Valdai Club

Experts and readers often fail to comprehend the closeness of the economic ties Russia maintains with states where official rhetoric regarding Russia, its interests and values are, to put it mildly, unfriendly. One of the most striking examples is the countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States. For the latter, anti-Russian rhetoric in recent years has dominated foreign policy almost exclusively. With this commentary by Nikolay Mezhevich, a well-known Russian expert on the region, we begin a series of publications on how Russia could economically punish its neighbours, whose policies provide objective reasons for this.

In the future, the leading position in Belarus may be taken by those groups that are absolutely indifferent to the ideas of national revival, and which are focused on economic, political and military integration with the West, writes Valdai Club expert Nikolay Mezhevich. Today’s clash of “red-greens” with “white-red-whites” is beneficial to them. The third force, positioning itself as a “new multi-vector”, but having a clear Atlantic vector, will not manifest itself in the nearest future and will be formed among people who today still go to rallies both “for Lukashenko” and “against Lukashenko”.

By deploying its troops in Poland and Eastern Europe, the United States is preparing for real hostilities, but it is also achieving a wide range of geopolitical and geo-economic objectives, writes Nikolay Mezhevich, Professor at the European Studies Department of St. Petersburg State University. The most important of them is the prevention of strategic partnership between Russia and the EU, primarily between Russia and Germany, No less significant is the strengthening of the role of Poland in Eastern Europe as a strategic ally and conductor of American interests.

US protectionism has never been a mystery to Europe. Similarly, the desire of Europe to use protectionism as an argument in international economic relations has been known at least since the times of the Venetian Republic.

On August 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay a working visit to Helsinki. The special status of Russian-Finnish relations continues to exist in Europe today. Security matters have become more important in bilateral dialogue. These issues between Moscow and Helsinki are nothing new.

The elections of the new EU leaders, which followed the elections to the European Parliament, have both independent significance and are a good indicator of trends within the United Europe and its foreign policy. From our point of view, the elections proceeded surprisingly smoothly and represented another victory for EU bureaucracy and its “shadow struggle” methods.