came to power in the Kremlin.

Under his rule, the Soviet

Union strengthened the policy of socialist internationalism
which, in practice, meant expansion of the USSR-controlled
geopolitical sphere, as well as enhanced assistance to the
Third World national liberation movements. The Brezhnev
doctrine was interpreted in the West as a declaration of lim-
ited sovereignty in relations between socialist countries that
are destined to help each other in solving their domestic
problems. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was
justied by this doctrine, which prevented the Soviet allies
from making domestic policy changes and blocked transfor-
mation in the Soviet-imposed model of socialism.
In relations with the West, Brezhnev supported the policies
of detente which, in his view, did not challenge the primacy
of the class-struggle approach to world politics. Soviet-Amer-
ican relations at the time were characterised by the policy of
nuclear deterrence and the conict arising from by the Soviet
Armys invasion of Afghanistan in 1982.
RUSSIAS FOREIGN POLICY DURING
THE PRESIDENCY OF MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
(1985-1991)
Gorbachev drastically changed the previous approach to for-
eign policy, which was based on the Marxist-Leninist concept
of irreconcilable conict between capitalism and communism.
He proclaimed that foreign policy must be based on coopera-
tion instead of a military balancing act. In the spirit of a policy
of New Thinking, Gorbachev made a number of concessions
in the resolution of regional conicts and arms negotiations
that would have been unimaginable during the Soviet era. In
1987, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate its intermediate-
and short-range missiles in Europe, and secured this obliga-
tion in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty
signed by Reagan and Gorbachev at the Washington Summit.
In February 1989 the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from
Afghanistan.
Gorbachevs conciliatory policy brought an end to the Cold
War, but also led to results his administration had not fore-
seen: the communist governments in Eastern Europe were
overthrown during 1989-1990. This came about as a result
of Gorbachevs rejection of the Brezhnev Doctrine and his
proclaiming the principle of the sovereign right of each peo-
ple to choose their own social system, which he mentioned
for the rst time in his speech to the Council of Europe. In
keeping with this principle, the Soviet Union did not attempt
to restore communist rule in Eastern Europe and neither did
223
SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY (1945-1985)
Soviet diplomacy after the Second World War was grounded
in a number of assumptions dating back to Leninist doctrine.
First, it was taken for granted that capitalism is doomed and
should be replaced by the communist system as the incarna-
tion of social progress. Second, the class-based theory of
world revolution was believed to be universally valid. Third,
the Soviet Union was considered to be the vanguard of what
was dubbed progressive mankind. Fourth, since wars were
believed to be brought about by the imperial powers, peace
could be achievable only with a systemic demolition of impe-
rialism. In the meantime, the Soviet rulers drew a distinc-
tion between unjust wars provoked by capitalist countries,
and just wars of national liberation that Moscow pledged
to support by all means for the sake of world revolutionary
progress.
As the direct outcome of World War Two, the Soviet Un-
ion became one of most politically inuential countries of the
world. Yet it still lacked economic power comparable to the
West. Hence, in the rst post-war months the Soviet leader-
ship sought to portray the USSR as a peaceful nation ready
to compromise with its partners from the West. Yet the anti-
fascist coalition soon fell apart, and the Soviet Union started
to seek predominance in Eastern Europe. Accordingly, the
United States were declared rst unofcially, then publicly
Russias main challenger and contender. Taking into account
the growing enmity between Moscow and Washington, the
Soviet leadership started investing resources in putting an
end to the nuclear monopoly of the United States and going
ahead with the Soviet atomic bomb project which, after its
successful implementation, gave rise to the nuclear arms
race between the Soviet Union and the United States.
In 1953, with the death of Stalin, Soviet foreign policy un-
derwent sweeping changes. The new Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev declared the policy of peaceful co-existence be-
tween two types of countries (socialist and capitalist) and
questioned the feasibility of exporting the revolution abroad.
Khrushchev also acknowledged the multiplicity of transitory
pathways from capitalism to socialism, and called for a more
tolerant and exible attitude towards the experience of Euro-
pean social democracy. Peaceful coexistence was equivalent
to the repudiation of war as a means of solving political con-
icts and recognition of the endurance of the capitalist sys-
tem. The arms race, according to the new logic of Soviet for-
eign policy, was considered to be dangerous and wasteful.
In 1964 the new Secretary General, Leonid Brezhnev,
Foreign policy of the Russian Federation
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source of nancial assistance which was desperately needed
for economic reforms. This type of worldview was especially
widespread in the immediate aftermath of perestroika and
the demise of the Soviet Union, and exemplied by the so-
called Kozyrev diplomacy, an explicitly pro-Western stage in
Russian foreign policy associated with Russias rst Foreign
Minister. It is at this time that the ideas of Russias eventual
membership in NATO were aired. Andrei Kozyrevs avowed
interest in strategic partnership with the West was based
upon a number of shared premises, rst of all, the desir-
ability of bolstering multilateral institutions and support of
universal human values as distinct from narrow national
interests. Kozyrevs worldview was grounded in recognition
of the centrality of the United States as the only truly glo-
bal power It is around the United States that a core of
international society is formed, which shares basic values
and common interests (Trenin, 2000). Seen from this per-
spective, it was believed that a unipolar international society
would be the best-equipped system for facilitating the thrust
of globalisation and fostering unication of the world. Yet the
unipolarity accepted by Kozyrev was seen not as Pax Ameri-
cana but rather as a joint leadership of a group of Western
nations (Bogaturov, 2003). Kozyrevs vision represented a
sort of soft unipolarity where American superiority was
mediated by a number of institutional lters and constraints
that Washington had to respect. In other words, Americas
leadership was broadly accepted, but not in its capacity as
the sole superpower.
However, the pro-Western policies of the beginning of
1992 began to falter in 1993 over such issues as the war
in Yugoslavia and NATO expansion. Critics started pushing
for a more self-reliant and independent foreign policy in Rus-
sia. A number of other events, including the intensied NATO
bombardment of Bosnian Serb targets in September 1995,
unleashed harsh criticism of the Kozyrev brand of diplomacy
from both the nationalist camp and President Yeltsin himself.
Kozyrevs resignation was announced by Yeltsin in January
1996. His successor, Yevgeniy Primakov, came up with a
different foreign policy philosophy grounded in the idea of
multipolarity.
In the minds of many Russian politicians, the NATO inter-
vention in the Balkans presented a perfect example of the
drawbacks of unipolarity. Primakov voiced strong objections
to the policies of NATO expansion, reminding the alliance of
its alleged promise given to Gorbachev not to move into the
spheres of Moscows interests. Under Primakov, Moscows
new worldview came very close to resembling a balance of
power concept that assumed Russias ability to consolidate
in the post-Soviet area and challenge the global hegemony of
the United States.
RUSSIAS FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE
PRESIDENCY OF VLADIMIR PUTIN
(2000-2008)
The Idea of Russias resurgence
Fast recovery of Russias economy in Putins rst presiden-
tial term reduced Russias dependence on foreign economic
it stand in the way of reunication in Germany. Moreover, by
the middle of 1990, Gorbachev and Chancellor Helmut Kohl
had worked out an agreement by which the Soviet Union con-
sented to the NATO membership of a unied Germany.
In the beginning of the 1990s, Soviet-controlled interna-
tional organisations in Eastern Europe were disbanded. In
January 1991, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
was dissolved, although member states agreed to recast
their multilateral ties. In July 1991 the Warsaw Pact fol-
lowed suit. Soviet troops were withdrawn from Eastern and
Central Europe over the next four years, from Czechoslova-
kia and Hungary by mid-1991 and from Poland in 1993.
The United States-Soviet relations were steadily improving.
At a summit in Malta in the end 1989, Gorbachev and Presi-
dent George H. W. Bush declared an end to the Cold War.
In August 1990, the Soviet Union joined the United States
in condemning the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and supported
United Nations resolutions to restore Kuwaits sovereignty.
By 1991, the United States-Soviet relationship showed even
more signicant signs of improvement, when Bush and Gor-
bachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START
I). Under START, large numbers of intercontinental ballistic
missiles were to be eliminated: the parties agreed on a re-
duction of approximately 35 per cent in the United States of
ballistic missile warheads and about 50 per cent of Soviet
ballistic missile warheads within the following seven years. In
November 1990, the United States, the Soviet Union, and
most of the European states signed the Conventional Forces
in Europe Treaty (CFE Treaty), agreeing to reductions in bat-
tle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, artillery, and ghter
aircraft.
Within the framework of Gorbachevs New Thinking policy,
the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with Saudi
Arabia, South Korea, and Israel. Gorbachev considered that
one of the countrys top priorities was to develop closer re-
lations with China. The Soviet Union resolved a number of
problems which were stumbling blocks for Sino-Soviet rela-
tions: it rolled back Soviet support for the Vietnamese mili-
tary presence in Cambodia, withdrew troops from Afghani-
stan and signicantly reduced the number of Soviet troops
and weapons deployed along Chinas northern border. As a
result, the Chinese government agreed to hold a summit
with Gorbachev in Beijing in 1989, which was the rst meet-
ing between Soviet and Chinese leaders since the 1950s.
RUSSIAS FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE
PRESIDENCY OF BORIS YELTSIN (1991-1999)
After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991,
Russia was recognised by states around the world and in-
ternational organisations as the Soviet Unions successor.
As an independent state it now had to work out a new for-
eign policy strategy. This process was rather controversial
due to the lack of clarity in Russias new identity, which had
to replace communism and Cold War ideology. Neverthe-
less, from the rst days of Russias independence, the West
was dened as its political ally, a prototype for Russias eco-
nomic and political development, and, nally, as a potential
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invasion. Putin chose the second option and, during his visit
to Paris in February 2003, he and President Chirac ofcially
announced their intention to block the US draft of a new UN
resolution that would authorise the war in Iraq. Joined by
the German leader Gerhard Schrder, they conrmed ad-
herence to the principles of counter-terrorism but insisted
that the war in Iraq was not an appropriate response to the
terrorist threat.
Joining the global war on terror tted in with Russias
interests as it gave justication and legitimacy to its policy
in Chechnya. In other respects, Russias contribution to the
war on terrorism was not as expansive as the United States
expected it to be. Russia contributed to the NATO operation
in Afghanistan but never sent its own troops to this coun-
try. Moreover, as a counterweight to American presence
in Central Asia, Russia built up its own military contingent
in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Again, Russia never sacriced
to anti-terrorism goals its partnership with Iran and Syria
in the arms trade, despite the fact that both states were
accused by the United States of supporting terrorism. Nei-
ther did Russia suspend construction work at a nuclear plant
in Bushehr, which is being built on the basis of the Iran-
Russia inter-governmental agreements dating from 1992.
The United States was extremely dissatised with Russia for
supplying these countries with arms and refusing to support
sanctions against Iran. In Latin America, Russia was building
ties with Venezuela, led by the anti-American president Hugo
Chavez. Striving to further diversify its foreign policy, Russia
declared as one of its top priorities partnership with India,
China and Brazil (BRIC).
Consistently undermining the international relations system
based on United States unilateralism, Russia put forward its
own idea of the optimal world order, which was the multipo-
lar world. The concept of multipolarity was not new to Rus-
sias foreign policy discourse, but after Sergei Lavrov was ap-
pointed Foreign Minister in 2004, this idea prevailed. Putin
eagerly promoted the idea of democratic multipolarity. In
his speech at the Munich Security Conference of 2007 he
accused the United States of seeking global domination and
lambasted the American concept of the unipolar world as
being premised upon one single centre of power and one
single master, one sovereign, a situation that arguably has
nothing to do with democracy. In the Kremlin worldview,
multipolarity ts with the idea of democracy which, in this
reading, is void of political meanings and is basically reduced
to a mere multiplicity of sovereign states, regardless of the
nature of their political regimes. It is worth mentioning that
Russia employs the concept of democratic multipolarity
mainly in communication with countries like China, Belarus,
Iran, Venezuela, India, Cuba and others, all of them lacking
a convincing record of democratic rule. By the same token,
the multipolarity discourse does not seem to be employed in
Russias communications with the EU. Instead Russia pre-
fers to use the concepts of common Euro-Atlantic space
and larger Europe.
The Kremlins concept of multipolarity had been criticised
by many Russian experts, who point out that it may foster
assistance, allowing Russian leaders to offer more vigorous
resistance to Western policies that failed to meet Russias
expectations. The 1990s were assessed by his administra-
tion as the period of Russias subjugation to the West. The
feeling that Russias interests were being disregarded was
fuel for more assertive and aggressive behaviour from Rus-
sia in the international arena. Putin turned reafrmation of
Russia as a great power into the mainstay of his foreign
policy, while pragmatism and pursuit of Russias national in-
terest became its key guiding principles. The ve-day war
in Georgia in August 2008 was one climax in Russias in-
ternational self-assertion in post-Soviet space as well as in
Europe. It is worth mentioning that many analysts attribute
the aggressive tone of Putins foreign policy discourse to
his domestic strategy of exploiting Russian patriotism for
gaining support to his leadership and unifying the nation by
promoting the idea of a perpetual external threat.

Russias resistance to US hegemony and multipolarity
discourse
Russia under Vladimir Putin increasingly identied itself as
being in opposition to US hegemony, as a result of which Pu-
tins foreign policy is usually described as rather confronta-
tional. In the beginning of Putins presidency there was great
hope for US-Russian cooperation, based on the change of
administration in both countries. The disagreements of the
Yeltsin-Clinton era were expected to be overcome by new lead-
ers. From the rst days in ofce, Putin was inclined towards
building stronger ties with the United States. In April 2000
he convinced the Duma to ratify START II. This treaty provid-
ed for a signicant reduction in strategic nuclear warheads
for both the United States and Russia by 2007. The next op-
portunity to reach new levels of cooperation with the United
States came with the appearance of the counter-terrorism
coalition. After 11 September 2001, Putin expressed his
willingness to join efforts in the war on terrorism declared
by the United States. It seemed that the counter-terrorist
strategy could hold out a good opportunity for expanding
general cooperation between Russia and the United States.
Indeed, Russia supported the NATO operation in Afghanistan
and stepped up cooperation on disarmament. During the
US-Russia Summit in May 2002 in Moscow, the presidents
of both countries, Vladimir Putin and George Bush, signed a
Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, pledging to cut down
their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds, bringing the number of
warheads to about 2,000 each. However, less than a month
later the Bush administration withdrew from the 1972 Anti-
Missile Treaty claiming that it was detrimental to US pro-
tection against possible terrorist or rogue-state ballistic
missile attacks. Russia saw this step as the intention of the
United States to build up military supremacy at the expense
of other states security, and retaliated by withdrawing from
the nuclear arms reduction treaty START II.
When the United States intention to attack Iraq became
clear, Putin faced a choice of either remaining neutral on
the issue, thus implicitly supporting the Americans, or sid-
ing with old Europe in their protest against the US-led Iraq
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tensive nancial support it was giving them, thus encourag-
ing breakaway tendencies in both territories. In 2005-2006
tensions ared. Moscow claimed that Chechen rebels were
hiding in Georgian territory (in the Pankisi gorge). Georgia
arrested ve Russian ofcers on spying charges in Septem-
ber 2006 and imposed visa requirements on Russian peace-
keepers in Abkhazia. In response, Russia introduced a visa
regime for Georgia and imposed an embargo on the importa-
tion of Georgian goods. A number of Russian ofcials publicly
warned Georgia against joining NATO. Under the pretext of
a possible military invasion by Georgia of Abkhazia, Russia
announced a build-up of its peacekeeping corps in the latter
republic. In the ongoing bellicose rhetoric, Georgia recalled
its ambassador from Moscow.
As for Ukraine, two main points of discord between Mos-
cow and Kyiv have been the Russian gas transit to Europe
and the Russian naval presence in the Ukrainian peninsula
of Crimea. Both sides have been engaged in a long-running
argument over the naval base in Sevastopol, which is cur-
rently leased by Russia from Ukraine. The Ukrainian govern-
ment insists that it will not renew the lease which expires in
2017, whereas for Russia this naval base is of top strategic
priority. If the lease is not to be extended, Russia has to
start preparing for the relocation of its naval base, which is
a time-consuming and expensive matter.
Gas conicts started in 2005 and periodically ared up
until mid-2009. The disputes revolved around the price of
natural gas sold to Ukraine and passing through Ukrainian
territory to the European Union countries, which became the
hostages in this conict. In 2005, Russia announced that it
was going to sell gas to Ukraine at the international market
price instead of continuing with the former preferential tar-
iffs. In addition, Russia was trying to recover an enormous
debt that Ukraine owed to Gazprom for its gas purchases.
As a result, Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in Janu-
ary 2006. In response, Ukraine withheld some Russian gas
being transported to Europe, which became an additional
source of discord. Several days later, Ukraine and Russia
reached a preliminary agreement, but the Ukrainian debt
kept growing. Almost identical situations recurred in 2007,
2008 and 2009, each time resulting in the cutting-off of sup-
plies to European consumers. Russia described its motives
as purely rational, based on market logic, whereas Ukraine
accused Russia of politically-motivated energy diplomacy.
During 2009 Prime Minister Putin engaged in negotiations
with his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Timoshenko and the par-
ties reached a mutually acceptable agreement according to
which Russia establishes market gas prices for Ukraine, but
Ukraine raises the gas transit price by 60%.
By the end of Putins presidency Russia had strained re-
lations with both its closest neighbours (Georgia, Ukraine,
Byelorussia and the Baltic States) and its strategic allies (Eu-
ropean Union and the United States), which gave ground for
pessimistic projections of Russias isolation and consequen-
tial marginalisation from world politics. The next Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev faced the challenge of breaking
this trend.
conicts among competing poles and thus lead to further
destabilisation of international society, the specic conse-
quences of which may be escalation of the conict in the
Middle East, the strengthening of Iran, the military advance-
ment of China and North Korea, and so on.
Russia as a regional power
From the start of Putins presidency, Russia turned its at-
tention to the CIS region and declared post-Soviet space a
sphere of special interest. Russia was striving for deeper
economic and security integration with the CIS states within
the framework of existing CIS institutions and the Collec-
tive Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). The main sphere
of cooperation between Russia and its eastern neighbours
was energy transportation. A number of inter-governmental
agreements with Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan were signed, deepening cooperation in the oil
and gas sector. The countries were also working to reduce
customs tariffs on other categories of the goods and to in-
tensify trade.
The Rose Revolution in Georgia in November 2003 was
the rst signicant blow to Russias policy of strengthening
its inuence across the former Soviet space. This event,
along with the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in late 2004,
when the pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko came
to power, were deemed in Russia to be the result of US-led
western interference in the Georgian and Ukrainian presi-
dential elections, and the United States attempt to exert its
inuence over the countries allegedly located in the sphere
of Moscows strategic interest. Despite the fact that Russia
itself was using every available instrument to inuence those
elections, the asco of the pro-Russian candidates was fol-
lowed by a stepping up of Moscows defensive anti-American
rhetoric. The Kremlin also reacted extremely negatively to
NATOs decision to offer Georgia and Ukraine the prospect
of membership in the alliance.
Throughout Vladimir Putins second term the relations with
the new Ukrainian government led by Viktor Yushchenko were
somewhat complicated. As for Russian-Georgian relations,
the tensions were escalating into open hostility. Disputes
with Georgia arose in the beginning of the 1990s when both
Russia and Georgia became independent countries. Separa-
tist tendencies which were accelerating in post-Soviet space
made Georgia face the prospect of secession of two of its
republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In order to prevent
this, the Georgian government embarked on armed attacks
in 1991 and 1992, which led the South Ossetian and Abk-
hazian governments to appeal to Russia for protection. Rus-
sia mediated the ceasere and, as a result of the Sochi
Peace Agreement, established a peacekeeping mission in
these republics. Since then the Georgian government has
redoubled its efforts to maintain a distance from Moscow.
After Mikhail Saakashvili came to power in 2004, Georgia in-
tensied its demands for a withdrawal of Russian peacekeep-
ing corps from the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Georgias main accusation against Russia was its increasing
political cooperation with these two republics, and the ex-
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RUSSIAS FOREIGN POLICY DURING
THE PRESIDENCY OF DMITRY MEDVEDEV
(2008-2009)
Russias foreign policy priorities under the presi-
dency of Dmitry Medvedev
The gist of Dmitry Medvedevs foreign policy is Russias
integration into the international community on an equal
footing with the EU and NATO, but without shedding the
pragmatic approach to international politics based on the
pursuit of Russias national interests. This is reected in
foreign policy documents issued by the Medvedev adminis-
tration: the new Russian Foreign Policy Concept, approved
in July 2008 and the Russian National Security Strategy
until 2020, released in May 2009. Both documents re-
place older versions adopted during Putins presidency. They
mostly reproduce the same content stating that Moscow
is seeking to establish a world order based on collective
decision-making, security indivisibility, the primacy of inter-
national law while, at the same time, Russia safeguards its
sphere of privileged interests, preventing any unfriendly
interference therein. The difference between these docu-
ments and their older versions is in Russias self-positioning
as a fully-edged, inuential international actor. Along with
this idea both documents imply that Russias interests in
the international arena are not taken into proper considera-
tion. In other words, Russias international status does not
match its real potential. On the practical level, this contro-
versy is reected in the main issue of Russias international
policy for the year 2009 the dispute over the American
anti-missile system in Europe. On the one hand, Medvedev
does not want to confront the West and start a new arms
race but, on the other hand, Russia cannot tolerate NATOs
attempts to bring its anti-missile defence system close to
its borders and thus increase its inuence in the spheres of
Russias strategic interest. Russias proposal of new Euro-
Atlantic security architecture has the purpose of preventing
this system from being deployed.
Medvedevs proposal on the New European Security
Architecture
Dmitry Medvedev often claims that in international affairs
as well as in domestic affairs we will rst and foremost insist
on the supremacy of law (Medvedev, 2008a). The proposal
of developing a new European Security Treaty follows from
Medvedevs aspiration to form a broad legal basis for interna-
tional cooperation in the sphere of security. The practical de-
mand for this treaty, as Medvedev states, comes, rst, from
Georgias arbitrary and irresponsible actions towards South
Ossetia in August 2008 and, second, from NATOs plans of
boosting its security at the expense of Russias security. To
avoid similar clashes in the future, Medvedev suggests sign-
ing a security treaty based on the primacy of the principles of
international law; a multi-polar world; a non-confrontational ap-
proach to international relations; peaceful conict resolution;
and avoidance of alliances and blocs in the sphere of security.
Soon after his inauguration, during his visit to Berlin in June
2008, Medvedev called on European countries to start work-
Russia as an energy superpower
Extremely favourable oil and gas prices have had an effect
not only on Russias economic development, but also on its
political self-identication. This is when the term energy su-
perpower became current, mostly due to the fact that the
Russia government considered its energy supply as one of
its most important sources of international competitive ad-
vantage. Nevertheless, it was precisely the period of Putins
presidency when Russia chose to switch its energy policy
towards a more technocratic and pragmatic one. During his
tenure Vladimir Putin presented Russias energy strategy as
being based on technical-economic thinking, which gave rise
to numerous discussions about Russias implicit intentions
with this transformation, including accusations of using en-
ergy as a political instrument to inuence both transit and
consuming countries.
In order to understand properly the controversy raging
around this issue, one should recall that Russia tradition-
ally practised a politicised approach to energy supplies, offer-
ing exceptional conditions of gas and oil delivery to a limited
number of countries considered to be its most loyal allies.
The pricing policy of Russia was never governed by the logic
of market prices. On the contrary, at the core of Russian
energy diplomacy was a series of politically motivated excep-
tions extended to a number of special partners. In 2005,
Gazprom with the support of the Putin administration an-
nounced that it was unifying its pricing policy and setting
same-level prices for all its consumers, including Ukraine
and (later) Byelorussia. Considering Russias negative reac-
tion to the Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2005, the new
strategy was perceived as a political move. Russian ofcials
kept insisting that this strategy could be explained by purely
economic reasoning. Many analysts came to the conclusion
that this was indeed true: Russias self-positioning as the en-
ergy superpower was driven not by the desire to restore
the empire [] but to boost prots earned by Gazprom,
Rosneft and other major corporations close to the Kremlin
[]. The logic of pragmatism and prot are indeed replacing
imperialism as the major factor determining the development
of Russias foreign policy (Morozov, 2007). In this context,
the Russian governments determination to charge Russias
neighbours for gas supplies at non-preferential market prices
could be regarded as a victory of Gazprom over the more
traditional Kremlin approaches, or, in other words, as a pre-
ponderance of business logic over the (geo)political one.
Nevertheless, Russias transition from the rather tradi-
tionalist exception-based policy in the oil and gas sector at-
tracted accusations that it was using energy as a manipula-
tive tool. In the domestic sphere, the concept of the energy
superpower is criticised because of the critical imbalance
of Russian exports and its being heavily dependent on raw
materials, which became especially evident after the world
nancial and economic crisis erupted. At the end of 2008
the Minister for Economic Development of Russia, Elvira
Nabiullina, admitted that the model of a Russian economy
based on oil and gas exports had been substantially faulty
(Elvira Nabiullina, 2008).
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of cooperation with the EU institutions. Putins administration
doubted the political subjectivity of the European Union and
sought to establish relations with actual decision-makers,
who were, from Moscows point of view, Germany, Italy and
France. Medvedev, by suggesting a Euro-Atlantic security
treaty, shifted towards recognition of the EU as a fully-edged
and trustworthy partner.
The improvement of EU-Russia relations throughout 2009
was substantiated by the EU-Russia summit held in Stock-
holm in November 2009. It was acknowledged as the most
successful to be held in the past few years. The European Un-
ion agreed to start negotiations on abolishing the visa regime
between Russia and the EU and to accelerate the work on
the New Basic Agreement which is to replace the Agreement
on Partnership and Cooperation (which expired in December
2007 and is automatically extended every year). Moreover,
the European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso,
the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, and the Rus-
sian President Dmitry Medvedev have agreed to launch a
bilateral programme Partnership for Modernisation, de-
signed to assist Russia in remedying the fact of its lagging
behind in technological matters. Again, the issue of Russias
joining the WTO was duly discussed. Jose Manuel Barroso
stressed the importance of Russias membership in this or-
ganisation (European Parliament, 2009).
NATO as a primary external rival of Russia
The sphere of Russia-NATO relations is one where the leg-
acy of the Cold War was the most difcult to shake off. Rus-
sian opposition to NATO has been premised on two mutually
exclusive arguments. On the one hand, NATO is said to be a
dangerously strong (even omnipotent) and unfriendly military
bloc that threatens Russian interests. On the other hand, it
is said to be a relic of the Cold War, incapable of providing
security in todays completely altered international environ-
ment in which security challenges are not bound to specic
territories. For both Putin and Medvedev, bloc thinking and,
accordingly, territorial expansion are not the right remedies
for non-territorial threats.
To discredit the idea of Ukraines and Georgias joining
NATO, Russia is wielding normative links between democracy
and security. It argues that Ukraine should not join NATO
since most Ukrainians are against membership in the alli-
ance. In Georgias case, where popular support for NATO is
unquestioned, Russia pushes the democratic dimension by
asserting that Georgia does not meet Western standards of
democracy and should therefore be unwelcome as a NATO
member. When tensions were especially heated, some of-
cials resorted to an aggressive tone. Dmitri Rogozin, Rus-
sias representative to NATO, said that it was unlikely that
Ukraine would be able to maintain its current borders if it
joined the alliance. The same argument was made well
before the August 2008 war - with regard to Georgia: since
neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia support NATO member-
ship, they have the right to refrain from going into NATO
with Georgia. In both cases Russia was not threatening the
governments of these countries, but implying that it would
ing out a new all-European security treaty which would nally
clarify the role of the power factor in relations within the
Euro-Atlantic community (Medvedev, 2008a). He expanded
on his vision of the new European security architecture at
the World Policy Conference in Evian on October 8, 2008,
where he blamed the United States for creating dividing lines
in international relations by its series of unilateral actions
(Medvedev, 2008b). Medvedev emphasised the importance
of the indivisibility of security by suggesting building an inte-
grated and solid system of comprehensive security where
no development and expansion of military alliances at the
expense of other parties is to be allowed. He insisted on the
necessity of a new security treaty for the entire Euro-Atlantic
space. By the end of November 2009, these suggestions
had taken the form of the Draft Treaty on European Secu-
rity (2009) that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
presented in Athens during the OSCE ministerial council in
December 2009.
The European leaders were not very enthusiastic about
the treaty. Dmitry Medvedevs proposal was criticised mainly
for its lack of substance, since the chief principles of his
project are already xed in the Helsinki Final Act and the UN
Charter. This proposed treaty is said to be purely reactive,
created in response to further potential NATO enlargement
and USA missile defence negotiations with Eastern European
countries. The critics also say that by means of this treaty
Moscow is attempting to gain more authority in European
international relations, because the implicit demand of the
Medvedevs security concept is that Europe must take into
consideration Russias interests and security concerns.
Another critique of Russias initiative is that Medvedevs
strategy is rather inconsistent and that many of his appeals
are pure rhetoric. Thus, although in his proposal Medvedev
continues to develop the concept of multipolarity, he also
rather easily drops multipolarity discourse in favour of uni-
lateral decision-making: As far as our military contingent (in
South Ossetia) is concerned, I should like to draw your atten-
tion to the fact that not a single document, including our joint
plan with President Sarkozy, envisages that this contingent
would abide by any rules It is up to us to dene what troops
we need there, where they will be based and what kind of mili-
tary bases will be deployed over there (Medvedev, 2008c).
In Russias Foreign Policy concept, this inclination to unilater-
alism is veiled by the wording, Should our partners be unpre-
pared for joint efforts, Russia, in order to protect its national
interests, will have to act unilaterally, but always on the basis
of international law (The Foreign Policy, 2008).
Summarising Russias foreign policy in one of his interviews
in 2009, Sergei Lavrov said that Russia was going to keep
promoting Dmitry Medvedevs initiative even if it had not re-
ceived the proper response from the European community
(Russia to promote, 2009).
The signicance of Medvedevs proposal is evident in at
least one aspect of this issue Russia is more determined
than ever to establish an institutional partnership with the
EU and NATO. During Putins presidency Russias priority was
bilateral relations with individual European countries instead
229
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ence of Kosovo (O pozitsii Rossii 2009). It claims that the
secession of Kosovo is a dangerous international precedent.
Besides, the independence of this territory did not contrib-
ute in any way to addressing the key problems of Kosovo.
Despite the evident inconsistency of Russias argument, it
kept insisting on a new peacekeeping mandate, which would
be void of any assertion of Georgias territorial integrity. Due
to Russias veto the mission was not extended and the UN
peacemakers withdrew from Georgia.
September 2009 saw the publication of a report prepared
by the EU commission chaired by the Swiss diplomat Heidi
Tagliavini. It gave an account of the causes of the Russian-
Georgian war in August 2008, accused Georgia of starting
the hostilities and Russia of overreacting and breaking the
territorial integrity of Georgia, thus violating international
law.
Reset in Russias relations with the United States
The Obama Administration changed its policy towards Rus-
sia in favour of improving bilateral relations with Moscow.
In March 2009 the Secretary of the State Hillary Clinton
visited Moscow and offered to reset relations between the
two countries. The offer was willingly accepted by her coun-
terpart Sergei Lavrov. The most signicant decision in the
framework of resetting the relations concerned anti-missile
systems in Eastern Europe. Since 2006 the United States
plans on deployment of ballistic missile defence in Poland
and the Czech Republic have been a source of irritation for
Moscow. The turning point of this issue came in 2009. In
September that year the Obama Administration announced
the cancellation of plans to deploy the missile defence sys-
tem in these two countries. The United States explained the
decision by referring to a change of strategic priorities but
was apparently expecting Russia to reciprocate this step
by supporting more rigid sanctions against Iran and discon-
tinuing sales of S-300 air-defence missiles to Teheran. Nev-
ertheless, neither the Russian President nor the Russian
Foreign Ministry made any move in this direction. In his in-
terview with CNN on 20 September 2009 Dmitry Medvedev
mentioned that Russia did not feel obliged to make recipro-
cal concessions and stated that selling arms to Iran did not
contravene international law. These events gave grounds
for questioning the success of the much-vaunted reset as
neither with the case of Iran nor with that of Georgia was
there any alleviation of tensions. In addition, by the end of
2009, the two sides still had to overcome a lot of disagree-
ments over the terms of the treaty on reduction of strategic
nuclear arsenals.
An overview of basic foreign policy documents of the
Medvedev Administration
Under the presidency of Medvedev, the conceptual frame-
work for foreign policy has been renewed. A number of basic
strategic documents, such as Foreign Policy Concept, Mili-
tary Doctrine and The Russian National Security Strategy,
have been revised and updated. Most of them were worked
out in the Security Council of Russia.
support breakaway tendencies when it came to the issue of
joining NATO. With this belligerent rhetoric Russia was trying
to force Kyiv and Tbilisi to make a choice between territorial
integrity and NATO membership, which is certainly a rather
controversial strategy in the light of Russias continued op-
position to Kosovos independence.
In many contexts of Russias foreign policy discourse NATO
is mentioned as an unfriendly actor undermining Russias
security and provoking distrust and irritation. Nevertheless,
NATO can hardly be considered to be a real enemy to Russia.
Rogozin says that nobody in the Russian political establish-
ment believes in the possibility of armed conict with NATO:
Both NATO and Moscow understand that real threat can
emerge only in the South (Zygar, 2009).
War in Georgia and its impact on Russias relations
with Euro-Atlantic community
The armed conict between Russia and Georgia in August
2008, when Moscow intervened in the territory of Georgia
to protect South Ossetia after an armed attack was launched
against it, became the most important issue of Russias de-
fence discussions with the EU, the United States and NATO.
On 26 August, Russia ofcially recognised the breakaway
regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states,
which thenceforth constituted a thorny issue for Russias re-
lations with Europe. The resolution of the conict in these
republics had been achieved with the active participation of
the French President Nicolas Sarkozy acting on behalf of the
European Union. Medvedev and Sarkozy charted a plan for
overcoming the Caucasus crisis, which was later signed by
the Abkhazian and South Ossetian presidents and amended
and signed by the Georgian president. The plan included such
terms as non-renewal of the use of force, free access to hu-
manitarian assistance, international monitoring procedures
backed by observers from the OSCE and the EU, withdrawal
of Russian forces to a line that precedes the zone of military
conict, and the beginning of international discussions on the
future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The latter issue provided the basis for numerous rounds
of Geneva talks throughout the end of 2008-2009. During
these negotiations Georgia gained international support in
demanding that South Ossetia and Abkhazia must be rec-
ognised as an integral part of Georgia, whereas Moscow
had consistently insisted on the signing of legally-binding non-
aggression treaty between Georgia, Abkhazia and South Os-
setia, arguing that both republics must be made secure from
Georgias attempts to preserve its territorial integrity by the
use of military force.
In June 2009, Russia vetoed a plan to extend the UN
peacekeeping mission in Georgia, because the UN resolu-
tion on extending this mission was based on the premise of
Georgias territorial integrity. Russia labelled the argument
of its opponents on the inviolability of frontiers as politicised
and ideologised formulas. This position was perceived as
somewhat debatable because, in the case of Kosovo, Russia
refers precisely to the principle of territorial integrity when
condemning the illegal unilateral declaration of independ-
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Bibliographical references
BOGATUROV, Alexei, 2003, Mezhdunarodniy poriadok v
nastupivshem veke, International Trends. Journal of Theory
of International Relations and World Politics. N 1, January-
April, p.12.
Elvira Nabiullina sochla tekuschuyu ekonomicheskuyu mod-
el Rossii ischerpannoi, 2008, Information agency Lenta.
Ru, 19 November, http://lenta.ru/news/2008/11/19/
model/
European Parliament Resolution on the EU-Russia Summit in
Stockholm on 18 November 2009, European Parliament of-
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2009-0134+0+DOC+WORD+V0//EN
European Security Treaty Draft, Ofcial website of the
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shtml
EU-Russia Summit on 18 November in Stockholm, The
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MEDVEDEV, Dmitry, 2008a, Speech at Meeting with
German Political, Parliamentary and Civic Leaders, Ber-
lin, 5 June, 2008, Ofcial website of the President of
the Russian Federation, June 5. http://eng.kremlin.ru/
text/speeches/2008/06/05/2203_type82912type-
82914type84779_202153.shtml
MEDVEDEV, Dmitry, 2008b, Speech at World Policy Con-
ference October 8, 2008 Evian, France, Ofcial website of
the President of the Russian Federation, 8 October. http://
eng.kreml i n.ru/speeches/2008/10/08/2159_type-
82912type82914_207457.shtml
MEDVEDEV, Dmitry, 2008c, Interview with Le Figaro
newspaper Ofcial website of the President of the Russian
Federation, 13 November. http://www.kremlin.ru/textx/
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Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation
The Foreign Policy Concept was issued on 12 in July 2008.
The document states that Russia has now acquired a fully-
edged role in global affairs and exerts a substantial inu-
ence on the development of a new architecture of interna-
tional relations. One of the key objectives of Russian foreign
policy is exerting inuence in global processes to ensure the
formation of a just and democratic world order based on
cooperation and supremacy of international law.
According to the Concept, Russian foreign policy is based
on its national interests, which coincide with the interests
of international community when it comes to terrorism, drug
trafcking, organised crime, spread of weapons of mass de-
struction, regional conicts, demographic problems, global
poverty, illegal migration and climate change. To combat
these threats, the architecture of international relations
ought to be based on recognition by the international com-
munity of the principles of indivisibility of security.
The interests of Russia are directly related to the globali-
sation of world economy, multilateral diplomacy, integration
processes, et cetera. In order to stimulate further develop-
ment of these positive trends, Russia suggests joining efforts
towards the emergence of a stable system of international
relations based on the principles of equality, mutual respect
and cooperation as well as international law. The document
is critical of arbitrary interpretation of legal norms, especially
when related to the use of force, and the attempts to por-
tray violations of international law as its creative application.
It criticises unilateralism, especially the application of military
force bypassing the Security Council. Yet, in the meantime,
the Concept reserves for Russia the right to act unilaterally in
cases when its partners are unprepared for joint efforts.
The priority strand in Russias foreign policy remains coopera-
tion with Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.
The European question is next in Russias priorities and, here,
Russias main objective is creating a transparent and demo-
cratic system of collective security ensuring the unity of the
Euro-Atlantic region [] in such a way as not to allow any new
fragmentation and reproduction of bloc-based approaches.
The expansion of NATO is considered to be a serious obstacle
to building such a system, since it hinders further enhance-
ment of good-neighbour principles, trust and cooperation. Rus-
sia views NATOs intentions of bringing its military infrastruc-
ture closer to Russian borders as a violation of the principle of
indivisible security. Russia is ready to cooperate with NATO in
order to ensure predictability and stability in the Euro-Atlantic
region, but such cooperation depends on the degree of the
Alliances readiness for equal partnership. The Concept sug-
gests using the OSCE instead of NATO as a forum for equitable
dialogue between the OSCE member states for collective con-
sensus decision-making in the security sphere.
The Concept also stresses the importance of developing
mutually advantageous bilateral relationships with Germany,
France, Italy, Spain, Finland and other European states. Rus-
sias relations with Great Britain and Baltic states are men-
tioned as lacking deep-rooted cooperation, but it is declared
that Russia is willing to establish strong ties on the basis of
reciprocal consideration of interests.
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