Good afternoon, and thank you all for your attention. It is my pleasure to address you.
The last month has been difficult. I am just recovering from sleepless nights watching the humanitarian drama that is the war in Ukraine unfold before my eyes. There is immense geopolitical uncertainty hanging over us. I am one of those who believe that this drama will affect the future of the Ukrainian nation, but also that it goes far beyond Ukraine. This is perhaps one of the first points I would like to ask you to bear in mind. When we look at the situation, we see many very disturbing images. We have concerns and sympathy for the Ukrainians and their desire to freely choose their own geopolitical direction, which is quite understandable.
We are all horrified by the armed aggression perpetrated by a regime which until recently could be considered authoritarian, but which in recent weeks has taken on all the forms of what should be called a dictatorship. There is a tightening of the information sphere and the closure of a whole series of social networks. The last two free media outlets, the Echo of Moscow and Novaya Gazeta, shut down for good last week.
One drama is unfolding in Ukraine and another is threatening the future of democracy, even in Russia. However, an even greater drama is looming, namely the geopolitical divide that is in danger of widening at breakneck speed, and not just between Russia and the west. In the current situation, we need to get out of the information bubble we are in to some degree as a G7 country, with our allies Japan and South Korea, who are standing in solidarity with a wave of economic sanctions against Russia that are completely unprecedented.
That said, I am among those who are concerned about the fracturing of the international order. The sanctions adopted against Russia are supported by our partners in the other continents of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and especially by the vast Eurasia. On the other hand, although 140 states denounced Russian aggression at the United Nations General Assembly—which, of course, brought us great satisfaction—a good number of states, and not the least among them, abstained from voting or did not show up. Among these countries, as you probably know, are China, but also India, Iran, Pakistan and several others. This leads me to believe that the effect of economic sanctions on a country that is mainly an exporter of natural resources will unfortunately not really limit the Russians' room for manoeuvre in the long term. This is the view that currently exists in Russia.
My colleague Anatol Lieven spoke of a sibling rivalry existing between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, whose discourse and identity constructions could not be more antagonistic. There is therefore a certain dynamic in Russian-Ukrainian relations. However, there is another, even greater dynamic that explains the incompatibility and difficulties that the west has to face in its relations with Russia. These difficulties do not date back to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but to a much earlier time. Some would say they go back to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. At that time, there was criticism in Russia of western foreign interference in Ukraine's internal affairs.
In my view, the deterioration in relations between Russia and the western world may have started the year before, with 2003 being a turning point, when Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky, owner of what was the biggest oil company in Russia, Yukos, was imprisoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is really from this moment that, in the name of the state's desire to regain control over what in Russia are called “strategic resources”—which include, of course, natural resources such as hydrocarbons—there was an attempt by the political apparatus to regain control of the economy. This is exactly the opposite balance of power that we have in the west. It is a kind of incompatibility between two modes of governance, the one favoured by Russia, but also by China, Iran and several others, who want to play by different rules of the game.
The emerging picture in this theatre, in Ukraine, is also the reconfiguration of the balance of power between increasingly distant geo‑economic areas.