Failed neighborhood policy?
The current Russian foreign policy is a major failure and the country is burning bridges with all its neighbors, former State Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov writes in a newspaper comment.
“Russia’s foreign policy failures are snowballing at such a rate that they threaten a second geopolitical collapse on a par with the disintegration of the Soviet Union 20 years ago”, the former politician, today a talk show host for radio Echo Moscow, writes in the Moscow Times. Mr. Ryzhkov maintains that the current Russian leaders have managed to alienate about all their neighboring states, even their until recently strongest ally – Belorussia. Also relations with the EU are deteriorating, he argues. Russia is “running backward into the future and calling it progress”, the former politician writes, adding that the country’s leaders illegitimately say that Russia is “getting up from its knees” and that “new successes” are being achieved.