Dr. Syed Mehboob
Economic and Political Analyst
http//: http://www.thenewslark.com
Russia is one of the most important countries in the world. It is the 9th most populous country in the world. Despite the efforts to isolate it, it is still considered a great power and wields significant regional influence in global power politics. It has the third-highest military budget in the world. Its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world, relying on its vast mineral and energy resources, mainly oil and natural gas. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). It is home to 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is among the three countries of the world that border three oceans and is linked with a great number of seas. With over one hundred thousand rivers, has one of the world’s largest surface water resources, with its lakes containing approximately one quarter of the world’s liquid fresh water. Under the dynamic and strong leadership of President Vladimir Putin, it has achieved many successes, and all efforts to isolate it from the rest of the world have failed.
Russia has the sixth-largest diplomatic network in the world. It maintains diplomatic relations with one hundred and eighty-seven United Nations member states, two partially recognized states, and two United Nations observer states, along with one hundred and forty- two embassies.Russia is a member state of the G20, the OSCE, BRICS, WTO, and the APEC. Russia maintains close relations with neighboring Belarus. Russia has very good and strategic relations with China, and it also has good relations with Pakistan and India. Russia has focused on Central Asian Countries, Africa, and South America. Russia shares a complex strategic, energy, and defence relationship with Turkiye. It also has very good and strategic relations with Iran. Russia has also significantly developed its relations with North Korea.
In the 21st century, Russia has pursued an aggressive foreign policy aimed at securing regional dominance in Europe and increasing its international influence, as well as bolstering domestic support for the government. Two-thirds of the global population, specifically the developing countries of the Global South, are either neutral or leaning towards Russia politically. Russia has also increasingly pushed to expand its influence across the Arctic, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America.
The foreign relations of the Russian Federation is the policy arm of the government of Russia, which guides its interactions with other nations, their citizens, and foreign organizations.
President Vladimir Putin is a dynamic, far-sighted, seasoned, and the most popular leader of the Russian Federation who held the presidency from January 2000 to May 2008, and again from May 2012 to the present. Under Putin, Russia gained significant importance in global politics. He recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk within that country.
In 2022, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and other countries joined hands to impose sanctions on Russia. Despite these sanctions, Russia gained significant global importance, and all efforts to isolate it failed. It has good relations with China, Belarus, Pakistan, India, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar, Mali, the Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Iraq, Libya, Palestine, Niger, and other countries. Russia also maintains positive relations with countries that have been described as “Russian-leaning”. These countries include Algeria, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Uganda.
Russia also maintains positive relations with countries considered neutral on the world stage, such as Brazil, Honduras, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It also has good relations with Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Armenia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Public diplomacy (PD) is a mechanism in which the “agents” of state are running several activities to generate pro-state attitudes among the public of state .The results of Russia’s foreign policy during the Putin era can be evaluated on various grounds and criteria. Since 1999, as far as I can see, the president has pursued two main goals: To preserve the unity of Russia and to restore its status as a great power in the global arena. He has achieved this.
The supremacy of central power has been affirmed across the Russian Federation. And Russia itself, which at the turn of the 21st century had almost been written off as a global power, returned to the global arena one and a half decades later as one of the biggest and most active geopolitical and military players.
From the point of view of these twin goals, these are unquestionable achievements, though the centralization of power and great-power status have not come cheap.
The power vertical has been constructed on the authoritarian basis that is traditional for Russia. The political regime that replaced the chaos of the 1990s has been unable to mature into a full-fledged state: it predominantly services the needs of a narrow elite, exploiting the country’s resources for their personal and collective aims.
Putin’s legacy will be carefully studied and analyzed in the years to come. So today it makes sense to examine it in a practical regard, through the prism of certain questions: What is of abiding importance and should be preserved for the next generation of Russian leaders? What needs to be changed and developed? What should be best avoided in the future?
It is undeniable that under Putin, Russia restored real sovereignty. The rapid growth of oil prices in the 2000s allowed the country to make the transition to economic growth on the new capitalist foundation created in the 1990s and free itself from external financial dependence.
The nationalization of a significant part of Russia’s oil industry in the mid-2000s created a basis for a coordinated energy policy. The reforms of the armed forces carried out in the first half of the 2010s gave Russia an effective instrument for the defense and promotion of the country’s interests. Stable support for Putin from the majority of the population ensured the system’s stability, while the power vertical provided a mechanism for the president to exert his political will.( Continued )
