviet Union and shares at least a part of our common Soviet understanding. More importantly, she sincerely tries to understand and to explain the Russian mindset without attaching political ...
... Furthermore, it would interpret any difficulties with the societies as subversion originating in Europe. That way, even if the West did concede Russia a sphere of influence, it would never reap the desired benefits in terms of stability – but it would ... ... and an appealing project - runs the risk of being misunderstood by Russia in the same way the reset was misunderstood. The EU-EEU cooperation especially has its natural limits can cannot be ignored. For the time being, the EEU Commission has a mandate ...
..., they will not be finished in a year, so we have to tackle some concrete problems that will build a success story in Russia-West relations. We may try to go beyond the Minsk II agreements and organize a kind of mechanism parallel to the Normandy group ... ... committing coup d’etat and violating constitutional norms.
The Eurasian Economic Union and the EU
The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), as it was underlined by Russian participants, is aimed at economic integration and has no political ambitions at the moment....
