International Affairs No. 1, 2025 – Table of Contents

AS WE enter the new year, it is worth taking a glance in the rearview mirror. The events and processes of the past year do not simply come to a halt when its calendar’s final page is torn off. Reflecting on the core developments of recent months is meaningful and valuable in attempting to understand the prospects, limitations, and opportunities of the coming period…

IN AUGUST 2024, the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes (hereinafter referred to as the Ad Hoc Committee), established by UN General Assembly Resolution 74/247 of December 27, 2019, approved and submitted to the General Assembly for adoption a draft UN Convention against Cybercrime. This convention aims to strengthen international cooperation in combating specific crimes committed using information and communications systems and in the exchange of electronic evidence related to serious crimes (hereinafter referred to as the Convention, UN Convention¹). Work on the treaty spanned four years, with meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee and intersessional consultations held at UN headquarters in New York and Vienna.²…

THE adoption in July 2022 of the first annual interim report by the Open-ended Working Group on security of and in the use of information and communication technologies 2021-2025 (hereinafter referred to as the OEWG or the Group), along with informal consultations held in December of the same year, were marked by debates revealing significant disagreements among states on key aspects of the Group’s mandate.

Despite these challenging conditions, the Russian side hoped to maintain a constructive, depoliticized dialogue on the OEWG platform, aimed at achieving tangible, practical results. Russia carried this optimism into 2023, the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the first resolution, A/RES/53/70, titled Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security,¹ which was initiated by Russia and adopted on December 4, 1998, during the 53rd session of the UN General Assembly. This resolution marked a new era in the discussion of international information security at the UN…

THE Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the subsequent Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-2008 exposed the vulnerabilities of the global financial architecture in the face of new challenges. These crises highlighted the inability of international financial institutions and diplomatic tools to adequately and promptly respond to rapidly changing conditions in the global economy and, in particular, global finance…

SIGNIFICANT geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty persists in the global economy over the future behavior of the oil market in Europe. Prices in this market are largely determined by the global cost of oil and the specifics of its supply to the region from global production centers. Broadly speaking, its price depends on the balance of supply and demand. These two factors also determine oil consumption trends.

GLOBAL GDP growth trends have crucial influence on oil demand. In recent years, GDP growth rates have slowed considerably. According to UNCTAD data, global GDP grew by 6.2% in 2021, but by 2022, this figure had dropped to 3.0%, and in 2023 – to 2.7%. The forecast for 2024 predicts an increase of only 2.6%.¹ Interestingly, for certain major economies, the year is expected to be positive. According to Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director of the IMF, the outlook is particularly favorable for the US and Russian economies. However, her optimistic forecast for Russia faced substantial criticism in Western anti-Russian media. Defending the projections, she explained to journalists that IMF experts had based their forecasts on real premises.²…

RUSSIA’S official position on nuclear deterrence is outlined in several strategic planning documents concerning national security and defense…

RECENT developments surrounding Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy have sparked widespread reactions in Russia and abroad, ranging from belligerent and aggressive to eschatological and apocalyptic. On November 19, 2024, official guidelines were unveiled in the updated document titled Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence¹ (hereinafter referred to as the Fundamentals)…

IN THE spring and summer of 1945, at the initiative of Winston Churchill, the US and Great Britain developed Operation Unthinkable – a plan for war against the Soviet Union. In its mortal struggle with Nazi Germany and the Axis powers, the Soviet Union proved itself not merely as an exceptionally reliable ally to the Anglo-Saxon powers but also as the decisive contributor to the defeat of the aggressor bloc. This, in effect, secured the defense and very existence of the “Western democracies” led by the US and the UK.

However, the US and the UK refrained from recognizing the Soviet Union as a guarantor of their security. Instead, they rapidly transitioned to a policy of “containment” and “rollback” of the USSR. The leading Western democracies sought to provide a de jure rationale for this policy, presenting it as a restoration of the strategic balance of power. One of the first major projects along these lines was the development of Operation Unthinkable, which included the possible use of Wehrmacht units recently captured in the West against the Soviet Union.¹ This plan became a prelude to the Cold War: The Anglo-Saxon powers embarked on long-term opposition to the USSR, including through the remilitarization of West Germany…

THE use of hybrid warfare methods and technologies has taken on global proportions. Virtually all militarily developed states actively engage in hybrid warfare, employing corresponding tools.

In this study, we define hybrid warfare as forms of military conflict that do not rely on the large-scale use of armed forces conducting kinetic operations. Instead, the emphasis in hybrid warfare is placed on psychological operations; cyberattacks; sanctions; terrorist acts and sabotage; and the use of nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations, mercenaries (private military companies, PMCs) and networked groups such as protest movements, terrorist, insurgent, or criminal networks. The large-scale use of armed forces in the form of kinetic operations as the primary tool for achieving military-political objectives is, in our view, a defining feature of traditional wars…

THE theoretical and conceptual foundations of imagology, a discipline studying the representations of other peoples, began to garner significant attention among Russian scholars in the early 21st century. However, the number of studies emphasizing the role of imagological analysis in social and political practices remains limited. Notable contributors include Mikhail Boitsov, Fyodor Uspensky, Sergey Sannikov, and Valery Trykov. The term’s definition and scope remain points of contention, leading to confusion regarding the choice of “Alien” or “Other” as the antithesis to the “Self.” This stems from the methodological and theoretical foundations of imagology, which intersect with social psychology, media studies, intellectual history, and critical discourse analysis.

In practice, imagology quickly transcended the boundaries of literary comparative studies, focusing on how one culture forms and develops representations of other cultures. This shift marked a transition from describing individual images of the Alien to examining each case…

THE dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the socialist bloc brought significant changes to the architecture of modern international relations. One such change was the departure from the bloc-based approach that underpinned the international system during the era of bipolar confrontation. Alongside the dissolution of one of the two military-political blocs of the Cold War era (the Warsaw Pact), the 1990s saw an intensification of challenges and threats associated with new global issues. Additionally, globalization trends gained momentum, resulting in increased interconnectedness and interdependence within the global community across various domains – economic, scientific-technological, informational, and security.

In tandem with classical state-to-state interactions, the role of nonstate actors in global politics – such as businesses, the scientific community, and civil society – grew significantly. Against this backdrop, there emerged an imperative to seek new mechanisms and tools for diplomatic practice that accounted for both the diversification of international cooperation actors and the new demands of global diplomacy…

BY LAW No. 60-VIII ZRK of February 7, 2024, Kazakhstan ratified the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Government of the Republic of Singapore on the Promotion and Mutual Protection of Investments, signed on November 21, 2018.¹ Additionally, a few months prior, the president of Kazakhstan signed Decree No. 224 of May 20, 2023, approving a draft Agreement between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Singapore on Trade in Services and Investments, which aims to establish a free trade area between the two countries in accordance with Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).²…

ON OCTOBER 27, 2024, Bulgaria held its seventh early parliamentary election in the past three years. Alongside presidential elections to European bodies, as well as local elections, this campaign prompted society and voters to reflect on autocracy and the potential transformation of the political system. The election campaign was marked not only by concerns that the results might fail to resolve the ongoing political crisis but also by hopes for a new, more stable parliamentary majority and, consequently, a regular government.¹

Parliamentary elections in Bulgaria are conducted under the proportional D’Hondt method across 31 electoral districts with preferential voting and a 4% electoral threshold. Out of 6,601,262 registered voters, 2,570,639 participated in the elections, representing a turnout of 38.94%, to elect a 240-seat parliament. A total of 28 parties and coalitions, along with one independent candidate, took part in the race…

ON NOVEMBER 29, 2023, the first meeting of the CIS Human Rights Commission was held at the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Minsk. The activities of this advisory body are described in Article 33 of the CIS Charter and are regulated by decisions of the Council of CIS Heads of State, which on October 14, 2022, in Astana, approved a new version of the Commission’s Statute, effectively initiating the work of this statutory human rights body…

MODERN society would be hard pressed to function without a spiritual component. During times of political and economic instability, people need an unshakable constant. Throughout history, such an “island of hope” has been the church. This article is an attempt at a sociocultural analysis of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) in the modern era.

The GOC is an autocephalous Christian Orthodox church and one of the oldest Christian churches. The GOC enjoys exceptionally high respect and influence in modern Georgia. There are numerous reasons for this – the main ones being the early adoption of Christianity in Georgia (5th century CE) and the church’s long development in the territory of modem Georgia. Surrounded by potential conquerors of Georgian lands (Persia, Turkey), the GOC has historically served as a unifying force for the Georgian nation. Difficult political circumstances prompted Georgia to join the Russian Empire in 1783. In 1811, the GOC became part of the exarchate within the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). In 1917, the autocephaly of the Georgian Church was proclaimed (recognized by the ROC in 1943). The GOC is headed by a Catholicos-Patriarch, whose residence is in Tbilisi. As is customary in the Christian world, monasteries and churches in Georgia have…

“REGIONAL cooperation on health care among the countries of Central Asia is currently undergoing significant changes due to the active engagement of Europe with countries in the region. As a result, Western European approaches to health care, which are foreign to the region, are being promoted. The use of Western software in digital medicine is being imposed, foreign immunobiological drugs are being added in force to national lists of recommended medications, and the number of scientific and practical conferences sponsored by Western powers is increasing without the participation of Russian specialists. These developments carry the risk of reorienting the cooperation of Central Asian countries to the detriment of their engagement with Russia. Given the importance of maintaining ties between Russia and Eurasian countries based on historical and cultural unity, including in the health care sector, it is necessary to seek new mechanisms for cooperation under changing conditions, including involving international organizations, primarily the World Health Organization (WHO)…

The Altai stage of the international and interregional sociocultural program “BRICS Peoples Choosing Life,” implemented since 2022 in the BRICS countries by the regional public organization “BRICS. World of Traditions” under the motto “From the ecology of soul and body to the ecology of the world,” took place August 22-24, 2024. The program, which included humanitarian and business tracks, was dedicated to the 195th anniversary of the birth of Lev Tolstoy, the 75th anniversary of the death of Mahatma Gandhi, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nicholas Roerich, the 100th anniversary of the Roerichs’ Central Asian Expedition, the 15th anniversary of the Nicholas Roerich monument in Biryuzovaya Katun, and the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Russian-Indian trade relations.

In Barnaul, the program began with the “Nicholas Roerich Banner of Peace” event near the Memorial Sign dedicated to the Great Teacher, which was attended by members of a Russian-Indian delegation. The event was organized by the State Museum of the History of Literature, Art, and Culture of Altai…

I CORDIALLY welcome the organizers and attendees of the 15th Yalta International Conference “Contemporary Integration Processes in the Post-Soviet Space.”

For many years, prominent Russian and foreign politicians, public figures, diplomats, representatives of academia and business, and members…

IN THE Russian Empire, from its proclamation in 1721 to the February Revolution of 1917, executive, legislative, and judicial powers were concentrated in the person of the head of state – the autocratic Emperor of All Russia. V.L. Yemets, describing the system of state organs for foreign relations in the Russian Empire, noted: “According to the Fundamental Laws,… at the top of the hierarchical pyramid stood the Russian Emperor-the head of legislative and executive power and the spiritual leader of the country.”¹ All foreign policy functions were entirely concentrated in the hands of the Emperor, who determined the state’s foreign policy course, declared war and made peace, and ratified treaties with foreign powers.²

Article 12 of the Fundamental State Laws of the Russian Empire, as amended in 1906, established: “The Sovereign Emperor is the supreme director of all foreign relations of the Russian State with foreign powers. He determines the direction of the international policy of the Russian State.”³ With the establishment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on September 8 (20), 1802, by Emperor Alexander I, its head was entirely subordinate to the Emperor, to whom he bore full and sole responsibility, though he did have the right to deliver personal reports.⁴ However, all decisions on foreign policy issues were ultimately made by the Emperor alone. As early as the fall of 1802, the first minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, Count Viktor Kochubey, lamented that he knew nothing of the plans and decisions of Emperor Alexander I: “Imagine a…

IN DECEMBER 1894, Emperor Nicholas II, who had just ascended to the throne, appointed Alexey Lobanov-Rostovsky as ambassador to Berlin. This appointment was made at the suggestion of Nikolay Girs, the aging and seriously ill Minister of Foreign Affairs. Girs had also previously told Lobanov that he viewed him as his successor. The transfer to Berlin was all the more surprising given the persistent rumors circulating in diplomatic circles that Lobanov would soon replace Girs as minister. The prince himself commented on these rumors: “I have received everything a man can possibly receive in Russia; I have enough to live on, and I am at an age when one requires a little peace; why would I strive to sit next to the bell cord?”¹…

AT 9 a.m. on July 2, 1941, the Anhalter Bahnhof train station in Berlin was bathed in sunlight. The weather was excellent – a rare occurrence in the German capital. But despite the clear sky, green trees, and the chirping of birds, the mood of those stepping out of the arriving buses was somber. They were met by SS soldiers who had cordoned off the station square and platform. The newcomers were watched closely to ensure that they walked directly to the train awaiting them. Straying or purchasing newspapers, coffee, tea, or any other goods was strictly forbidden.

These were Soviet diplomats, employees of foreign missions, and ordinary citizens who had been working in Germany and in countries allied with the Third Reich or occupied by the Nazis. Moscow and Berlin had agreed to exchange them for German citizens and personnel interned in the USSR. Thus began a mass evacuation of diplomats unparalleled in history…

IN FEBRUARY 2025, the Yalta Conference will mark its 80th anniversary – an event of truly geopolitical significance. It determined the fate of the world for decades to come and demonstrated the possibility of effective cooperation between states with different political and economic systems, as well as mutually exclusive strategic interests.

By the time the leaders of the three Allied powers met, the outcome of the war was already clear. Military operations against Hitler’s Germany had entered their final phase: The Red Army was advancing rapidly, sweeping away enemy defenses on all fronts, while the Americans and British had opened the Second Front. It was necessary not only to decide how to deliver the final blow to the common enemy but also how to build a new world and move forward…

BY THE decision of the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, commemorative events are being held in honor of the 100th anniversary of the outstanding Soviet and Russian diplomat Boris Leonidovich Kolokolov, who served as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the USSR to Tunisia, deputy minister of foreign affairs of the RSFSR, and later of the Russian Federation, dedicating more than 40 years of his life to diplomatic service.

Boris Leonidovich was born on November 9, 1924, in Simferopol during a difficult period for our country – between the end of the Civil War and the looming Great Patriotic War, in which he would later take part. Like many other citizens of that time, his personal history included a period of endless relocations with his parents, partly due to his father’s work. However, despite the constant changes of residence and, accordingly, schools, young Boris loved learning and clearly excelled at it. It was during this time that he first displayed his diligence,…