In early October, Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel visited Sochi to meet with President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in the capacity of a leading international political figure because his small country is presiding over the European Union and can wield more influence in the EU agenda.
The Luxembourg Embassy and Russian International Affairs Council
gathered several European ambassadors
and experts together in a meeting behind closed doors to mull over the ways out...
Syria and especially Ukraine appear to be inflection points in the trajectory of Russian foreign policy
Ivan Timofeev, who participated in the annual meeting of Valdai International Discussion Club is giving a talk on the outline of future Russian foreign policy.
After the Ukraine crisis and military intervention in Syria, the key principles and ideas underpinning Russian foreign policy are becoming easier to understand.
Against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis and the military airstrikes in...
On October 20, 2015, the Russian International Affairs Council hosted roundtable "
Russian and Western Views on Conflict Resolution and Security Challenges
" attended by pundits from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, the Brookings Institution, Johns Hopkins University, Centre for European Policy Studies, RAS Institute for Oriental Studies, IMEMO, Lomonosov Moscow State University and other institutions, who focused on the Ukraine and Syria crises.
The Ukraine discussion...
On September 21-24, Sarajevo was the venue of the 3rd Meeting of Young Experts' Group on Ukraine Settlement and Euro-Atlantic Security, which also covered economic issues and supremacy of law. The group will continue to work along these three tracks.
The event was attended by young leaders from Ukraine, Europe, Russia and the United States, as well as members of the NGOs, think tanks, academia and business community, with RIAC represented by Program Director Ivan Timofeyev and Program Manager Natalia...
On September 4, 2015,
Latvian Institute of International Affair
s held a roundtable "
European Security: Engagement or Mistrust?
" moderated by Director of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs Andris Sprūds and attended by RIAC Website Editor-in-Chief Daria Khaspekova, Imants Lieģis of
European Leadership Network
and Latvian Institute of International Affairs, Reinhard Krumm of
Friedrich Ebert Foundation
, and Lukasz Kulesa of European Leadership Network.
The discussants came...
It’s no secret that the Ukrainian crisis has got out of hand. However besides the fact that it has led to thousands of civilian deaths, the Ukrainian crisis has made the contradictions in the foreign policy of Russia and the West so evident that people have compared it to the ...
... local councils. What powers will these militia units have? Who will they answer to? Whose orders will they carry out? What will the territorial structures of these councils be (see Question 5)? The bottom line is that a formula for the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis is taking shape, and it reminiscent of the one used to resolve the “Chechen question”. This is an achievement in itself, as a vector for settlement has been set. The main thing now is to preserve the political will to implement ...
The decision of Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovysh not to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union was the starting point of the still on-going Ukrainian crisis. In this conflict, Russians and Ukrainians, who have historically had extremely close cultural ties, have been confronting each other. The western community, which does not seem to fully grasp the scope of the conflict, has not been a ...
