RUSSIA AND THE BOUNDARIES OF EUROPE

with:
Georgy Nodia, political analyst and President of the Caucasus Peace Institute, Georgia
Andrei Shevchenko, Member of Parliament, Batkivshchyna (Fatherland Party), Ukraine
Raya Kadyrova, Founder and Chairwoman of the Foundation for Tolerance International, Kyrgyzstan
Andrei Sannikov, former diplomat and prominent opposition politician in Belarus, Bruno Kreisky Awardee for Human Rights

Moderator:
Nina Khrushcheva, Professor at New School University, New York, Senior Fellow of BKF

For over a decade now, Russian foreign policy has been animated by defensiveness and suspicion. Russia even has uneasy relations with the congenitally non-threatening European Union. It is touchy about the independence of the near-abroad countries, especially those geographically close to the West - such as Ukraine or those that has forcefully put forward its Western aspirations such as Georgia. What does political “Westernisation” of these, and other neighbouring countries, mean to Russia and its president Vladimir Putin, who seems to consider democracy an affront to his autocratic, restrictive and increasingly oppressive governing style?
The participants will also discuss the role of regional organisations such as, for example, the recently formed Eurasian Customs Union between Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia. Does this kind of alliances hold real power? Do they serve as just the front for the Russian dominance? Will the Eurasian Union have a potential to become a counterpart or an adversary to the European Union? And finally what are the prospects for the near abroad countries to tear themselves away from the Kremlin sphere?