📆 ANNOUNCEMENT: On September 19 at 16:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will host an expert discussion, titled “Elections in the USA: What Awaits Ukraine?”

The United States presidential elections, which will be held in November, are especially significant. Political polarisation in the country has reached a critical point. If a few years ago the peak of this process was an attempt to seize the Congress building by force, this year we witnessed an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate.

Amid domestic political contradictions, material problems are also accumulating: the infrastructure is deteriorating, the railway industry is facing difficulties, external debt is growing, migration policy is stalling, and inflation remains high.

Problems in foreign policy are also multiplying. The discussion about China presenting a key challenge to American influence is becoming more active, but the Ukrainian conflict also remains in sight.

❓Republicans and Democrats disagree on many issues, but how different are their positions really?
❓How can US foreign policy change? Will it change at all?
❓What scenario awaits Ukraine after the American elections?

The participants in the discussion will try to answer these and other questions.

🎙️ Speakers:

🔹 Dimitri Simes, Channel One host, founder and former president of The Center for the National Interest (USA)

🔹 Sergey Kislitsyn, Acting Director of the Institute of the USA and Canada at the Russian Academy of Sciences

🔹 Ivan Safranchuk, Director of the Centre for Eurasian Studies, MGIMO University

🔹 Vladimir Pechatnov, Professor at the Department of History and Politics of European and American Countries,  MGIMO University

Moderator:

🗣 Andrey Sushentsov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club

https://valdaiclub.com/events/announcements/valdai-club-to-discuss-the-us-presidential-elections-and-future-of-ukraine/

Working languages: Russian, English.

ℹ️ Information for the media: In order to get accredited for the event, please fill out the form on our web site. If you have any questions about the event, please call +79269307763

Links to the live broadcast of the discussion will be posted on all online platforms of the Valdai Club: on the website, X (formerly Twitter), VK, Telegram and Dzen. 

#Return_of_Diplomacy #UnitedStates #Ukraine

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⏰ TODAY at 16:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will host an expert discussion, titled “Elections in the USA: What Awaits Ukraine?”

❓Republicans and Democrats disagree on many issues, but how different are their positions really?
❓How can US foreign policy change? Will it change at all?
❓What scenario awaits Ukraine after the American elections?

The participants in the discussion will try to answer these and other questions.

Links to the live broadcast of the discussion will be posted on all online platforms of the Valdai Club: on the website, X (formerly Twitter), VK, Telegram and Dzen. 

#Return_of_Diplomacy #UnitedStates #Ukraine

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🎥 LIVE: at 16:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), we are starting an expert discussion, titled “Elections in the USA: What Awaits Ukraine?”

https://vk.com/video-214192832_456239206

#Return_of_Diplomacy #UnitedStates #Ukraine

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🗣 On September 19, 2024, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “Elections in the USA: What Awaits Ukraine?”

📷 Photo gallery

🎥 Video

#Return_of_Diplomacy #UnitedStates #Ukraine

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🇺🇸 High-Stakes Elections: Foreign and Domestic Policy Dimensions of the US Presidential Campaign

On September 19, 2024, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “Elections in the USA: What Awaits Ukraine?”

💬 Moderator Andrey Sushentsov noted that the American presidential elections scheduled for November 5 are of concern to most countries throughout the world, and will affect many areas of international life. For Vladimir Zelensky and his entourage, it is especially important who will lead the United States. The Ukrainian government is trying to adapt to any scenario.

💬 Sergey Kislitsyn, Acting Director of the Institute of the USA and Canada at the Russian Academy of Sciences, analysed the economic dimension of the upcoming elections. He emphasised that the recent reduction in the key rate by the Federal Reserve, which occurred for the first time since 2020, shows that the Biden administration is generally coping with economic policy, including the inflation problem and job creation. At the same time, the Biden administration has acted taking into account the fact that the Republicans could take the White House and embrace more aggressive forms of protectionism that destroy relations with European partners, and therefore created not trade agreements, but rather platforms for cooperation that Trump will probably not destroy. 

💬 Vladimir Pechatnov, professor of the Department of History and Politics of European and American Countries at MGIMO, believes that the current elections stand out from preceding ones in terms of volatility, but in themselves do not contain anything revolutionary. Nevertheless, the election campaign can serve as an indicator of deeper changes in American society. However, the outcome of the vote is not yet clear: the gap between the candidates is still small and Kamala Harris has too many weaknesses that Donald Trump can exploit.

💬 Ivan Safranchuk, Director of the Centre for Eurasian Studies at the MGIMO Institute, opined that hopes that the US position on Ukraine will change in the event of a Republican victory are largely misleading. Donald Trump apparently has no feasible plan for the Ukrainian crisis and his approach is rather dictated by a rejection of the current administration’s policies. The basis of the Trump team’s idea apparently assumes a “draw” and fixation of the situation along the line of contact between combatants. However, according to Safranchuk, a conflict of such intensity, scale and dynamics cannot end like that – there must be a loser.

💬 Dimitri Simes, Channel One host, founder and former president of The Center for the National Interest (USA), contended that  the seriousness of what is happening around the elections is not to be underestimated, despite the exaggerated accusations and fears on both sides. "Undoubtedly, the stakes are very, very high," he emphasised. Simes pointed to the colossal level of mutual distrust between Republicans and Democrats, which will inevitably continue after the elections.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/high-stakes-elections-foreign-and-domestic-policy-dimensions-of-the-us-presidential-campaign/

#Return_of_Diplomacy #UnitedStates #Ukraine

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📆 ANNOUNCEMENT: On October 2 at 4:00 p.m. Moscow time, the Valdai Club will host an expert discussion dedicated to the situation in the Middle East.

For decades, the Middle East has remained a region with numerous hotbeds of tension. Over the past several years, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has entered another active phase, and Israel's relations with its Arab neighbours are in crisis, despite attempts to normalise them in 2020. The Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent Israeli strikes on the Iranian consulate in Syria led to a new round of escalation.

On September 17 and 18, 2024, thousands of pagers and radios belonging to Hezbollah members exploded in Lebanon, after allegedly being boobytrapped with explosives and equipped with remote-controlled detonators. The explosions were followed by Israeli strikes on targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on the border with Syria.

❓How far will Israel go in the fight against Hamas and Hezbollah?
❓Will Arab states unite to counter the threat?
❓Will Iran continue to follow the policy of “strategic patience”?

The participants in the discussion will try to answer these and other questions.

🎙️ Speakers:

🇱🇧 Amal Abou Zeid, Advisor to the President of Lebanon; Member of the Lebanese Parliament from the Free Patriotic Movement (2016–2018) (Lebanon)

🇷🇺 Ruslan Mamedov, Research Director of The Evgeny Primakov Center for International Cooperation; Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS

🇷🇺 Adlan Margoev, Research Fellow, Institute of International Studies, MGIMO

🇷🇺🇱🇧 Alexander Rudakov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Lebanon

Moderator:

🗣 Andrey Sushentsov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club

https://valdaiclub.com/events/announcements/valdai-club-to-discuss-the-situation-in-the-middle-east/

Working languages: Russian, English.

ℹ️ Information for the media: In order to get accredited for the event, please fill out the form on our web site. If you have any questions about the event, please call +79269307763

Links to the live broadcast of the discussion will be posted on all online platforms of the Valdai Club: on the website, X (formerly Twitter), VK, Telegram and Dzen. 

#Return_of_Diplomacy #Lebanon #MiddleEast

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🌍 The latest developments in Gaza and Lebanon have underlined the strong link between Gulf security and overall Middle East security.

It is time to for Moscow to consider reviving its initiative. But this time around, some changes may be necessary to reflect the changed regional security environment resulting from the war on Gaza and its regional ramifications.

While no imminent breakthrough can be envisaged in the Palestine - Israel conflict, Syria, the Iran nuclear issue or the establishment of a regional security system, there is room for a Russian contribution to improving the security environment in the Middle East in a way that paves the way to peace, writes Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, Deputy Special Envoy for Syria of the United Nations (2014-2019).

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/russia-s-contribution-to-improving-the-security/

#Return_of_Diplomacy #MiddleEast

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