Valdai Club

In the past two decades, the state of Russian science and education has been widely described as catastrophic. The depression in Russia's academic quarters in the '90s led to the loss of a whole generation, which was expected to form the nation's modern intellectual elite. There has been a lot of controversy recently over the problem of effectiveness at Russian universities, the National Academy of Sciences and other academic establishments.

The attitude of Russians to the United States is largely determined by the latter’s military and political activities. At the same time a mere 18% of Russians have negative impressions of the United States. As for Americans’ views on Russians, they are generally positive despite anti-Russian rhetoric in the media.

No matter what Putin does, he is unlikely to change the views of those who consider him an “enemy of democracy.” The majority of our society continues to regard Putin as all but the most lucky and successful leader. When he became president for the first time, Russia had a smaller economy than Belgium.

The cabinet is pretty balanced – there are people who worked with Dmitry Medvedev when he was President, and there are people who worked with Putin during both his terms as President and Prime Minister.

Russian has official status as a state language in only one country outside the Russian Federation, which is Belarus, and two unrecognized states, which are South Ossetia and Abkhazia. All other countries prefer not to use Russian as an official language, including Ukraine.

European dimension of Russia's economic policy is absolutely critical, though Russia will definitely try to become not just a European or Eurasian power but a Euro-Pacific power. Which means Russia is also a part of the fastest growing part of the world, which is Asia Pacific.

The role of one of the regional elites was absolutely decisive, namely, the Russian Federation. Yeltsin and the Russian Federation were the key factors in the fall of the Soviet Union. For Yeltsin, one of the few ways to get in the Kremlin was to essentially overthrow President Gorbachev

United Russia will have a majority for passing routine bills but won’t have the constitutional majority required for adopting constitutional laws. As such, it will be necessary to form coalitions.