International Affairs No. 2, 2022 – Table of Contents

February 10, 2022

DEAR FRIENDS, …

February 10, 2022, Moscow

COLLEAGUES, FRIENDS, …

Keywords: arms race, hypersonic systems, cyberwarfare, arms control, missile defense, Russia, strategic stability, treaty verification, orbital weapons, US, nuclear weapons

THE OUTBREAK in 2020 of the coronavirus pandemic coincided with a sharp deterioration in relations between Russia and the leading NATO countries, headed by the US. For the first time in the 30 years since the end of the Cold War, officials and experts have started expressing fears about the possibility of an armed conflict between the parties. …

Keywords: international law, principles of international law, right to self-determination, territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, human rights, peaceful settlement of disputes, conflict resolution, justice

LIKE Odysseus, who fell into the clutches of Scylla after escaping the whirlpool Charybdis, countries that have escaped the threat of losing territory as a result of foreign invasion are facing the threat of disintegration from within. The ancient epic by the great Homer about the adventures of the hero Odysseus, who finds himself between a rock and a hard place, involuntarily comes to mind when considering the perennial international legal dilemma about the relationship between the principle of the territorial integrity of states and the right of peoples and nations to self-determination. …

Keywords: Internet Governance Forum (IGF), World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Internet, Tunis Agenda, Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG), IGF 2025

IN 2025, Russia will host the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The IGF is an annual forum that, for all its strengths and weaknesses, is the most important event for discussing any problem that exists in cyberspace. IGF 2025 will be an outstanding event because it will be the 20th anniversary meeting of the IGF, and more importantly, it will shortly precede the 20-year review by the UN General Assembly of the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). …

Keywords: party, administration, coronavirus, arms control, world order, image

A Year of Biden: Much Ado About Nothing …

Keywords: Russia, Bangladesh, diplomatic relations, cooperation

ON JANUARY 25, 2022, the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of Bangladesh will mark a significant date: 50 years ago on this day, less than a year after Bangladesh declared its independence, diplomatic relations were established between our countries. …

Keywords: Russia, Islamic world, dialogue of civilizations, OIC

THE Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group (RIW SVG) was created 15 years ago, after Russia, on President Vladimir Putin’s initiative, joined the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as an observer in 2005. The OIC (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference) is an international organization of Muslim countries with a total population of more than 1.5 billion. It was founded on September 25, 1969, and consists of 57 states, 49 of which are Muslim-majority countries. The RIW’s first cochairs were Yevgeny Primakov and Mintimer Shaymiyev, who laid the foundation for its activities and traditions. The RIW is currently chaired by Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov. …

Keywords: Joe Biden, military-political strategy, State Department. American diplomats, Hillary Clinton, China

A YEAR has passed since the inauguration of US President Joseph Biden from the Democratic Party, but debates over the previous American president’s military-political strategy, foreign policy, and diplomacy have lost none of their relevance. …

Keywords: life, being, information, knowledge, communication, digital data, soul, reason, needs, volitional activity, social unit, information and communication technologies, global informational infrastructure

A KEY TREND in the modern development of humankind is the emergence of the information society “in which information and the level of its use and availability are radically changing the economic and sociocultural conditions of human life.”¹ General interest in using global information infrastructure is growing. The field of application of automatized control systems based on information and communication technologies (ICT), technical assets, and technological systems is steadily widening. ICT is rapidly penetrating individuals’ private and personal lives (the Internet of Things) and social networking processes (“artificial intelligence,” “big data,” “pattern recognition,” “e-voting,” “blockchain,” “digital currency,” “digital law,” “smart contracts,” etc.). …

Keywords: personal data protection, Council of Europe Convention 108, the Budapest Convention, OEWG on International Information Security (IIS)

TECHNOLOGICAL development and increasing global information interdependence have led to rapid growth in the speed, scale, and intensity of the use of the digital space. As information and communication technologies continuously improve and spread almost instantaneously among both developed and developing countries, entire sectors of the world economy are transitioning from the conventional to the virtual environment. …

YURI SHAFRANIK has indeed accomplished a great deal in his life. He went from being a locksmith at Nizhnevartovskneftegaz [Nizhnevartovsk oil and gas production plant] to serving as Russian minister of fuel and energy, and the geography of his professional and political career includes the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, China, and Australia.

But Shafranik personally believes that his main accomplishments are oil and gas projects that he either oversaw or took part in and that have helped increase Russia’s economic might. Let’s review some of the more significant of them. …

Keywords: Russia, US, NATO, Russian-American meeting, security, national interests

Armen Oganesyan, Editor-in-Chief, International Affairs: Sergey Alexeyevich [Ryabkov], a Russian-US meeting on Russia’s security concerns has taken place in Geneva on Moscow’s initiative. The issues that we have raised are being discussed not only in a bilateral format, but also at the NATO-Russia Council and the OSCE. How did [we] get the West to sit down at the negotiating table? Can the US’s position be taken seriously? …

“What do you have that you did not receive?

And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not receive it?” …

Session 3

The Impact of the Events in Afghanistan on the Security and Configuration of Centers of Influence in Central Asia …

Keywords: Russian Empire, Nicholas II, World War I, diplomacy, allies in the Entente

Abandonment of the Equidistant Policy by Emperor Nicholas II and Attempts to Conclude a Triple Military Alliance Between Great Britain, France, and Russia to Prevent World War …

Keywords: Georgia, Great Patriotic War, Russophobia, Victory Day, falsifications

IN THE 2010s, Russia attempted to revitalize the collective memory of the Great Patriotic War to fill the ideological vacuum created in the former Soviet Union by the latter’s breakup in 1991. With support from Russia’s presidential administration, events were held in various Russian cities from 2010 to around 2020 to mark the victory in the war. Those events brought together veterans and public figures from various Russian regions and other former Soviet republics. …

Keywords: falsification of history, Russia as peacemaker and peacekeeper, expansion of Russian influence

THE Great Patriotic War has left its mark on the collective memory of all peoples of the former Soviet Union, all member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and representatives of various ethnic and religious groups living in countries with different political, economic, and social systems. In recent years, the desire to preserve the memory of wartime events and of the Soviet people’s heroic efforts that led to the Great Victory has encountered active resistance from Western revisionists seeking to rewrite history to suit the current anti-Russian ideological narrative. The position of Western revisionists often gets a positive response and support from representatives of the former republics of the Soviet Union and countries of the Eastern bloc. …

Keywords: World War II, Arctic (Northern) Convoys (1941-1945), British veterans’ clubs, the Jubilee Medal “50 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945,” Soviet War Memorial in London, Arctic Star medal

THE ARCTIC (Northern) convoys of World War II, when our countries were allies against the Nazi threat to Europe and the whole world, serve as a prime example of positive relations between Moscow and London. This has always been one of the brightest pages in the history of our relations. Moreover, this topic reflects the keen interest of the British in memorable pages of our shared history. Under the Lend-Lease program, 78 Arctic convoys sailed via the northern seas during the war; 1,398 ships delivered more than 4.5 million [metric] tons of cargo to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk; 98 merchant vessels and 21 warships were lost in attacks by the enemy’s naval and air forces.¹ …

Keywords: Great Patriotic War, historical memory, museum, Siege of Leningrad, Leningrad People’s Militia Army

THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, which started 80 years ago, remains both a relevant and painful topic for our country. Russians’ interest in those events is supported by numerous works of research and journalism, as well as projects that allow people to trace the fate of their relatives on the battlefields of that war. However, manipulations of public opinion at the global level that seek to belittle the role of our country in the victory over the Axis powers are distorting historical memory and leading to attempts to revise the outcomes of World War II. …

Keywords: International Military Tribunal, World War II

CRIMES against humanity during World War II were common, and most of them were associated with Nazi Germany. A policy of brutal terror was implemented on occupied territories, involving the destruction of entire settlements and the use of scorched earth tactics. …

Keywords: Latin America, LAC states

THE RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY’S Diplomatic Academy has released a new research monograph in Spanish titled Economic, Political, and Legal Compendium: A View of Latin America From Russia.* …

Keywords: Russia and the West, hybrid war, Putin era, new bipolarity

ANALYSTS from the West have always been amazed by the perceived lack of logic in Russia’s foreign policy, regardless of the form assumed by the state of the Russian people (the Russian state of Ivan III, the Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, the USSR, the Russian Federation). Winston Churchill spoke poetically on the subject during his BBC address on October 1, 1939: “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Without going too far back into history, that maxim can be illustrated with several examples. …