... can tell, does not, and will not, change. On anything — be it Syria, Libya, Ukraine or Venezuela. Russia has not made any new large-scale proposals, let alone unilateral gestures of goodwill. As the Navalny case has shown, the rhetoric towards the West has only worsened. To continue our metaphor, the ship of Russian foreign policy is careering through the storm, gathering speed and staying the course, with the ballast and anchor still firmly on board.
So, what is all about? It is not like the Russian ...
... "Caspian Sea wealth," to Turkey, Europe and other global markets.
A Blow to Russian Interests
Christian Wollny:
Nagorno-Karabakh: A Frozen Conflict Rethawed
The location of the attack or the clashes indicates that they were against Turkish-Western and Turkish-Azerbaijani interests. Nonetheless, they are also a blow against Russia's interests and role in a region of great geopolitical importance for Moscow and other international and regional players who are worried by the state of consensus ...
... joint expert group EUREN. In the spirit of such a critical discussion, I will try to offer my quick take on perceptions and motives, as well as their reflection in our politics.
Andrey Kortunov:
Why the “Coronavirus Ceasefire” Never Happened
The West has long been trying to decipher the "genome" of the Kremlin's policy. Many of these attempts are interesting and original. However, I see in them at least one systemic problem. It consists of an attempt to find a universal scheme or explanatory ...
Neither the coronavirus nor the economic recession will automatically lead to a détente, let alone a reset in relations between Russia and the West
Six months ago, when COVID-19 had just moved beyond the borders of China and embarked upon its triumphant march across Europe and North America, politicians and foreign affairs experts started discussing what will happen after the virus is vanquished....
... Belarus territory was lost by Russia. Under Marshal Pilsudski in the 1919–1921 Poland-Soviet War, Poland recovered by conquering most of the Polish Kingdom's former Belarussian borderlands. Poles began moving into the territory, especially in the West and Northwest in the Grodno region. Former local populations largely remained in place in Belarus until the massive disruptions of WW2.
In the early years of WW2, the border moved back and forth under successive Soviet and Nazi occupations. Then ...
We are facing a generational change among the leaders of the world’s great powers
We are facing a generational change among the leaders of the world’s great powers. Russia can return to closer relations with the West only if the Kremlin’s future leaders sets itself the goal of serious social and economic modernisation, according to
Andrey Kortunov
, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), who would have been a speaker at the Lennart ...
China today presents a legitimate new alternative, and thus a threat, to the Western system
“The world will never be the same after the Coronavirus” — these words uttered by International Relations veteran Henry Kissinger most certainly have substance behind them. Beyond the major impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on ...
... Dead Souls
On February 22, 1946, advisor to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Moscow George Kennan sent what would later become known as the “Long Telegram” to the Treasury Department. The document would form the basis for the American and then the Western approach to the Soviet Union for decades to come.
"
At the bottom of Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs is a traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was the insecurity of peaceful agricultural people ...
... proposed that we think about how Russia would build relations with the rest of the world “after Ukraine.”
Five years later and the crisis has brought about neither compromise nor the collapse of Ukrainian statehood, and relations between Russia and the West are developing more along the lines of a conflict than anything else. It is against the backdrop of this state of affairs that we asked Dr. Kortunov to revisit some of the fundamental questions that determine Russia’s foreign policy today and in ...
Russia and Europe continue to call on each other to fix problems that only exist because they need to serve their national interests
People on the ground are often far better at getting to the heart of the matter than theoreticians who spend their whole lives trying to understand it. Around 500 years ago, in the first half of the 16
th
century, Emperor Charles V wrote these very words: “My cousin Francis [
King Francis I of France – translator
] and I are in perfect accord – he wants Milan, and...
