Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1 INTRODUCTION
The concept of Russias foreign policy is determined
by its pretensions of being a superpower that influences the fate of the world. In the first half of the
90s, the difficult and volatile economic and political
situation in the country forced its leadership to limit its foreign policy to influencing the former Soviet
Union states. Russia wanted the Western powers to
give it special rights over the former Soviet Union
states, including the right of holding its peacekeeping military operations on their territories in order
to protect the Russian-speaking population. Without entering into an open conflict, the Group of Seven countries refused to support Russias proposals
on dividing the spheres of influence.
In the 90s, Russia was constantly interfering in the
internal affairs of neighboring countries. There is a
great number of documented examples illustrating
Russias policy in relation to its brothers from the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In 1992,
the relations between Russia and Ukraine escalated
in connection with the problem of dividing the Black
Sea Fleet and the question of the status of Crimea. Up
until the summer of 1994, Russia basically waged a
cold war against Ukraine. Relations between the two
countries somewhat improved after the election of
Ukrainian PresidentLeonid Kuchma. However, even
in 1997, Russia did not abandon its claims against
of its inter national influence and military-political poten tial led to the fact that the U.S.
became the only world leader. Many political experts believe that this period showed
the weakness of Russia, and as a result, its numerous concessions and failures of diplomacy.
These failures include: the uranium deal in 1993,
the Budapest Memorandum declared in 1994,
which did not prevent the expansion of NATO, and,
in particular, the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act
on Mutual Relations, Cooperation, and Security.
Russias weakness was also revealed in terminating
military alliances and reducing its activity in Eastern Europe and other regions and in a number of
trade agreements.
Russia expected that with the dissolution of the
Warsaw Pact, NATO would also be dissolved sooner or later. However, the credibility of the popular
statement that Gorbachev was given solid guarantees of NATOs non-expansion, which were later
violated, are extremely doubtful. Gorbachev even
expressed the intention of the Soviet Union to join
NATO in order to undermine it from within. Furthermore, in December 1991, Yeltsin told U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that he hoped for the
future merger of the armed forces of the CIS and
NATO. However, in 1999, NATO accepted the Czech
Republic, Poland, and Hungary, and in 2004, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia,
and Bulgaria.
McConnells criticism coincided with other similar statements of senior U.S. political and military
leaders. Speaking at the same hearing in the U.S.
Senate, the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Meyplz,
reported about Russias efforts to use outer space
for military purposes.
ble. This fact imposes certain constraints on Russias actions which did not exist during the Cold War.
In July 2009, at the briefing dedicated to the policy
of the outgoing administration of George W. Bush,
his National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley,
speaking about U.S.-Russian relations formulated
by the results of the past few years, said: On Russia, President Bush has worked to shift Americas
relationship from the rivalries of the Cold War to
partnering with Russia in areas where we share
common interests -- while managing our differences in a frank, consistent, and transparent way.
Among the achievements, Hadley highlighted
U.S.-Russian cooperation in the field of nuclear
disarmament, non-proliferation of WMD in the
resolution of Iranian and North Korean issues, and
maintaining negotiations to achieve peace in the
Middle East.
10
11
It was not possible to come up with any new substantive agenda topics for cooperation, nor to find
common ground on missile defense, which had
been particularly irritating Moscow. Moreover,
the position of both Russian leaders here are relatively close. In July 2012, Kommersant newspaper, citing its own sources, wrote that according
13
14
15
This is not surprising because in order to understand the roots of any inter-state conflict, it is necessary to know the history, cultural characteristics
of both sides, to get acquainted with the documents, and it is very desirable to do it in the original language. Therefore, I cannot tell whether the
current interest to Russia is friendly, or vice versa,
negative. Rather, it is a research, Professor of Cornell College said.
In general, according to the American expert, due to the Ukrainian crisis, there has
been a significant increase in the interest of
the U.S.scientific community toward Russia.
As to Russian interference in Ukrainian affairs, according to Givens, For the United States, this conflict plays the most important role in its internal
political debates. Especially with the presidential
16
He added that, according to his observations, the Russian government is currently not seeking to increase
its zones of influence in the neighboring country.
17
18
19
4.1 TODAY
U.S.-Russia Diplomacy: Ukraine is important, but not
more important than Iran
The assistant secretary of state for European and
Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of
State, Victoria Nuland, said to dig deeper for the
full implementation of all aspects of the Minsk Agreement and urged Ukraine, Russia and international
mediators to resolve the eastern Ukrainian conflict.
Nuland said in Moscow that the U.S. could support
the implementation of the Minsk Agreement. And
it looks like the other participants in the process
dont have anything against it. The United States
did not participate in the negotiations in Minsk in
September 2014 and February 2015 in the Norman format (Germany - France - Ukraine - Russia).
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, anticipating his talks with Nuland, shared his vision on
the role of the United States.He said that the focus should be on how Washington is influencing
Kyiv to not allow disruption in power scenarios and seeks to start a political process through
direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk.
Nulands visit to Moscow and the recent meeting betweenU.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
and Vladimir Putin as well as the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovwas viewed by observers as
the resumption of the dialogue between the
United States and Russia, which stopped after the Ukrainian crisis and has led to the most
dramatic aggravation of the relations between
Moscow and Washington since the Cold War.
The day before her visit to Russia, it had become known about the capture by Ukrainian
armed forces of the two Russians, who are believed by the authorities of Ukraine to be the
Russian military men. We welcome the Ukraine
governments public statements that they are
being well taken care of and that the International Committee of the Red Cross... will be allowed access to them, Nuland said in Moscow.
Nuland also said that there was no intention
in Kyiv to resume hostilities in eastern Ukraine
By Polina Tikhonova for (C) ValueWalk 2015 - All rights reserved. All materials in this PDF are protected by United States and international copyright and other applicable laws. You may print the PDF website for personal
or non-profit educational purposes only. All copies must include any copyright notice originally included with
the material. All other uses, including the use of any computer code requires the prior written permission by
ValueWalk.
20