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bne May 2023 Eastern Europe I 55
Kremlin releases a new foreign policy concept
outlining its plans for a “multipolar” world
Ben Aris in Berlin
The Kremlin has released a new foreign policy document that
lays out its plans for its post-war relations. The main points are based
on a “multipolar world” and that Russia doesn’t see itself as an enemy of the West but does see itself as one of the centres of this new shared world, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with permanent members of the Russian Security Council on March 31.
"The system of international relations should be multipolar and based on the following principles: ... indivisibility of security in global and regional aspects; diversity of cultures, civilisations and models of social organisation, non- imposition on other countries by all states of their models of development, ideology and values, and reliance on
a spiritual and moral guideline that
is common for all world traditional religious and secular ethical systems," the document stated.
Putin pointed out that expanding ties with co-operative partners and creating conditions for unfriendly states to abandon their hostile policy towards Russia require “special attention.”
Putin called for strengthening Russia's sovereignty and enhancing its role in shaping a more just, multipolar world order.
"In our long-term plans, it is important to take into account the full range of factors and trends in the development of international relations, work to strengthen Russia's sovereignty, increase the role of our country in solving world problems and shaping
a more just, multipolar world order," he stressed.
Putin and his allies, in particular China, seek to build an alternative non- Western alliance in the Global South.
Moscow aims to “support its allies and partners in ensuring their security and sustainable development regardless
of their international recognition,” the concept says.
Russia will “give priority attention to suppressing attempts by unfriendly countries to hinder Russia's co-operation with its allies,” the concept stresses.
The document says that "in order
to help adapt the world order to the realities of a multipolar world, the Russian Federation intends to make it a priority to intensify co-operation in all areas with Russia's allies and partners, and suppress the attempts by unfriendly states to obstruct such co-operation."
The war in Ukraine has driven a wedge between the West and East as these institutions are increasingly being forced to take sides, and could lead
to a fractured world, as described in a feature by bne IntelliNews. Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
Russkiy Mir
The new concept made no mention of Ukraine at all. However, the foreign policy concept does call for developing "ties with compatriots living abroad" and rendering "them full support
in exercising their rights, ensuring protection of their interests and preserving all-Russian cultural identity."
Russia has handed out hundreds of thousands of passports to residents of occupied territories in Donbas, the four regions annexed in Ukraine last year,
as well as two regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that used to belong to Georgia until Moscow encouraged them to declare independence in 2008.
While the concept doesn’t make specific mention of Ukraine, the attitude of Russia to those countries that the Kremlin deems to lie in its sphere of influence and the so-called Russkiy
Mir (Russian World, a concept of social totality associated with Russian culture) was spelled out in the concept, where Moscow views itself as a bulwark of these Russian values.
“Russia will give priority attention to suppressing attempts by unfriendly countries to hinder Russia's co-operation with its allies”
raised exactly this concern on March 27, warning that the conflict could create separate trade blocks delineated by "geopolitical borders" due to the increasingly acronymous disputes.
"The globalised world economy risks fragmenting into separate trade blocks delineated along geopolitical borders," Ban noted at the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia also this week.
"More than a thousand years of independent statehood, the cultural heritage of the preceding era, deep historical ties with the traditional European culture and other Eurasian cultures, and the ability to ensure harmonious co-existence of different peoples, ethnic, religious and linguistic groups on one common territory, which has been developed over
many centuries, determine Russia's
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