It is my pleasure to join you. Unfortunately, I can only hear you, but I cannot see you. I had the opportunity to hear Mr. Horbulin’s presentation and I agree with all he said. I'm sorry I was not able to hear the other presentations. But I think it was very interesting. And now, back to your question of what NATO has made, I want to clearly outline the prospects based on what is currently happening.
The policy of Russia is an expression of internal processes of the Russian state and society. In concentrated form it reflects the vital interests of this country and the contradictions it faces in the international environment during their implementation. The main domestic concern of Russia consists in the need of preservation and consolidation of the post-Soviet development model based on authoritarianism of personalized power and paternalist society.
Dear gathering, the presentations by Messrs. Hryhoriy Perepelytsia and Yevhen Marchuk indeed prompt to conclude that some remarks are probably to be made on a common political security order prevailing today.
Speaking about multi-polar world, Mr. Perepelytsia focused only on one of three existing models. Why do I focus your attention on this? Because the issues of multi-polarity are widely discussed by both practitioners and theorists. However I would like to recollect that it was at the time of the bipolar world, when this subject came up strangely enough for the first time, when Yevgen Primakov, who passed away not long ago, was the first to offer establishing of a triangle “Moscow-Delhi-Beijing” in opposition to the North-Atlantic Alliance regarding all the issues related to the common security policy, as well as economic issues to some extent, no matter how strange it may seem.
The article refers to the level and format issues of territorial integrity of Ukraine under Russian military aggression and annexation by Russia of the Ukrainian territory. Here we can imagine all the possible international formats, even those that are not used.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in the form of the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbas has apart from a military also a powerful informative dimension. The latter is a planned, well-coordinated and well-funded disinformation campaign targeting different audiences.
(Presentation of the Ambassador Borys Bazylevskyi, Leading Expert of the Center for Russian Studies on March 20, 2015, in Belgrade (Serbia) at the international conference "Ukrainian crisis - views from Ukraine, Germany and Serbia” organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Center for International and Security Affairs of Serbia.)
Events in Ukraine have become a clear indicator that the change in the political significance of active Kremlin clans, has serious implications for the developmental processes of Russian domestic and foreign policy. The so called "hybrid" aggression, which in fact is open Russian aggression against Ukraine, suggests that at the moment, Putin’s "collective" rule is largely influenced by the representatives of "the Great Russia” militants. We could say that during 2013 to the beginning of 2014, the leading Kremlin group underwent a significant realignment, moving it further away from a multipolar, branched form of "influence" to the consolidation of power structures around Putin, with a concentration of absolute autocratic power in the hands of Putin. That is why an analysis of how foreign policy decisions are made can foster a better understanding of the vertical nature of Putin’s power and thus, allow a more accurate prediction of the Kremlin’s future actions.
Let me propose that we start our discussion with the issue of global security. This is central to understanding the current situation and it holds the key to all the other questions. Including the question of how to deal with today's Russia.
The famous British writer Herbert Wells who visited the revolutionary Russia in the middle of the civil war and met Vladimir Lenin in the Kremlin named his book about the Bolshevik coup and the future of the giant country "Russia in the Shadows". Nearly a hundred years after that trip new researchers could also use this name: Russia's future is still obscure and nobody can predict what will become of it in several years.
The influence of sanctions on the behavior of Vladimir Putin and the Russian economy are two entirely different processes. Therefore, I will start with the question that I asked myself right after the military annexation of the Crimea by Russia and the start of the bloody war in the eastern part of Ukraine: What for and why was war chosen? Why is there no diplomacy or finances?