Fyodor Lukyanov is editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

Originally Published at Carnegie Moscow Center, 2/26/21, as part of the “Relaunching U.S.-Russia Dialogue on Global Challenges: The Role of the Next Generation” project, implemented in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy to Russia. The opinions, findings, and conclusions stated herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Embassy to Russia

….The evolution of EU-Russia relations from the hopeful dawn of the early 1990s to the despairing sunset of the 2010s is one of the most revealing episodes in the history of the post-Cold War global transformation. Ever since the idea of a formalized community consisting of Europe and Russia lost its relevance (no practical steps have been taken to that end since the late 2000s), the relationship’s original principles have been meaningless.

The attempt at institutional partnership represented the culmination of about 200 years of efforts by a school of thought in Russia to Westernize the country. For the first time, the Westernizers saw an opportunity to qualitatively change the nature of Russia’s relations with the West.

That opportunity turned out to be a treacherous one. Russia’s Westernizers never intended for their country to formally submit to Europe’s rules and regulations, even as they pushed for modernization, active cooperation with Europe, and emulation of its ways. Yet that was precisely what Europe asked of Russia after 1992.

Europe’s experiment with its transformation into a politically consolidated subject, one projecting its normative framework outward, presupposed hierarchical relations between the EU and its direct neighbors. From the start, Russia was expected to not only cooperate with the EU, but also develop joint institutions. In its relations with Russia, Europe countenanced no retreat from its insistence on rule transfer.

Had Moscow resolved to become part of this “wider Europe,” the concessions it was expected to make would have been justified. But Russia’s Westernizers failed to persuade the country of the merits of qualitatively limiting its own sovereignty for the sake of following the European model….

Read the full article here.

From the Center for Citizen Initiatives:

We are very pleased to announce that CCI’s latest trip to Russia will be co-led by the Honorable Jack Matlock, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia. 

The dates are September 15 through October 1, 2021. It is anticipated by this time that COVID vaccines will permit Americans and Russians to meet, discuss issues and generate solutions to ease tense bi-country relations. We plan to take 100 Americans on this trip.

Never has it been more important for citizens (and leaders) of our two nations to work through the rumors and propaganda that exists at this moment.

We can travel to Russia during this critical time, meet with Russian experts in numerous fields, interview Russians in cities and regions across 11 time zones, get their perspectives on the U.S.-Russia relationship, share our perspectives, discuss innovative ways to get beyond media hype, rumors and propaganda that could … and may yet destroy our Earth … leaving a barren planet orbiting the sun.CCI has a 38-year history of developing Citizen Diplomacy between Russians and Americans. Fearing Nuclear War in 1983, we took a small delegation of citizens to the USSR to investigate the “Enemy.” We found no enemies at home … we found only people like ourselves deeply frightened of Nuclear War and thinking that the U.S. would start the final war! We began taking numerous delegations to the USSR in the ensuing years. They led up to the amazing Gorbachev/Reagan era when the Berlin wall came tumbling down. The USSR collapsed in 1990, but so did Russia ... as Russians struggled to get rid of Communism and find a new way to govern themselves. 

During Russia’s tragic 1990s and painful 2000s, CCI trained young Russian entrepreneurs how to develop their first tiny businesses, we helped their volunteer environmental groups clean up weapons’ dumps, sent tons of vegetable seeds to their first private farmers, started Alcoholics Anonymous across Russia and brought more than 6,000 Russian entrepreneurs from 71 regions to the U.S. for industry-specific business internships mostly set up by Rotary clubs across America. This resulted in Russians seeing the need for their own Rotary clubs. These clubs began to spring up all across Russia. Throughout those years CCI earned the trust of both U.S. and Russian officials. 

We feel it imperative to use CCI’s reputation for the good of both countries during this fateful and dangerous year of 2021. We intend to work toward shifting relations between these two nations that could destroy our world as we know it. We need your help!

Come travel with us on this most comprehensive-ever Citizen Diplomacy Trip to Russia! Trip costs range from $3500 to $8000 depending on which option one takes:  “bare-bones” for students, two levels of economy class or Elite accommodations.

If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, please email Sharon Tennison at sharon [at] ccisf.org.

By Medea Benjamin & Nicholas Davies, AntiWar.com, 2/24/21

The February meeting of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Defense Ministers, the first since President Biden took power, revealed an antiquated, 75-year-old alliance that, despite its military failures in Afghanistan and Libya, is now turning its military madness toward two more formidable, nuclear-armed enemies: Russia and China.

This theme was emphasized by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a Washington Post op-ed in advance of the NATO meeting, insisting that “aggressive and coercive behaviors from emboldened strategic competitors such as China and Russia reinforce our belief in collective security.”

Using Russia and China to justify more Western military buildup is a key element in the alliance’s new “Strategic Concept,” called NATO 2030: United For a New Era, which is intended to define its role in the world for the next ten years….

….As Michael Klare explains in a NATO Watch report on NATO 2030, every step the US is taking with NATO is “intended to integrate it into US plans to fight and defeat China and Russia in all-out warfare.”

The US Army’s plan for an invasion of Russia, which is euphemistically called “The US Army in Multi-Domain Operations,” begins with missile and artillery bombardments of Russian command centers and defensive forces, followed by an invasion by armored forces to occupy key areas and sites until Russia surrenders.

Unsurprisingly, Russia’s defense strategy in the face of such an existential threat would not be to surrender, but to retaliate against the United States and its allies with nuclear weapons.

Read the full article here.

By Aaron Mate, RealClear Investigations, 2/25/21

After four years of railing against “deep state” actors who, he said, tried to undermine his presidency, Donald Trump relented to U.S. intelligence leaders in his final days in office, allowing them to block the release of critical material in the Russia investigation, according to a former senior congressional investigator who later joined the Trump administration.

Kash Patel, whose work on the House Intelligence Committee helped unearth U.S. intelligence malpractice during the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe, said he does not know why Trump did not force the release of documents that would expose further wrongdoing. But he said senior intelligence officials “continuously impeded” their release – usually by slow-walking their reviews of the material. Patel said Trump’s CIA Director, Gina Haspel, was instrumental in blocking one of the most critical documents.

Patel, who has seen the Russia probe’s underlying intelligence and co-wrote critical reports that have yet to be declassified, said new disclosures would expose additional misconduct and evidentiary holes in the CIA and FBI’s work.

“I think there were people within the IC [Intelligence Community], at the heads of certain intelligence agencies, who did not want their tradecraft called out, even though it was during a former administration, because it doesn’t look good on the agency itself,” Patel told RealClearInvestigations in his first in-depth interview since leaving government at the end of Trump’s term last month, having served in several intelligence and defense roles (full interview here).  

Read full article here.