Valdai Club

By neglecting to construct an image of the future that would provide meaning and direction to the politics of the present, both Russia and the West found themselves in a strange situation. The future, from which we and they had turned away, began to overtake us all. At least through new technologies, their influence on human life and on a great many social interactions. In essence, it was something of a trap, writes Dmitry Efremenko. The article was prepared specially for the Valdai Club roundtable titled “Homo Perplexus: How to Stop Fearing and Learn to Love Change”, which took place on June 17, 2025 in St. Petersburg.

Since 2015, the Valdai Discussion Club has been studying global alternatives to the traditional neoliberal mainstream and their impact upon the world’s transformation. The main collision in the march of globalization is being shifted to domestic conflicts inside the West.