Valdai Club

On June 19, 2017, the Valdai Discussion Club will hold an expert discussion on trends in military-political alliances, together with the presentation of the Valdai Paper, titled " Russia’s Allies and the Geopolitical Frontier in Eurasia".

In recent years, the Russian leadership expanded the geography of regions, where the protection of the national interests requires a Russian military presence. This process occurs not only near the Russian borders, but also in regions that were indirectly related to the sphere of military and political responsibility of the USSR during the Cold War years

If Russia's relations with the West in recent decades are presented in the frontier category as a mobile and broad borderline, this frontier in a decade moved further from the Russian borders. The acute phases of the crises in the Caucasus (2008) and Ukraine (2014 - 2015) confirmed the impossibility to resolve the security issues in the post-Soviet space without participation and a decisive word from Russia.     The Russian Aerospace Forces' operation in Syria has moved the dispute between Russia and the West to the Middle East.

In the Valdai Paper the authors consider the current trends in military-political alliances and explore in this context Russia's relations with its allies.

Speakers:

Andrei Sushentsov (author of the Valdai Paper), Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, Head of the "Foreign Policy" Agency, Assistant Professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry;

Nikolay Silayev (author of the Valdai Paper), senior research fellow at the Institute of International Studies of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry, director for research of the "Foreign Policy" agency;

Vasily Kashin, Senior Research Fellow, the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Senior Researcher, the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia

Alexey Dzermant, Senior Researcher, Institute of Philosophy, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (Minsk) (on Skype)

Moderator:

Timofei Bordachev, Programme director of the Valdai Discussion Club.