Carnegie Moscow Center
Vladimir Putin will likely see the BRICS summit as proof that the West’s attempts to isolate Russia have failed. However, Russia’s growing fascination with the BRICS and the SCO coincides with diminishing Chinese interest in both projects.
Putin’s announcement that Moscow plans to add more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal is troubling mainly because of its political and psychological impact on NATO allies. But it is no cause for alarm.
Rather than thinking about some grand architecture for the future, all sides of the current Russian-Western conflict should step away from the brink.
Dialogue between Russia and the United States is needed to defuse tension and tone down irresponsible statements on both sides about nuclear weapons.
If China and Russia manage to coordinate the Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt, the change will mean not only a more genuine partnership between Moscow and Beijing, but China’s arrival, with Russia’s support, as a truly Eurasian power.
The sensational appointment of Mikheil Saakashvili to run Odessa will shake up both Ukraine and Georgia.
Putin has realized that the expansionist project overextended itself; it is now too dangerous to continue beating the war drum. Or perhaps the Russian president simply lost interest in Novorossiya. He has a different game to play now—that of Russia’s “pivot to the East.”
The Xi’s visit to Moscow was the realization of a “win-win” formula beloved by the Chinese. The negotiations between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin can be seen as a shared symbolic victory and as a broad declaration of good intentions, but the fight over who can benefit more in practical terms has already begun
The success of the Urumqi meeting between the representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban, also attended by Chinese and Pakistanis, is doubtful. The role of Pakistan in the organization of the meeting is the most controversial issue.
There is sobering news for the EU in two new polls from Georgia and Moldova, showing that public support for the European project is faltering.