Ivan Timofeev, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), spoke to Alpha News on the sidelines of the international academic conference “Russia and the new multipolarity: from idea to reality,” held to mark the 20th anniversary of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEIS) at HSE University. He commented on Russia’s relations with the US and Europe.
In the expert’s view, normalization of Russia-US relations should not be expected until the conflict in Ukraine is settled.
“We are still very far from improving relations, I would say very, very far. We may make progress on some individual problems, though even then there is no guarantee of any result until we resolve the main issue, by which I mean, first of all, the conflict in Ukraine. Without its fundamental settlement, which is what the Russian side is working toward, it is unfortunately not possible to talk about normalizing any relations with Western countries, including the US,” Timofeev said.
The RIAC director general commented on the possibility of a direct military conflict between Russia and European countries, particularly in light of Moscow’s warning to NATO countries about aggressive actions against the Kaliningrad region.
“Well, such sentiments exist, and, let’s say, there are ‘hawks’ everywhere. But it seems to me that we are still quite far from such a clash, because there are a number of restraining factors.
After all, the European Union is not in itself a military organization. Most EU countries are members of the North Atlantic Alliance, which also includes the United States of America and Canada, for example. So any military decision, specifically a coalition one, can be carried out only on the NATO platform, not the European Union’s.
The European Union does not yet have a military organization. There are individual EU member states, which are sovereign countries with their own armed forces, and in theory they could use them to pursue their foreign policy goals. But a scenario of direct confrontation between Russia and the European Union is not obvious even from a legal standpoint, because the EU has no legal mechanisms defining it as a military organization. For now, EU countries are part of NATO,” he stressed.
Responding to a question about whether the German authorities would escalate relations with Russia to divert their own society’s attention from domestic political problems, Timofeev stressed that it would most likely be limited to aggressive rhetoric from the German government.
“This is a big risk, both domestically and in foreign policy. After all, Russia is a militarily quite strong country, and there are risks of various kinds here that are extremely dangerous to take. So I think that for now it will all remain limited to rhetoric. However, the modernization of the military-industrial complex, the shift of industry to a war footing and the increase in military spending in EU countries will continue, to varying degrees depending on their resource base. But this process has already begun and will continue,” the expert concluded.
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