Russia in Global Affairs

There is nothing to learn, nothing to borrow, nothing to adapt. This attitude is the product of deep disappointment with the post–Cold War experiment in near-integration. For the EU in particular, Russia has once again become a convenient 'other,' a historically familiar antipode. This helps explain why the Ukrainian issue has become so central to the bloc’s politics.

It is at least encouraging that Washington has abandoned the cartoonish portrayal of Russia as a kind of Mordor, the fantasy imagery that dominated Western discourse in recent years. The new tone is calmer, pragmatic, almost clinical. But the place assigned to Russia is still not one the country can accept. A junior partner in a reconstructed European house is not a role befitting Russia’s strategic ambitions.

Russia, China, and the US form a strategic triangle of power that is not static. It will shift.

Although the U.S. and China are leading in key AI development indicators, Russia has good chances to occupy its niche in the ethical and discursive dimension of AI competition, thus uniting states with similar dominant values.

Europe now stands at a crossroads: will it abandon ideological rigidity and self-righteousness to reclaim influence, or will it persist on the path initiated by the previous U.S. administration—one that Washington has since abandoned? If Europe chooses the latter, it risks becoming politically and economically relegated to the periphery of Eurasia.

Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine has spelled the end of an epoch in the state of global affairs after President Vladimir Putin launched the action last week. Its impact will be felt for years to come, but Moscow has positioned itself to “become an agent of cardinal change for the whole world.”

Moscow’s experience with multilateral European security institutions in the first twenty years after the end of the Cold War led it to believe that both its material and ideational interests were better served outside of these structures.

On July 8, 2021, at 15:00 Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, will take part in an online discussion of European Policy Centre, titled “The Biden-Putin Summit: What Next and What Implications for the EU?”.

The furor that followed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s threat to sever Russia’s ties with the EU wasn’t really justified: there have been none to speak of since 2014.