What does the future hold in store?
So what awaits Russia in 2014? Putin
hopes to expand the new working
relationship between the Russians
and Americans produced by
cooperation over Syria and Iran.
According to Lavrov, Russia also
intends to develop interaction in the
BRICS format in 2014, building on
the
2013 Concept of
the
Participation
of
the
Russian
Federation in the BRICS and
preparing for its chairmanship of the
association in 2015. Lavrov also
wants Russia to improve its use of
soft power as an instrument of
foreign policy.
But the suicide attacks in Volgograd
last week remind us that terrorism is
still rife in Russia, and the success of
the games is not entirely within
Putin‘s control. Moreover, Sochi is
the venue not just for the Winter
Olympics. The G8 summit (Russia
assumed the chairmanship on 1
January) is scheduled to take place in
Sochi in June. Putin must hope that
Russia‘s G8 agenda – which focuses
on fighting terrorism (as well as drug
trafficking, and managing conflicts
and disasters) – will produce a rapid
and fail-safe solution to keeping the
Winter Olympics and the G8 summit
safe from terrorism.
* Margot Light is Professor Emeritus
of International Relations at the
Department
of
International
Relations of the London School of
Economics and Political Science.
26
It is not at all clear, however, that
this will persuade Yanukovych to join
the Customs Union, or theEurasian
Union,
which
is
officially
programmed to emerge by January
2015. Kyiv has a long history of
playing Russia and the EU off against
each other and public opinion in
Ukraine is so divided that there is
every reason for Yanukovych to
attempt to continue this policy.
Russia‘s 2013 Ukrainian triumph
might turn out to be an extremely
expensive Pyrrhic victory.
More specifically, it is clear that Putin
sets great store by the success of the
Winter Olympics which will open in
Sochi on 7 February. The December
amnesty for more than 20,000
prisoners, including Pussy Riot,
Greenpeace activists, and more
surprisingly, the pardon for Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, means that Western
leaders will not be able to cite human
rights as a reason for not attending
the opening.
Page
immediately
offered
to
buy
US$15bn-worth
of
Ukrainian
government bonds and to cut the
cost of gas supplied to Ukraine from
more than US$400 per 1,000 cubic
metres to US$268.5.