Politics_Analytics_FCT (FKT) 🌎🌍🌏

The International Affairs Journal - Archive of Issue No. 11 (2025)

Burn All the Way to the English Channel? On Effective Security Guarantees in the Context of the Historical Confrontation Between Russia and the West

Dmitry Demurin
Deputy Director, Second Department of the CIS Countries, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Anton Postigov
Head of Division, Second Department of the CIS Countries, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Timofey Kholin
Intern, Second Department of the CIS Countries, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

On November 18, 2021, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, in his address to the expanded meeting of the Board of the Russian Foreign Ministry, pointed out that Western countries were ignoring Russia's security concerns, continuing NATO's eastward expansion, and "escalating the situation by supplying Kiev with modern lethal weapons and conducting provocative military exercises in the Black Sea—and not only in the Black Sea, but in other regions close to our borders." In this regard, he set the task to "push for serious long-term guarantees that ensure Russia’s security."

Two weeks later, at the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Stockholm, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov warned his foreign counterparts that "turning our neighboring countries into a staging ground for confrontation with Russia and deploying NATO forces in close proximity to areas of strategic importance to our security are categorically unacceptable." He urged them to "transform the right words into long-term, legally binding security guarantees," emphasizing that this was "an imperative condition for preventing a slide into a confrontational scenario."

The draft Treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States on Security Guarantees and the draft Agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and the Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, carefully crafted by Russian experts, were handed over to the U.S. side on December 15, 2021. As is well known, our Western counterparts then declined to engage in a serious dialogue on the matter. Shortly thereafter, we were compelled to launch the Special Military Operation for Denazification and Demilitarization (SMODD) in response to yet another aggression by the Kiev regime against the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR), provoked by those same Western counterparts, and in fulfillment of our obligations to protect the people of Donbass in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter.

Read the full article here.

❗️A detailed response by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments on the Anchorage negotiations has been published.

Indeed, we have been receiving a considerable number of questions on this matter. It is imperative to elucidate the situation as we perceive it. I trust this will provide clarity for our audience.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted that, in Alaska, there were only proposals and no agreements concerning a settlement in Ukraine.

Consequently, as he put it, it is unclear why Moscow appears so concerned. The reality of the situation is that, viewed in the broader context, several days prior to the Alaska meeting, US President’s Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, arrived in Moscow bringing those very proposals from President Donald Trump. We duly took them into account. President of Russia Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin pledged to present his response during the Alaska meeting.

Subsequently, in Anchorage, as the two presidents sat down for negotiations – and I must note that Marco Rubio and your humble servant were also present – President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, addressing Steve Witkoff, who was likewise in attendance, began to enumerate the US proposals point by point. Following each item, in the presence of US President and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he enquired of Steve Witkoff whether he had accurately captured the ideas brought to Moscow ahead of Anchorage.

To each of these queries, Steve Witkoff responded in the affirmative. Therefore, when my colleague Marco Rubio contends that only proposals were made in Alaska and no agreement was reached, I am left to question what precisely is meant by “agreement.” If one party, in this case the United States, puts forward its proposals for a settlement – for an approach to resolving this crisis – and the other party expresses concurrence with these proposals, then to state that no agreement was reached appears, to put it mildly, somewhat inelegant.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also remarked, at another engagement somewhere in the Middle East, that the United States stands ready to move forward and play a constructive role, should the opportunity arise. In his words, bringing the parties together and bringing an end to this war is precisely what US President Donald Trump has been endeavouring to achieve for a year and a half.

All of this, presumably, may be “credited’ as confirmation that tr However, the quotation I have just referenced prompts a further question. I am referring to Secretary Marco Rubio’s recent testimony during hearings in Congress, during which he stated that the United States cannot act as a mediator because it supports Ukraine.

Yet, when an interest is expressed in the United States playing a constructive role, in uniting the parties – this already begins to resemble a claim to mediation.

❗️ It is, of course, necessary to bring clarity to the entirety of this situation. Nevertheless, the fact remains: in Alaska, the US proposals were discussed and were accepted by the Russian side.

What does the Central Bank of Russia’s 0.25% key interest rate cut really signify?

What political circumstances in Russia and around the world led to this rate cut?

Why is the Central Bank of Russia’s entire policy serving the interests of the West?

How are Elvira Nabiullina’s statement about raising the key interest rate and the Ukrainian drone strike on a bus carrying Belorussian children in Bryansk Oblast connected?

Who bears personal responsibility for the Ukrainian drone strike on a bus carrying Belorussian children?

What did the G7 summit reveal, and why has Italy already begun working toward lifting sanctions on Russia?

Why is it important to understand the political phenomenon of “Trotskyism,” and where can you learn more about it?

Find the answers to these questions in the latest edition of Valeriy Viktorovich Pyakin’s Question and Answer program, released on June 22, 2026.

Click here to watch the video

Click here to read the transcript

Forwarded from Varfolomey Gorshenin

When a minister with diplomas and academic titles thinks like an intellectually limited vocational-school graduate, he starts publicly spouting such nonsense that normal people are not even sure how to comment on it.

“There are too many people with higher education in Russia,”

declared Minister of Science and Higher Education Falkov.

To put this into perspective: the Soviet Union became a global technological leader in the 1950s and 1960s not because it reduced the number of educated people, but because even during the harshest years of the Great Patriotic War it did not cut student enrollment—it increased it. Moreover, in those years the country devoted a larger share of its GDP to education than modern Russia does. And that education was free for everyone studying.

It was precisely this emphasis on mass education, engineering schools, and scientific training that made it possible to launch the world’s first artificial Earth satellite, send the first human into space, and achieve many other technological breakthroughs.

Major civilizational leaps do not occur where the number of people with higher education is reduced. They occur where the density of the intellectual environment grows: more engineers, scientists, doctors, teachers, researchers, technologists, and highly qualified specialists.

Meanwhile, in our country, the share of GDP allocated to education is shrinking. Education itself has become not merely paid, but prohibitively expensive for many families. And now this is being compounded by this kind of administrative foolishness coming from a cabinet minister.

Perhaps this is why, instead of developing comprehensive technological solutions to defend against AI-enabled drones, the authorities introduce internet whitelists or even shut down access to the global network altogether. As a result, residents of frontline regions sometimes cannot even receive emergency alerts from the Ministry of Emergency Situations about the danger of attacks.

The quality of thinking demonstrated by the Minister of Science is reflected in the quality of decision-making in science policy.

139 years passed. And it is symbolic that on June 18, Minister of Science and Higher Education Valeriy Falkov stated that:

“There are too many people with higher education in Russia.”

According to him, the country does not need “universal higher education,” and the mass aspiration of graduates to enter universities “is not a good thing” and does not correspond to the needs of the economy—the country, he argued, needs more manual labor.

Once again, this is not about a single statement but about a system of measures. In 2026, the authorities cut 47,000 tuition-paying places at universities—about 13% of the total. State regulation was extended to 28 bachelor’s degree fields and 12 specialist-degree programs. Among those affected were economics, management, public administration, law, and similar disciplines—precisely the fields whose graduates most often work in politics, business, the media, and public life.

As under Alexander III, education is increasingly viewed not as a means of social mobility but as a tool for assigning people to predetermined roles.

Back then, the authorities spoke about the harm of “excessive” education for the children of cooks. Today, they speak about the “needs of the economy.” But the logic is strikingly similar: the country does not need too many people capable of independent thinking, comparison, demanding accountability, asking questions, and holding the authorities responsible for their mistakes.

History has already delivered its lesson.

Alexander III expected that restricting education would ensure stability—but the outcome was different. Educational restrictions did not strengthen the empire. On the contrary, Russia increasingly lagged behind industrial leaders, fell behind technologically, and the accumulated dissatisfaction eventually burst through the barriers of autocratic rule.

A country that considers educated people to be an excess inevitably ends up with a shortage of engineers, scientists, specialists, and engaged citizens. People deprived of opportunities for social advancement rarely become more loyal.

It seems that Russia is being forced to relearn this lesson.

P.S. But there is another lesson as well: the Soviet Union became a global technological leader in the 1950s and 1960s not because it reduced the number of educated people, but because—even during the harshest years of the Great Patriotic War—it did not reduce student enrollment and instead expanded it. Moreover, during those years the country devoted a larger share of its GDP to education than modern Russia does. And that education was free for all students.

Just in case, you can find me on Dzen.

Forwarded from Yaroslav Listov, the historian

A Coincidence — or Lessons Not Learned?

There are strange coincidences in Russian history—here is one of them.

On June 14, 1887, Minister of Education Ivan Delyanov signed the circular “On the Reduction of Gymnasium Education,” which went down in history as the circular about the “cook’s children.” It was not only about the statement that:

“Gymnasiums and progymnasiums should be relieved of admitting the children of coachmen, footmen, cooks, laundresses, small shopkeepers, and similar people; children who, except perhaps for those gifted with exceptional talents, should not aspire at all to secondary or higher education.”

It concerned an entire system of measures that restricted access to education for the lower social classes.

Alexander III

“would consider it preferable to achieve the goal of preventing an influx into gymnasiums and progymnasiums of children whose home circumstances do not correspond to secondary education.”

As a result, tuition fees were increased—first to 50 rubles and then to 60. Preparatory classes, which had allowed children from poor families to enter gymnasiums, were abolished. Some gymnasiums were converted into technical and industrial schools. As a consequence, the total number of students in classical gymnasiums fell by 16%. Access to education increasingly became a privilege for those who already had money and could provide their children with a good education at home.

Behind all this stood the philosophy of Alexander III and Pobedonostsev: society needed to be “cooled down,” and the transformation of lower-class children into students and intellectuals had to be limited—the very social environment from which, in their view, revolutionaries emerged. They believed that the fewer educated people there were, the fewer free thinkers and people asking uncomfortable questions there would be, and the more stable the state would become.

The state was deliberately turning education from a vehicle of social mobility into a privilege.

What lies behind the destruction of the Defense of Sevastopol panorama?

What is the true nature of the war the West is waging against Russia?

What kind of war is Russia fighting, and on what level is it being conducted?

How are today’s events connected to the Crimean War of the 19th century?

What role did the so-called “RussZion elite” play then, and what role does it play today?

How is Russia’s struggle for sovereignty unfolding?

These and many other questions are addressed in the latest edition of Valeriy Viktorovich Pyakin’s Question and Answer program, released on June 15, 2026.

Click here to watch the video

Click here to read the transcript