Russia in Global Affairs

For thirty years, staunch supporters of the confrontational approach worked to strengthen the image of the Other as an enemy to be faced sooner or later on the battlefield. Now the advocates of this point of view are triumphant as they see the current events as proof that they were right from the very beginning.

“In a word, Kiev is a Russian city and, in particular, a city of Russian culture,” Sergey Hrushevsky concluded. “And as long as this city, the heart of Little Russia, is Russian, then the whole region... will always maintain a living affection and love for the great Russian culture.”

With the departure of the founding fathers of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, the need for dialogue between the nuclear superpowers is more acute than it was during the Cold War. Diplomats are expelled before they have time to agree on something, but non-governmental specialists are taking up diplomacy efforts on Track Two.

The ongoing debate over Russia’s place in world politics is a natural continuation of the historical, cultural, and philosophical experience of the late 19th century—the time when the country’s imperial statehood was in its prime but which also brought into light the problems that several decades later would lead to dramatic events in the last century.

In modern international relations, inequality and hierarchy are preserved, and are determined by differences in power, economic and human potentials. The voluntary nature of an organisation does not exclude coercion and domination. The softness of politics in comparison with the empires of the past hardly indicates the absence of coercion and domination as such, writes Ivan Timofeev.

Each new round of history changes the circumstances under which classic diplomacy becomes unnecessary, and national leaders, on the contrary, have to live up to the highest expectations.

February 2022 marked the end of a large-scale historical experiment aimed to test the hypothesis that Russia may be included in the international order created by the leading Western powers without its participation but providing certain room for its development in accordance with the rules established by the leaders of this order. The result is negative.

Although Russia is responsible for its actions, there are those, both in Ukraine and particularly in the West, who have been working hard for years to transform Ukraine into a bridgehead, even a launching pad against Russia, not caring at all what it may ultimately mean not only for Russia but also for Ukraine.

The West is waging a political-military war of total or absolute character against Russia. What Russia faces now is the second edition, the 21st-century edition of the Great Patriotic War, writes Dayan Jayatilleka.