President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia on Sunday laid out what he said would become his government’s guiding principles of foreign policy after its landmark conflict with Georgia — notably including a claim to a “privileged” sphere of influence in the world.
Speaking to Russian television in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, a day before a summit meeting in Brussels where European leaders were to reassess their relations with Russia, Mr. Medvedev said his government would adhere to five principles.
Russia, he said, would observe international law. It would reject what he called United States dominance of world affairs in a “unipolar” world. It would seek friendly relations with other nations. It would defend Russian citizens and business interests abroad. And it would claim a sphere of influence in the world.
In part, Mr. Medvedev reiterated long-held Russian positions, like his country’s rejection of American aspirations to an exceptional role in world affairs after the end of the cold war. The Russian authorities have also said previously that their foreign policy would include a defense of commercial interests, sometimes citing American practice as justification.
In his unabashed claim to a renewed Russian sphere of influence, Mr. Medvedev said: “Russia, like other countries in the world, has regions where it has privileged interests. These are regions where countries with which we have friendly relations are located.”
Asked whether this sphere of influence would be the border states around Russia, he answered, “It is the border region, but not only.”
As the story noted, Medvedev's New Russian Order looks much like the Putinator's New Russian Order.
Some have suggested revisiting a 2007 speech that Putin gave in Germany.
Here's some of the BBC's coverage:
... It was left to US Republican senator and presidential hopeful John McCain to lead the retort.
Today's world, he said sternly, was not uni-polar, adding that it was an autocratic Russia that needed to change its behaviour.
"Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy a genuine partnership with the West so long as its actions at home and abroad conflict so fundamentally with the core values of Euro-Atlantic democracies," he said.
"In today's multi-polar world, there is no place for needless confrontation, and I would hope that Russian leaders understand this truth," Senator McCain said.
Spotlight on Moscow
Afterwards in the corridors there were dark mutterings by some about a new Cold War.
Others were less gloomy, dismissing President Putin's performance as one of Russia's periodic bouts of letting off steam at its diminished world status.
But it has made an impression.
For the last few years, as one observer suggested, it was the former US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who was the man everybody loved to hate at this conference.
President Putin's performance has single-handedly switched the spotlight from the US to Russia.
I think we can agree now that Putin was doing a little bit more than just blowing off steam.