Where will Russia “pedal” // Nezavisimaya Gazeta
What to expect from the new Foreign Policy Concept
Sergey Lavrov confirmed that the West has less and less opportunity to dictate the rules of the world. Photo from www.mid.ru
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Council of the Russian Federation are completing work on another Foreign Policy Concept – a document that goes beyond interests and goals for the future. On behalf of President Vladimir Putin, this document, as before, the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation will receive a “road” map for the Foreign Ministry and other ministries and departments.
The new foreign policy should be made public as early as early 2022. However, Putin ordered the document to be finalized with the prosecution of the Western Aggressive Committee against Russia.
And now, as the Secretary of State, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Ivanov, said, the publication of a new concept of approaching the beginning of 2023. The information was confirmed by Aleksey Drobinin, director of the foreign policy department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, who is responsible for developing the Foreign Policy Concept. “I will now say very carefully that if no force majeure problems are mentioned, we very much expect that this document will be released and made public in the near future,” he said at the conference “Diplomacy in Separate Worlds: Assessments, Challenges, Prospects held last December.
“We proceed from the fact that much has been entrusted there to anticipate the foreign policy line in the next four to six years, so that our foreign partners, friends, internal organs can understand where we are going to “peddle” in the coming period, and inviolability, as a frequent review that the Russian policy of unpredictability,” explained Drobinin.
Let us recall what is based on the conceptual foreign policy of the Russian Federation. The corresponding strict documents were adopted in 1993, 2000, 2008, 2013. The current version of the Color Concept in 2016. It lists 11 tasks of Russian foreign policy, its main point is the protection of the sovereignty and territorial territory of the country. The document was formed in connection with the serious changes that have taken place in international relations in connection with the public of the Ukrainian rise in 2014–2015. It sounded the thesis that the desire of the West to hold its position is realized by holding on to its alternative centers of power, including pressure from the US, NATO and the EU on Russia. Nevertheless, Russia’s orientation towards the formation of a common space of peace, security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area, building mutually beneficial relations with the United States, taking into account the special responsibility of the two states for global strategic stability and the state of international security, was confirmed.
As expected, the Concept-2023 will undergo drastic changes. Regardless of the duration of the special operation (SVO) in Ukraine, it can be stated that the 30-year era of cooperation with the West has irrevocably ended. Moreover, Moscow denies that Russia is at war with Ukraine. Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, claims that the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv is connected with NATO.
“The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv, this is a military clash with NATO, primarily the United States and England, with Russia. Fearing direct contact, NATO instructors are driving Ukrainian guys to certain death,” Patrushev said in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty. The US plans to allocate $45 billion this year.
It is obvious that the return to the situation before February 24, 2022 in relation to the countries of Europe, which were adopted as part of the summit in Madrid. In addition, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is concerned, very soon the possibilities of Western countries will begin to decline. “I assure you that in the near future we will be seriously watching the West’s ability to “steer” the world economy as it wants,” he said on December 26 at a working meeting with Russian media leaders.
In general, the most dramatic change. In the best case, cooperation with unfriendly countries will become possible on a one-time basis and there will be distribution where it is beneficial to Russia and where there are no alternatives.
“We have something to develop cooperation in the economic, social, cultural and sports fields,” Lavrov is convinced. – We focus on those who have never let us down, with some cases we have reached difficult compromises, but when they were achieved, no one has ever deceived anyone. With the West, it’s exactly the opposite.”
In this regard, the Concept is expected to proclaim a course towards the formation of a new center of power in the geopolitical area of Eurasia, where Russia occupies its position. Priorities are likely to be redirected to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which also covers the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Moreover, as Drobinin previously wrote in an article for the International Affairs magazine, more and more new sources are in favor of making Putin’s initiative on the size of the Greater Eurasian Space (BEP) the flagship foreign policy project of the Russian Federation. “BEP is seen by us as a framework open to all countries and associations of the continent, greatly increasing the need for security. Its added value is in the calculation of settlement projects for integration development, production and logistics chains and transport and energy corridors,” the diplomat stressed.
The rejection of Western centricity creates the conditions for more intensive cooperation with the global East and South in a strange way, that it is there that the appearance is now felt, with an understanding of the correspondence to the actions in Moscow, which showed their unwillingness to adapt to the strengthening of the United States by the anti-Russian coalition and various restrictions. Most states do not want to follow the rules imposed by the West and are determined to cooperate with Russia. It is not surprising if the updated Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation will significantly expand the presence of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America as priority interests for the foreseeable future.
Moscow believes that cooperation with a huge number of regions can take on obligations to limit the spectrum, including trade, economic and investment ties, joint infrastructure projects, interaction in the field of energy and food supply, etc. Of course, the priority of Russia’s foreign policy will be the course towards strengthening comprehensive cooperation with China and India. They also see in Moscow significant “footholds” in the BRICS member countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). The value of the state of the state, figuratively speaking, is built in turn in order to get to the BRICS on certain conditions. The position of Russia in relation to the countries of the post-Soviet space will be built in the same way, of course.