Valdai Club

On May 28, at 11:00 a.m., the Valdai Discussion Club and the Kazakhstan Council on Foreign Relations (CASMO) will hold a joint online closed-door conference, titled “Russia and Kazakhstan: a new perspective on multilateral cooperation in Eurasia”.

This will be followed up at 1:00 p.m. by an open discussion moderated by Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club, and CASMO Chairman Yerlan Karin. They will sum up the results of the conference and then hold a Q&A session. We invite the media to cover the live broadcast of the open part of the event.

This will be the fourth meeting of the Russian-Kazakh expert forum, which has traditionally been held in Kazakhstan since 2017. This year, it was moved online due to the pandemic. The agenda of the closed-door session includes three main aspects affecting multilateral relations in the Eurasian space:

• Geopolitical trends and global processes in the context of COVID-19;
• The impact of the pandemic on the economies of Eurasia;
• State and society in the context of a pandemic.

Oil prices have fallen, contradictions have arisen between the United States and China, and countries have seen trade-related rivalries emerge, suggesting that the global quarantine has altered the contours of the worlds economic architecture and changed the vector of development of the global economy. Safeguard measures of the states often run counter to existing partnership agreements. The search for a compromise between the promotion of national interests and the development of multilateral partnerships is especially important for Central Asia.

Russia and Kazakhstan are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, CSTO and SCO. The pandemic provided an occasion to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of these associations, but did not remove other issues from the agenda. In particular, we should talk about the prospects for international cooperation in Eurasia in the context of US-Chinese contradictions or about the balance of forces in the region, taking into account the fact that Russia and China are repeatedly called the strategic opponents of the United States in the official documents of the American intelligence services.

How can Russia and Kazakhstan develop their cooperation amid the current conditions? Is it possible to develop measures for the joint regulation of the economy? What are the main results of the recent meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council from the point of view of Moscow and Nur-Sultan? Will Russia and China compete for influence in Central Asia? These issues will become central for the discussion with the panellists.

From the Russian side, the conference will be attended by: Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director, Valdai Discussion Club; Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club; Alexander Lomanov, Chief Researcher at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), RAS; Ivan Safranchuk, Leading Research Fellow at the Institute for International Studies, MGIMO-University; and Evgeny Vinokurov, Chief Economist of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilisation and Development. Participants from Kazakhstan include: Andrey Chebotarev, director of the Alternativa Center for Current Research (Kazakhstan); Gulmira Ileuova, director of the Strategia Centre for Social and Political Research; Saken Zhumashev, KPMG Managing Partner in Kazakhstan and Central Asia; Daniyar Kosnazarov, The Steppe Editor-in-Chief, and Iskander Akylbaev, CASMO’s Executive Director.

Working language: Russian

Attention to the media! You can participate remotely with prior accreditation. To do this, you need to fill out the accreditation form on our website and indicate your personal mobile number with the WhatsApp application installed.

For readers: A link to the live broadcast of the meeting will be posted on all social media of the Valdai Club, including Telegram, Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter, Instagram. In addition, you can follow the discussion in our Telegram channel: a text broadcast will be available.

You can ask the speakers a question by sending it before the broadcast or live to press@valdaiclub.com, on WhatsApp to the number: +79269307763 or by sending it in a personal message to one of our social media.

Be sure to include your name and position, as well as the name of the speaker to whom the question is addressed. Questions will be asked during the Q&A session.