President Vladimir Putin has spoken once again at the 22nd Valdai Club Meeting, an important Russian discussion forum. In a long speech, he touched on many points, especially on the subject of foreign policy, focusing on the war in Ukraine and its consequences for international relations.
A Russia proud of its armed forces
, he warned, is closely monitoring the growing militarisation of Europe
; the warning is that Russia’s response to these threats will be highly convincing
.
An imperialist contention is underway around Ukraine, and every power is playing its cards.
Russia and the world order
Putin’s remarks, however, go beyond the wartime contingencies and point to something deeper
, namely the world order. The thesis put forward is that in all fields—economic, strategic, cultural, and logistical—global balance cannot be built without Russia
.
As noted, this reflection took place at the annual Valdai Meeting. Among the preparatory materials was a report prepared by leading Russian foreign-policy analysts under the direction of Fyodor Lukyanov, who chairs the Foreign and Defense Policy Council and also served as moderator during the session with Putin. It is therefore unlikely that his observations represent a counterpoint to the president’s position; more likely, they articulate a developing line of thought.
The title of the report is significant: Dr Chaos, or: How to Stop Worrying and Love Disorder. Lukyanov took it upon himself to summarise his theses in an article in Profil, and also in Russia Today, both publications linked to the government. We can summarise the main thesis of the article as follows: if it is true, as Putin says, that the world order cannot do without Russia, it is also true that Russia itself cannot do without the world order, and precisely the one that exists today.
Reform or revolution
Let us follow Lukyanov’s reasoning. To the key question of whether the world has adopted revolutionary behavioural patterns
, in the sense of dismantling the existing international order, the answer is categorically no
. The reason is that, ultimately, the current system is not unbearably unfair to any of the key players
; it follows that no one is trying to completely destroy
the current institutions; if anything, they want to adapt them to their own interests—a reformist approach, so to speak.
Not even the so-called global majority
(otherwise defined as non-Western
) is calling for a revolution
. China, according to Lukyanov, is not seeking to reshape the world in its own image
; and consequently, we might say that Russia too will not jeopardise its socio-economic stability for a decisive triumph on the battlefield
. This is certainly their hope, but it is nonetheless a significant softening of the more hard-line positions in Moscow on the current conflict.
We have long believed that the future development of the crisis in the world order faces two possible paths
: either a series of partial conflicts or their escalation into a major war directly involving the major powers. Lukyanov’s considerations can be included in the first scenario. The Valdai report cites a number of military and political tensions—US-China, Russia-NATO, India-Pakistan, India-China, Israel-Iran—as a spring, capable of triggering sudden eruptions
. For now, these are partial crises. Our Marxist science, however, makes us aware that the second path
, that of the breakdown of the order, although unlikely at the moment, remains possible, and is, in any case, the ultimate outlet for the accumulation of the gigantic contradictions of this society.
A multi-voiced debate
While Lukyanov’s line could be described as cautious in the face of the risks posed to Moscow by the current crisis in the world order, there is no shortage of other more assertive and, in fact, aggressive positions. A leading exponent of this line is Sergei Karaganov, who is honorary president of Lukyanov’s Foreign and Defense Policy Council.
In an article published on July 28th in Russia in Global Affairs (of which Lukyanov is editor-in-chief), he states that our army should continue its offensive
with greater determination, because our caution plays into the hands of the enemy, who wants to drag us into a long war and ultimately exhaust us
. To avoid this danger, we should also start striking targets in the countries that are most actively participating in NATO’s aggression: Poland, Germany, Romania, and so on
. And not only that: military doctrine should also be modified to state that a war with a demographically and economically more powerful aggressor [Europe?] will require the use of nuclear weapons by Russia
. This does not seem to be the Kremlin’s current stance, but, as we can see, the debate in Moscow has many varied facets.
At the heart of the matter lies a crucial issue: Russian foreign policy directions. This topic is explored in Alexander Bobrov’s The Grand Strategy of Russia: A Monograph, published in 2024 in English by the University of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MGIMO), where Bobrov was a professor in the Department of Diplomacy. The book is a comprehensive reconstruction of the different seasons
of Moscow’s foreign policy after 1991. For now, let us limit ourselves to considering two chapters that deal precisely with the debate on the directions of Russian foreign policy: towards the West and towards the East.
Obstacles on the roads to Asia
It was the confrontation with the West, writes Bobrov, that accelerated the pivot to the East
, i.e., the reorientation of Russia’s foreign policy toward the East. In Putin’s words, the goal is a Greater Eurasian Partnership
. The pillar is obviously the relationship with China, yet several serious limitations
immediately emerge and weigh on this relationship: the absence of a true alliance, China’s neutrality on the war in Ukraine (a point worth noting), growing economic disparity, and the consequent risk of Russia’s subordination. Energy contracts also seem unbalanced.
A case in point is the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, agreed in 2022 to deliver 50 billion cubic metres of gas per year to China, but now stalled over pricing and contract terms. Moscow wants long-term contracts with fixed volumes and prices to recover the pipeline’s heavy upfront costs. Beijing, by contrast, is pressing for discounts, leveraging Gazprom’s exclusion from the European market. It also has interests that diverge from those of Russia in terms of the quantity of supplies over time: according to Sergei Vakulenko, head of strategy at Gazprom Neft until February 2022 and now at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center (since September 22nd), the expansion of renewable energy sources in China makes import demand predictable only 15 to 20 years ahead, which makes it difficult to plan beyond
that horizon.
At the beginning of September, during Putin’s visit to Beijing, a new memorandum was signed with Xi Jinping to relaunch the construction of the gas pipeline. According to Vakulenko, Moscow continues to proclaim progress
, but there are still an infinite number of steps to be taken
. And here we return to Bobrov, for whom the limits of the unlimited friendship
between Russia and China are not insignificant.
The other Asian giant that Moscow is turning to is India. Russia also maintains a privileged strategic relationship
with New Delhi, but obstacles remain. These include China’s excessive centrality in Russian foreign policy (which India may not appreciate), India’s preference for the United States, and New Delhi’s reluctance to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
If we add Russia’s difficult relations with Japan and South Korea, Bobrov concludes that the pivot to the East is indeed the conceptual basis
of Moscow’s Asian strategy, but it remains at an embryonic
stage, with fragmented and poorly integrated bilateral relations
. The Greater Eurasia project is a first attempt
to outline a continental vision, but it will take considerable political and economic effort before Russia’s integration aspirations in Greater Eurasia yield the first real results
. For this reason, the Western vector cannot be easily dismissed.
Two-faced Euro-Atlantic
As for the West, defined as the Euro-Atlantic
world, the most interesting aspect is that Bobrov emphasises how Moscow clearly distinguishes
between the two poles. This applies, for example, to sanctions. He writes that American sanctions are seen as an element of unfair competition
: the target is not so much Russia as the European Union. These sanctions are used by Washington to promote [...] its political and economic interests in Europe
, with particular reference to the purchase of American gas and increased spending on NATO. EU sanctions, on the other hand, are downgraded to be the result of forcing transatlantic solidarity
, almost as if they were imposed by the American ally.
On a more general strategic level, the war in Ukraine is considered an accelerator
of the confrontation with the West, but—and this is the key observation—geography dictates that after the end of the active phase of the conflict the parties will see an easing in tensions with possibilities for restoring political, economic, cultural, and humanitarian ties between Russia and the European countries
. According to this interpretation, the road to Brussels will not remain closed forever.
The conclusion of this examination of the main directions of Russian foreign policy is that the crisis with the West has nevertheless represented a turning point for Moscow, which is now moving towards the construction of an independent and self-sufficient centre of power in a gradually emerging multipolar world
.
In this claimed independence, it seems, there may be a rejection of both subjugation to the Eastern Dragon and a definitive break with its Western neighbour. Whether Moscow has the economic, demographic, and strategic strength for such a multi-vector policy is something that only the future of the confrontation will be able to determine.