Tag: USA

Putin and Biden discussing European security

By Nina Bachkatov

In many aspects, the 7th December videoconference between presidents Putin and Bidden was an extraordinary event. First, there was the use of the video and the decision to give only a few minutes to the cameras. This brief moment of publicity has been scripted to the extreme, to project not only a person, but a political regime. The problem is that the message has been perceived differently in each “camp”, exposing the still huge gaps of understanding between them. There was president Biden, with a team of close counselors, sitting around a business-like table, in a sort of conference’s hall. On the other side, president Putin was sitting alone at the end of a huge empty desk, in a dark paneled room fitted with equipment showing their age.

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Putin’s foreign orientation under scruteny

By Nina Bachkatov

A series of Russian official declarations concerning the Kremlin’s foreign policy have been scrutinised by analysts convinced that the agenda and the content have been carefully timed. Especially when the messages are delivered by president Putin or his foreign minister Lavrov, at key moments of international and national scenes. And more importantly, that those declarations came just when Russia is preparing the new version of its Foreign Policy Concept. When it will be approved, the draft, along with the National Security Strategy endorsed this summer, will become a roadmap for the Foreign Ministry and other ministries and departments.

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EU-Russia: no Biden effect

By Nina Bachkatov

The last-minute proposal of German Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron on the eve of the 24-25 June EU summit backfired, exposing the growing inability of Europeans to find a common foreign policy, notably with Russia. Their intent was noble; their method wrong. Their clumsy, and arrogant, attempt to extract a new framework for EU relations with Moscow was breaking all EU protocol rules, showing the limits of the much tutted “Franco-German couple” and the emotional dimension that still drives new members towards Russia. Continue reading “EU-Russia: no Biden effect”

Sanctions, actions, counter actions

By Nina Bachkatov

Unsurprisingly, the EU ministers of foreign affairs meeting on 22 February have given the green light for freezing the assets and banning entry of four officials of the Russian police and justice they consider responsible for the “unacceptable treatment” of Alexei Navalny. In October, the EU had sanctioned 6 individuals and one entity for their alleged participation in the poisoning of the opponent. And each 6 months since 2014, it has been prolonging sanctions taken to punish Russia for its Ukrainian adventures. Continue reading “Sanctions, actions, counter actions”

Russian diplomacy and the lessons of 2020

By Nina Bachkatov

Recent international events have offered Russian diplomacy a source of inspiration it might have lacked otherwise. While the Kremlin was pretty much in a reactive drive, not without success as demonstrated in South Caucasus, it found in those events a new impulse towards its decades-old objective – to force the international community to recognise that Russia is not only back, but back as a global actor. Continue reading “Russian diplomacy and the lessons of 2020”

Obama’s message to Russia

By Nina Bachkatov

The book of former American president Obama, “A promised land” is a publisher’s dream, selling millions of copies through the world, at a moment when the foreign policy of his former vice-president, now elected president Biden, is everyone guess. Notably about Washington’s future relation with Moscow. Continue reading “Obama’s message to Russia”

Vladimir Putin’s constitutional charge

By Nina Bachkatov and Andrew Wilson

He has been often accused of dragging Russia into a Brezhnev style stagnation. But, at 67, Vladimir Putin shows he can also strike quickly. On 15 January, during his annual address to Parliament, the Russian president took everyone by surprise when he announced sweeping changes to the Constitution intended to revolution the power system in Russia. Continue reading “Vladimir Putin’s constitutional charge”