Valdai Club

On July 28, 2025, the Third Russian-African Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club was held in Pretoria, South Africa. The title was “Realpolitik in a Divided World: Rethinking Russia-South Africa Ties in a Global and African Context”. The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) was the Valdai Club's partner in organising the conference.

Modern relations between Russia and Uzbekistan are not limited to a number of issues which arise in bilateral cooperation, even when its successful.They are a factor that largely determines the real state of affairs throughout Central Eurasia. The stability of the entire regional system of joint development and security depends on how they develop in the future, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club. The articleis based on the results of the Russian-Uzbek conference of the Valdai Club and the Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Trade corridors, as the main routes for transporting goods and services between countries, regions, and even continents, play a very important role in facilitating international trade and enhancing the ability of nations to cooperate and to interact economically with each other. Due to the fact that geopolitical developments and significant crises over the past few years have rocked some global and regional trade routes, it is evident that there is an urgent need for the “war of corridors” to be replaced by “corridor diplomacy”, as the role of corridors in today's world is not only the “transit of goods”, but also to enhance regional security and stability based on connectivity, writes Mohammad Reza Dehshiri, Dean of the School of International Relations, Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, especially for the 14th Middle East Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club and Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In recent decades, the Middle East has encountered a range of challenges, including conflicts, revolutions, and economic crises. These challenges have left a significant impact on the region, but have provided an opportunity for its people to drive change, using these experiences to shape a “Middle Eastern Dream” rooted in innovation and renewal.

The BRICS summit in Kazan was about making the first steps towards the reforming of the international financial system so that it promotes, rather than hinders, the economic development of countries while de-risking transactions between them. If the existing international financial system does not serve its principal purpose of facilitating financial transactions between nations and compensating for the disbalances in international trade then a growing number of countries will seek to establish additional pillars in the financial architecture, Shamil Yenikeyeff writes.

For nearly a decade and a half now, the word “transformation” has arguably been the most popular term to describe the Middle Eastern developments, including transformation of societies and economies, political systems and institutions, foreign policies and international alliances, strategies pursued by non-state and state actors, and regional and global powers.


Cooperation between Russia and India has a strong foundation, and significant efforts have been made recently to ensure that interactions between them improve in quality and gain regulatory and institutional support. Nevertheless, more work remains to be done. This is a condensed version of the report. The full version will be available on the Valdai Club’s website in February 2025.

Many developments that significantly impacted the destinies of the regional players, non-regional actors, and many people around the world have unfolded during the year that followed the publication of our paper titled “The Middle East and the Future of a Polycentric World” (February 2023).

Historically, transport links have played the most important role in consolidating geopolitical spaces, nation states, and groups of states. The oldest examples of statehood arose along rivers, so rivers almost never served as natural boundaries. As humankind evolved, it enhanced the natural capabilities for interconnection between regions by building roads, and in the 19th century, rail, and then air services in the 20th century.

As the centrality of global institutions is weakened and the nation states are reasserting their powers, the in-between layer of global governance (between global institutions and nation states), namely regional integration arrangements, is undergoing massive changes.