Eurasia’s Future
Is a ‘New Yalta’ Possible?
Valdai Discussion Club Conference Hall, Tsvetnoy Boulevard 16/1, Moscow, Russia
List of speakers

On February 12, 2025, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Yalta Conference. Timofei Bordachev, moderator of the discussion, called this topic extremely interesting both from a historical point of view and from the point of view of modern international politics. He emphasised that we are talking about the anniversary of the configuration of the world order based on the United Nations, in which we lived and, perhaps, continue to live to this day. He added that now many dream of a “new Yalta” based on an agreement between the most significant states, inviting the participants to discuss how possible it is.

Rein Müllerson, President of the Institut de Droit International in Geneva (2013–2015), called the Yalta Conference, along with the Potsdam and Tehran Conferences, one of the stages in the creation of a “world concert” with the leading role of great powers. The institutions created in the course of this process have played a positive role and continue to do so, he believes, although the situation is complicated by the inability of major powers to negotiate with each other. In the 1990s, instead of international law, they began to talk about a “rules-based order” that neglected both the principle of the non-use of force and the principle of non-interference in internal affairs. The principle of sovereign equality also disappeared. This state of affairs in international relations looked anomalous and could not exist for long, Müllerson is convinced. The question is whether the revolutionary changes that can be observed now in the United States mark the end of an old era or the beginning of a new one?

Donald Trump is not destroying the old and not creating something radically new, but simply returning the United States to the course from which it strayed in 1991, believes Christian Whiton, Senior Fellow for Strategy and Trade at the Center for the National Interest (USA). If we look at the Yalta Conference from the perspective of today, we must admit that, despite all the complaints about its results, it was ultimately a success – and this is important in the context of the Ukrainian conflict and the Russian-American summit currently being discussed, he said. Whiton expressed hope that, as a result, the parties may be able to look at things in a new way and find areas for cooperation.

“1945 was a year of contradictions that have largely remained unresolved to this day,” said Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent in Canterbury (UK). The most important of these is the issue of the pan-European order and security system. It seemed that it was eventually resolved at the end of the Cold War, but this was only an illusion – the Cold War continued with a cold peace that followed the same logic. However, one cannot constantly live on the brink of war: it is necessary to establish a peace based on other principles, principles of cooperation. At one time, following the Yalta Conference, a universal international system was created based on the UN Charter. However, after 1991, it began to be replaced by a radicalised collective political West – and this situation has continued to worsen. Now there is often a talk about a “new Yalta”, but it is impossible without new thinking, Sakwa argued.