🇷🇺🇺🇦 The costs of a possible war between Russia and Ukraine far outweigh the benefits.

1️⃣ First, such a military conflict is unlikely to culminate in any intelligible agreement. A victory over the armed forces of Ukraine will not by itself lead to a fast peace. The war could develop into a long and sluggish confrontation.

2️⃣ Second, the conflict would inevitably lead to a sharp change in the Western approach toward providing Ukraine with modern weapons and military equipment. Large-scale military aid from the West would prolong the conflict. The United States and its allies will not enter open military confrontation with Moscow. However, the level of support for the Ukrainian army will grow significantly.

3️⃣ Third, regarding the Ukrainian issue, Russia would find itself in diplomatic isolation. It is unlikely that any country would voice support for Moscow’s actions. Unlike Crimea and Donbass, we’re talking about a large-scale and open clash between the armed forces, that is, about a full-fledged war. Russia would certainly be on the offensive. This would allow its actions to be classified as aggression without any problems.

4️⃣ Fourth, all key Western players would introduce qualitatively new sanctions and restrictions against Russia. The cumulative damage to the Russian economy would be colossal in scale.

5️⃣ Fifth, controlling Ukraine, even its eastern part, could be problematic. Taking into account the Western sanctions blockade, any transactions with the territories of Ukraine under Russian control would be impossible. Russia would have to take on a huge territory.

6️⃣ Sixth, the loyalty of the population of Eastern Ukraine to Russia is not obvious. Despite all the internal disagreements, over the past 30 years Ukraine has developed its own civic identity. The population of the eastern regions may have a negative attitude towards excessive nationalism. However, this does not guarantee their loyalty to Russia.

7️⃣ Finally, seventh, the war is fraught with destabilisation of the situation inside Russia itself. There is no demand in society for a war with a neighbour, even despite the odiousness of the anti-Russia discourse in Ukraine.

The war is fraught with significant risks to the economy, political stability and Russian foreign policy. It fails to solve key security problems, while it creates many new ones, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.

🔗 War Between Russia and Ukraine: A Basic Scenario?

#Ukraine #Russia #war #conflict #geopolitics

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇷🇺🇨🇳 The Russian Far East (RFE) invariably attracts Beijing’s attention.

Chinese researchers do not exclude that the PRC will be able to redirect some transcontinental transit flows through the region, including the Northern Sea Route, as well as form a sustainable resource base which would serve China’s interests in terms of security and development.  For the Celestial Empire, this is especially important in light of the aggravation of relations with Washington and the deterioration of the situation in the East and South China Seas, which is now fraught with the risk of a disruption of sea transport capabilities. Russia’s interest is associated with the establishment of the “Greater Eurasian Partnership” as a non-Western vector of integration.

At the same time, it is still too early to talk about any significant role of the RFE, for example, in the Belt and Road project, writes Andrey Gubin, Associate Professor of the Department of International Relations of the Eastern Institute of the Far Eastern Federal University (Vladivostok).

🔗 The Belt Without a Road: Difficulties With the Transport Component of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in the Far East

#FarEast #China #BeltAndRoad

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

📆 On November 26, Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation of the Valdai Discussion Club, took part  at the plenary session of the DMZ International Forum on the Peace Economy-2021, organised by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) and the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences (NRC). The theme of this year's forum is “Building Resilience for Peace and International Cooperation on the Korean Peninsula”.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/own/andrey-bystritskiy-2021-dmz-international-forum/

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🌐 Building Resilience for Peace

On November 26, Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club, took part in the plenary session of the 2021 DMZ International Forum on the Peace Economy, organized by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) and the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities, and Social Sciences (NRC).

The event topic was “Building Resilience for Peace and International Cooperation on the Korean Peninsula”.

In his speech, he pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t only fail to rally humanity together, but also catalysed some destructive trends, further weakening global solidarity. Tensions are growing all over the world. The pandemic has shown that humanity is losing its ability to respond to global challenges constructively, and in solidarity.

Bystritskiy said that the most important task today is to develop effective mechanisms for global interaction.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/building-resilience-for-peace-andrey-bystritskiy-at-2021-dmz-international-forum/

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

⏰ TODAY at 16:30 Moscow time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will host a discussion titled “Relations Between Russia and NATO: A Grand Finale or To Be Continued?” Alexander Grushko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation will be among the participants.

❓How likely is the aggravation of relations between Russia and NATO and their transition to an open armed conflict?
❓Could such a conflict be provoked by incidents in the air and at sea?
❓Should we expect the development of a policy of double containment of Russia and China by NATO?
❓Do Russia and NATO have areas of common interest? Is it possible to work on their promotion?
❓Under what conditions will it be possible to resume the work of the Russian mission to NATO?

These and other questions will be answered by the participants of the discussion.

A link to the live broadcast of the discussion will be posted on all online platforms used by the Valdai Club: on the website, on Facebook, Vkontakte, Instagram, and Telegram.

📷 ©Flickr / NATO

🇷🇺🌎 What can be done to ameliorate and soften the bitter antagonism that has developed between Moscow on the one hand and Washington, London, Paris and Berlin on the other?

🔹 The first and most important is the resumption of meaningful dialogue, not just at the very top of government, but also between senior military personnel and at every other level where there are risks and challenges to peace and where the avoidance of conflict is becoming more difficult.

🔹 The West, for its part, has to recognise that Russia has a legitimate interest in the security of its borders and that any further expansion of the membership of NATO cannot just be seen as a private matter for NATO member states and candidate countries seeking to join.

🔹 Russia, for its part, must accept that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was not just an ideological event but was the end of Europe’s last empire, the Russian empire. 

Relations between Russia and NATO are poorer than they have been for many years but attempts in both Moscow and the West to suggest that we are experiencing a new Cold War are way off the mark, writes Sir Malcolm Rifkind, foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary of the United Kingdom between 1992-1997.

🔗 How to Break the Impasse Between Russia and the West

#NATO #worldorder

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

UPD: The livestream is over. The video of the discussion will be available soon via the same link. Stay tuned!

🎥 LIVE: at 16:30 Moscow time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will host a discussion titled “Relations Between Russia and NATO: A Grand Finale or To Be Continued?” Alexander Grushko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation will be among the participants.

https://valdaiclub.com/multimedia/video/relations-between-russia-and-nato-a-grand-finale-or-to-be-continued-an-expert-discussion/

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

📷 Today, on November 29, the Valdai Club hosted a discussion titled “Relations Between Russia and NATO: A Grand Finale or To Be Continued?” featuring Alexander Grushko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

👉 Photo gallery of the discussion is available on our Instagram.

🎞 The video of the discussion will be available via this link soon.

Stay tuned!

💉🌐 Vaccine diplomacy has not justified the hopes we had placed in it. 

Belief in diplomacy as such and in its “vaccine spin-off” in particular instils optimism in an ordinary man. A mantra arises: we will create vaccines all together — we will be vaccinated — we will defeat the pandemic.

But in fact, large-scale international cooperation in the development of vaccine materials fails to transpire. Contrary to the declared unification of efforts of people of good will, we see simple geopolitical nationalism, writes Roman Reinhardt, Associate Professor at the Department for Diplomatic Studies, Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

🔗 Vaccine Diplomacy: Expectations vs Reality?

#vaccine #vaccination #diplomacy #geopolitics

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇷🇺🌐 More Arms Control and Less Self-Deception: Valdai Club Discusses Prospects for NATO-Russia Relations

On November 29, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “Relations Between Russia and NATO: A Grand Finale or To Be Continued?”

🔹 Ivan Timofeev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club and the moderator of the discussion, called the topic of relations between Russia and NATO extremely urgent and very multi-layered. He raised a whole range of problems for discussion — from the prospects for the resumption of the work of the Russian mission to NATO to the future of arms control regimes and the Euro-Atlantic security system trends.

🔹 Alexander Grushko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, in his speech analysed the evolution of NATO’s ideas about its own mission. He noted that after the end of the Cold War, the alliance lost its sense of mission. The solution was the “open door policy” — that is, in fact, the policy of searching for an enemy, which implied the rejection of promises not to move to the east “not an inch”. Thus, NATO’s self-preservation interests were placed above the fundamental interests of creating common European security. As a result, the alliance returned to the post-Fulton era and again focused on combating the “threat from the east.”

🔹 George Robertson, NATO Secretary General in 1999-2004, said that the growing tension in relations between NATO and Russia is extremely dangerous for everyone and is not beneficial to anyone. He called NATO a purely defensive alliance that does not have aggressive intentions in any direction, does not oppose Russia and does not undermine its security and territorial integrity. He urged to abandon the exchange of accusations and move to dialogue to achieve common goals.

🔹 Thomas Graham,Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (USA), stressed that neither side wanted an armed conflict and that everyone understood what a catastrophe it can cause. He pointed to the existence of constantly increasing security risks at the moment, adding that the hope to avoid more serious consequences comes from the presence of dialogue between the United States and Russia at the highest level and through de-conflicting channels.

🔹 Adam Thomson, UK Permanent Representative to NATO (2014–2016), Director of the European Leadership Network, admitted that Russia feels a certain threat from NATO, and this feeling is sincere. Anyway, he emphasised that he considers it to be wrong and that the approach chosen by Russia would not help it achieve its goals, and, on the contrary, would prevent the forces within NATO that are inclined to dialogue and compromise, from working with Russia. We all need more arms control and less loud statements, the expert concluded.

🔹 Stefanie Babst, Principal & Global Policy Advisor, Brooch Associates and Senior Associate Fellow, European Leadership Network, said that she was unpleasantly surprised that relations between Russia and NATO were at an impasse. There should be a space for cooperation, and for this it is necessary that NATO countries take into account Russia’s legitimate security interests, she said, adding that the Russian leadership should also take a break and think about how it perceives its European neighbours.

🔹 Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, pointed out that now both Russia and NATO are facing problems that were laid down a long time ago. The approach to the European security, adopted thirty years ago, was, in his opinion, based on mutual self-deception, and now it is necessary to start a serious conversation about the principles on which the European security system will be built in the future.

🔗 More Arms Control and Less Self-Deception

#valdaiclub #NATO #worldorder

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

📆 ANNOUNCEMENT: On December 7-8, the Valdai Discussion Club will host the 12th Asian Conference, titled “Russia and Asia in a Changing World Order”.

📍 The event will take place at the Club’s conference hall, at Tsvetnoy Boulevard 16/1, Moscow, Russia.

🌏 This year, the Asian Valdai conference will be held mainly in full-time format, with the participation of more than 30 experts from 10 countries (China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore and Vietnam). Some of the speakers will take part online.

The theme of this year’s conference is related to the transformation that the world community is going through. Among the main topics to be discussed by Valdai Club experts are the “closure” of China, the establishment of the AUKUS military bloc on Asia’s periphery, the adaptation of Asian countries to new epidemiological conditions, the situation in Afghanistan, and much more. All these issues will be discussed within the following thematic blocks:

• Consequences of the pandemic for the Asian region;
• New Initiatives for multilateral cooperation in Asia;
• Prospects for cooperation between Russia and Asia;
• Regional conflicts and their impact on development and international relations in Asia.

The Asian conference of the Valdai Club will consider what real changes have occurred during the pandemic in the behaviour and development of Asian countries, as well as what Russia and Asia have to offer each other. Many international forums deliberately avoid these issues. The Club is ready to comprehensively analyse the changes that have taken place in Asia and offer its conclusions.

🌐 The foreign guests who will attended the event in person include: Dino Patti Djalal, founder of the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia, Indonesian Ambassador to the United States (2010-2013); Tsogtbaatar Damdin, Member of the Parliament of Mongolia and Head of the Mongolian Delegation at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly; Muhammad Athar Javed, Director General and CEO of Pakistan House; Sungbae An, Director of the Department of International Macroeconomics and Finance, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy; and Lily Ong, TV presenter and international columnist.

💻 The experts who will take part via video link include: Le Trung Kien, Deputy Director General of the Institute of Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam; Wang Wen, Executive Dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies (RDCY); Thomas Daniel, Senior Analyst in the Foreign Policy & Security Studies programme at ISIS Malaysia; Taisuke Abiru, Senior Research Fellow, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation; Nelson Wong, Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Centre for RimPac Strategic and International Studies; Andrey Lankov, professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University and others.

🇷🇺 On the Russian side, the conference will be attended by: Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation Valdai Club; Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Valdai Club; Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Club; Natalya Stapran, Director of Multilateral Economic Cooperation and the Special Projects Department of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation; Vasily Kashin, Director of the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, HSE; Yana Leksyutina, Professor, Department of American Studies, Faculty of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University; Anna Melkina, Head of the Japan Division of the Multilateral Economic Cooperation and the Special Projects Department of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation; Viktor Sumsky, leading expert of the ASEAN Centre at MGIMO University of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others.

ℹ️ Dear media representatives, accreditation is open until 18:00 on December 6. For accreditation, please fill out the form on our website.

🔗 Russia and Asia in a Changing World Order. The 12th Asian Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🗽⛔️ In the United States, there is a renewed discussion about the advisability of expanding sanctions on Russian sovereign debt.

Similar sanctions already exist: they were introduced sequentially by Donald Trump and Joseph Biden.

There is an opinion in Congress that the existing sanctions are insufficient and need further expansion. The proposed amendment on tougher sanctions is unlikely to find serious support so far.

However, the measure itself will remain on the agenda and can be used as a threat against Moscow, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.

🔗 Russian Debt and Sanctions. Amended Again

#sanctions #UnitedStates #Russia

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

📌 Programme of the 12th Asian Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club “Russia and Asia in a Changing World Order”

📍 Moscow, December 7 - 8, 2021

📆 December 7, Tuesday

11:30-12:00 — Opening of the conference (live broadcast)

12:00-13:30 — Session 1. The Pandemic: Development and International Politics in Asia (live broadcast)

Objective of the session: to highlight and discuss the main consequences of the pandemic for the Asian region, both in general and at the level of individual states

14:30-16:00 — Session 2. Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific: Multilateral Cooperation in Asia in the Light of New Initiatives and Alliances?

The global shift in the balance of power is leading to significant stress on institutions that emerged during the Cold War and after its end. What does the new era bring to the traditional Asian model of cooperation? Will the old institutions be preserved and will the new ones survive? How will Asia cope with the arrival of India in the Pacific and the competition between the United States and China?

16:15-17:45 — Session 3. What Can Asia and Russia Give Each Other? (live broadcast)

Has Russia reached the limits of its turn towards Asia? What can Russia offer regional partners in the new conditions and what can they offer it?

📆 December 8, Wednesday

10:30-12:00 — Session 4. Status and Potential of Regional Conflicts

Despite the fact that the Asian region is not, unlike Europe, an arena for confrontation between powerful military players, it has local conflict zones. How are the countries of the region reacting to the ongoing transformations? Are their national strategies changing in this regard?

🔗 The full Programme and List of Speakers

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🚀 2021 was a real breakthrough year in private, commercial space travel.

Here, on the one hand, we observed a semblance of an “arms race” between several Western billionaires (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson), each of whom actively promoted their projects.

On the other hand, this race has become almost a vanity fair over who would be the first to launch their private crew. 

What should be the optimal strategy for further space exploration? What are the goals?

Undoubtedly, this will push technological progress forward. It will undoubtedly be very expensive. And there’s no doubt it will be a vanity fair again, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov.

#Space #SpaceTravel

🔗 Outer Space As Vanity Fair or Politics of the Future?

📷 ©Sputnik

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🗽 Both Trump and Biden seem to have jumped into the 21st century from a completely different era — a time when the ability of the United States to determine the fate of other sovereign peoples was not indisputable. They consistently tried to integrate their power into the changing landscape of multipolar global politics.

However, the problem is that the external environment is not becoming more favourable for the United States. Thanks to the enormous accumulated resources of “structural strength”, Americans can still make rather creative decisions and even meet with the readiness of other countries to agree with them. Nevertheless, now, as ever, any consent to follow American policy must be paid for in hard currency.

In fact, in the last stages of the Cold War and after its conclusion, the United States paid off its allies with access to benefits on a global scale. Now there are fewer and fewer opportunities to do this — only the weakness of the rest of the West, particularly Europe, saves American interests, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.

🔗 The Confused Superpower: A Year After America's Elections

#Global_Governance #Biden #Trump #UnitedStates #politics

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🌏 Managing major power competition is nothing new for member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). 

Despite the disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ASEAN’s agenda, concern on US-China tensions still weighed heavy in its discussions.

Should both major powers decide that they need to secure their influence in ASEAN or its member states at all costs, the regional organisation is set for a rocky foreseeable future, even the risk of a permanent fracture.

Would ASEAN’s external partners want to engage with a regional organisation that is deemed a mere tool for major powers? For ASEAN, the uncomfortable question it now has to ask itself is that while it might be in the driver’s seat, is it the owner of the vehicle, or a mere chauffeur? 

👉 Thomas Daniel, speaker of the second session of the 12th Asian Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club, writes about US-China tensions and the future of ASEAN. The 12th Asian Conference of the Valdai Club “Russia and Asia in a Changing World Order” will take place on December 7-8, 2021, at the Club’s conference hall, at Tsvetnoy Boulevard 16/1, Moscow, Russia.

🔗 US-China Tensions and the Future of ASEAN

#ASEAN #IndoPacific #Asia

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

📆 TOMORROW, on December 7, the 12th Asian Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled “Russia and Asia in a Changing World Order”, will start.

📍 The event will take place at the Club’s conference hall, at Tsvetnoy Boulevard 16/1, Moscow, Russia.

🌏 This year, the Asian Valdai conference will be held mainly in full-time format, with the participation of more than 30 experts from 10 countries (China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore and Vietnam). Some of the speakers will take part online.

The Asian conference of the Valdai Club will consider what real changes have occurred during the pandemic in the behaviour and development of Asian countries, as well as what Russia and Asia have to offer each other.

🔗 The full Programme and List of Speakers

#AsianValdai

📷 ©Unsplash / Jisun Han