🚫 The change of power in Syria raises the question of possible changes to the US sanctions regime against the country.

Over the past two decades, Syria has been among the countries against which Washington has applied the most severe regime of restrictive measures.

These included blocking financial sanctions, large-scale export controls, import bans, transport and visa restrictions.

The US sanctions regime against Syria remains in full force. The decrees will most likely be cancelled only if Washington is confident in a large-scale and irreversible change in Syria’s political course towards the expectations and interests of the US, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/sanctions-remain-a-tool-to-influence-the-syrian/

#EconomicStatecraft2025 #sanctions #Syria

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🇫🇷 Macron’s political decay is gaining speed with every passing week.

While Barnier’s fall and Bayrou’s nomination as PM can be written off as superficial politics and only demonstrate a will to change nothing, the extent of Macron’s political failure in Mayotte gives a clear signal of the depth of the French crisis: the country is now unable to understand its own geographical dimension and sociocultural diversity.

France is under pressure either to become “EU only”, paying for Ukraine and other new EU candidates, thus with no remote dependences anymore, or to leave the EU and develop her empire according to her traditions.

The Eurocratic tyrant chose the former option and is now paying the bill in Mayotte, Olivier Roqueplo writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/eurocratic-emperor-macron-is-too-small-to-cope/

#WorldMajority_WorldOrder #Macron #France

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🌎 Despite the fact that all five Nordic countries have been members of NATO since 2024, there are divergent positions on participation, both among the founding countries (Denmark, Norway, Iceland) and among the new member countries (Finland and Sweden).

While Denmark, Finland and Norway are more involved in NATO military exercises in the Baltic Sea region and the Arctic, Sweden prefers to primarily resolve its own political and economic issues of military-political cooperation, and Iceland prefers to minimise its participation altogether.

Finland, as expected, is pursuing a policy of activism and internationalism more intensively, while Sweden prefers a policy of determinism and adaptation, which it describes as a policy of pragmatism, Oksana Grigorieva writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/not-a-united-front-how-the-nordic-countries/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #Arctic #NATO

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🇺🇸🇬🇱🇩🇰 The United States, represented by Donald Trump, has exacerbated long-accumulated contradictions and unresolved problems in Danish-Greenlandic relations.

Now Denmark has an additional and extremely effective incentive to continue expanding contacts with Greenland on foreign policy, the military, and security issues, investing more quickly and actively in the long-overdue modernisation of its Arctic presence, including with respect to defence.

This has long been expected from Denmark by both the United States and other NATO member states, writes Nikita Belukhin, Junior Research Fellow at the Department of European Political Studies at IMEMO RAS.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/donald-trump-s-greenlandic-anabasis/

#Globalization_and_Sovereignity #Trump #Greenland #Denmark

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🇺🇸 The USA has rich experience in purchasing and annexing territories. US President Donald Trump — again — got the idea to buy Greenland, the world’s largest island, from Denmark. An idea that first occurred to him in 2019 during his first term as president. At that time, we posted an infographic about US territorial acquisitions.

You can find the high-quality infographic here.

#valdai_infogaphics #Greenland #Trump

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⏰ TODAY at 11:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), the Valdai Discussion Club will host an expert discussion dedicated to the situation on the EU gas market in the wake of the cessation of transit through Ukraine.

❓What are the consequences of stopping the Ukrainian transit?
❓Do the preconditions exist for an energy crisis in the EU?
❓How can the countries of Southern and Central Europe solve their problems with gas supplies?
❓What damage will the termination of Ukrainian gas transit do to Gazprom?
❓How can the losses be compensated for?

The participants of 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.

#Globalization_and_Sovereignity #energy #gas

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🎥 LIVE: at 11:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), we are starting an expert discussion dedicated to the situation on the EU gas market in the wake of the cessation of transit through Ukraine.

https://vk.com/video-214192832_456239244

#Globalization_and_Sovereignity #energy #gas

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🗣 On January 16, 2025, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion dedicated to the situation on the EU gas market in the wake of the cessation of transit through Ukraine.

📷 Photo gallery

🎥 Video

#Globalization_and_Sovereignity #energy #gas

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⛽️ Diplomatic Pause: Reasons for and Consequences of the Termination of Gas Transit through Ukraine

On January 16, 2025, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion dedicated to the situation on the EU gas market after the termination of transit through Ukraine. 

💬 Anton Bespalov, the moderator of the discussion, noted that over the past three years, the situation on the gas market has undergone tectonic changes. At one point, Western public opinion was frightened by the weaponisation of Russian energy supplies to Europe, but today it is the West that is waging an energy war against Russia. For years, Russia has been trying to shed its dependence on Ukrainian gas transit, and today Ukraine and Europe are presenting its termination as their victory. According to the European Commission, the European Union is well prepared to terminate the transit, but many in the EU do not agree with this and expect severe economic consequences.

💬 Jan Čarnogurský, a member of the board of directors of the Pan-European University of Bratislava, suggests that the termination of Russian gas transit through Ukraine will greatly harm Slovakia, which relied on the route for 90 percent of its gas needs. The country will survive this winter and in the near future thanks to full gas storage facilities and the Turkish Stream, but the latter's capacity is definitely not enough for all the countries that wish to access it. Slovakia can only receive a third of the gas it needs through it, Čarnogursky emphasized. In this regard, Slovakia is capable of responding harshly to Ukraine's cessation of transit.

💬 Alexey Grivach, Deputy Director General of the National Energy Security Fund, called what is happening part of a diplomatic game, or rather a diplomatic pause, related to the change of power in the United States. "From the point of view of energy security, this is only a critical issue for gas supplies to Moldova and Transnistria," he added. For Europe, the consequences may become significant if the gas in storage facilities is used up. Azerbaijani gas was presented as a panacea for part of Europe, but now there are problems with its supply. Grivach does not believe that the history of Ukrainian transit is completely over and allows for new negotiations in the future.

💬 Gabor Stier, the head of the foreign policy department of the Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet, pointed out that the stoppage of transit was not unexpected and did not threaten the immediate energy security of the region. From an economic point of view, it, of course, somewhat worsened the situation of all its countries, but has seriously affected only one country - Slovakia. However, in his opinion, the political consequences are more important and should be considered separately. "This unfriendly step by Kiev demonstrates the West's aspirations in the energy issue," he believes.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/diplomatic-pause-reasons-for-and-consequences-of-the-termination-of-gas-transit/

#Globalization_and_Sovereignity #energy #gas

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📆 ANNOUNCEMENT: On January 23, 2025, at 11:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will host an expert discussion dedicated to the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and Russia’s policy in the South Caucasus.

After the Karabakh conflict, the situation in the South Caucasus remains quite tense and unstable. Armenia and Azerbaijan are currently in dialogue on the peace treaty parameters. Within its framework, on January 16, the parties agreed to begin work on delimiting the border. But the Azerbaijani and Armenian authorities continue to exchange accusations and harsh statements.

Sometimes Russia’s relations with Azerbaijan and Armenia also become complicated. This concerns, in particular, the prospects for Armenia’s participation in the CSTO and the EAEU, as well as the policy of integration with the European Union proclaimed by Yerevan. The recent tragedy with the AZAL airliner, which led to significant coverage in the media, became a test of relations with Azerbaijan.

❓What are the prospects for concluding a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia?
❓How realistic is it to fulfil the peace conditions put forward by the two countries’ leaders?
❓What is the state of Russian-Azerbaijani and Russian-Armenian relations?
❓How are Russia’s interests and policies in the Caucasus changing in the context of increased interest in the region from other external players?

The participants in the discussion will address these and other issues.

🎙️ Speakers:

🇷🇺 Sergey Markedonov, Leading Researcher, Center for Euro-Atlantic Security, Institute of International Studies, MGIMO, Russian Foreign Ministry

🇦🇲 Alexander Iskandaryan, Director, Caucasus Institute (Yerevan)

🇷🇺 Nikolai Silaev, Leading Researcher, Institute for International Studies, MGIMO, Russian Foreign Ministry

🇷🇺 Kamran Gasanov, Senior Lecturer, Department of Theory and History of Journalism, Philological Faculty, RUDN University

Moderator:

🗣 Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director, Valdai Discussion Club

https://valdaiclub.com/events/announcements/valdai-club-to-discuss-the-armenian-azerbaijani-relations-and-russia-s-policy/

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.

#WorldMajority_WorldOrder #Caucasus #SouthCaucasus #Armenia #Azerbaijan

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🗣 #IndianValdai: The Russian-Indian Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club, organized in partnership with the Vivekananda International Foundation, will be held in Moscow from January 27, 2025 at 16/1 Tsvetnoy Boulevard in Moscow.

The Vivekananda International Foundation and the Valdai Discussion Club are long-standing partners. The Memorandum of Understanding signed at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Club in 2023 brought expert cooperation between the two countries to a new level and launched the Russian-Indian conference. The first round of the conference was held at the Vivekananda Foundation in New Delhi last January.

It is noteworthy that the Russian-Indian conference will be held against the backdrop of the celebration of Republic Day in India, which has been observed since 1950. At the opening of the conference, Vinay Kumar, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India to Russia, will speak as a guest of honour. A total of 30 experts from the two countries will take part in the conference.

The goal of the upcoming conference is to objectively assess the key challenges for Russia and India in various regions of the world and the dynamics of bilateral relations. The main focus of the agenda of the Russian-Indian conference will be on security in the modern world. However, this topic is no longer limited to the military-political dimension; it will be considered in a broader sense, including the security of financial transactions, as well as energy and food security.

The conference programme is defined in accordance with these goals. It includes an opening, three thematic sessions and a special briefing – this last item is being introduced at a Valdai Club Conference for the first time. Among the topics of the sessions, Russian and Indian experts will discuss:

▪️ Hotbeds of instability and challenges to international security;
▪️ The Eurasian security system and the alignment of integration initiatives: views from Moscow and New Delhi;
▪️ Russian-Indian economic relations.

A special briefing will be devoted to the results of the US elections and their impact on the situation in Europe, the Middle East, South and Northeast Asia. In addition, journalists will traditionally be able to talk to the speakers after the sessions during press approaches.

📑 Especially for the conference, the Valdai Club has prepared a new report, titled “Russia-India: Formula for Economic Cooperation”. The report names India’s main resource: its huge, progressive domestic market, for which competition will grow between all major players.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/announcements/russia-and-india-views-on-security-in-eurasia-and-bilateral-relations-the-conference/

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. Accreditation closes on January 24 at 18:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3). 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.

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🇺🇸🇷🇺 Can Trump stop the conflict in Ukraine?

The new White House administration in the US has given rise to speculation about negotiations with Russia on the Ukrainian conflict.

Newly elected US President Donald Trump has stated that the settlement of the conflict is a high priority task for the new authorities.  Russia has voiced its openness to negotiations based on the Istanbul agreements of 2022. 

After the inauguration of Trump in January 2025, a window of opportunity for negotiations may indeed open.

However, the prerequisites for dialogue are more than offset by a number of negative factors. Both the success of the negotiations and the sustainability of possible agreements are questionable, writes Ivan Timofeev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/can-trump-stop-the-conflict-in-ukraine/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #Trump #Ukraine

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