Report launch: Myths and misconceptions in the debate on Russia

Dr Renata Dwan

Good afternoon and welcome to Chatham House and to the launch of a new Chatham House report, called Myths and Misconceptions in the Debate on Russia. My name is Renata Dwan and I’m Deputy Director of Chatham House, and we’re so welcome – delighted to welcome you here today to this panel discussion on the report.

The report, which is available on our website, is produced by our Russia and Eurasia Programme and is really a compilation of expert perspectives from across our Chatham House programme, staff and Associate Fellows working on and in Russia and the Eurasian region. So, we’re delighted to have, I think, 14 of the 17 with us here today for a really – what I hope will be a rich and interactive discussion.

Today’s discussion is on the record and will be recorded and you’ll be able to access this discussion later from our website. We’ll ask you to engage, we’d love to get your questions and perspectives and to have a chance for you to interact with the Authors. We’ll ask you to do that by entering your question in the Q&A function at any time during the course of the session and we’ll upload those votes and I’ll communicate your questions, so please do feel free to engage in this way.

Now, the question of Russia, and the question of Russia as to use Churchill’s, “A riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” is, of course, not new to the West and to Western debates about Russia. This new report argues that Russia’s domestic and foreign policies are poorly understood in the West. These myths, as the report argues, that the West is prone to, and by the West I think it means and we can talk about that but Europe and North America, is at best leading to poorly understood responses and ineffective strategies for engagement with Russia, and at worst driven by wishful thinking that can often produce negative outcomes. So, if the implications of these myths are weak and fragmented policy responses, what can we do about them? The report sets out a series of policy recommendations in, sort of, key domestic foreign policy, near and far abroad areas of concern.

So, today, what we’re really keen to do is begin that discussion. We’ll look at some of the key myths. We can’t explore all 17 of them in detail, but very much driven by your questions and areas, unpack a little bit some of the thinking as to why these myths exist, to what extent they’re, sort of, pervasive and why, and the extent to which they might be overcome in policy processes of European and North American policymakers.

To start our discussion, we have four of the Authors today, who are going to join us for a short panel discussion, and then when we open up to the Q&A, many more of the Authors will be online and willing and able to answer your questions at any one time. So, let me just briefly introduce our four panellists today. We have, first, James Nixey, who heads the Russia and Eurasia Programme here at Chatham House. Ekaterina Schulmann, who is an Associate Fellow with the programme. Third, we have Kier Giles, also Associate Fellow with the programme from Chatham House, and then fourth but – we have Annette Bohr, who is joining us to speak about misconceptions about Russia and China.

So, to make the most of our time, I’m going to kick it straight off, and I’ll start, if I may, James, with you, as to these questions. Maybe just share with us, first of all, what’s new about these myths that you’re writing about in this report? I quoted Churchill nine – from 1939, but where are we in this space today? Are there new myths, or have the myths grown stronger?

James Nixey

Yeah, thanks very much, Renata, and welcome, everybody. It’s a great privilege to see you all here. Thanks to everybody for coming.

To answer the question, I suppose, speaking more holistically, even, I suppose one of the very privileges of working in a independent thinktank is the freedom we enjoy to investigate and highlight issues or travesties, even, we deem of the greatest importance, a privilege I really, honestly, never forget. And I don’t think it’s so much – in a way, it’s almost the opposite, Renata, but I think these myths are not so much – some of these myths are new and some of ‘em are old, I’ll explain.

We’ve all encountered over the years, ad nauseum, really, not just in Chatham House Roundtables, but out of the mouths of serving Politicians and other influential figures, then making their way into policy which has obviously been unsatisfactory. Not unsatisfactory because we’ve failed to turn Russia into a cosy, touchy feely liberal democracy, that’s way beyond our reach, of course, but because we failed to protect the integrity of our own systems and in some cases, the lives of our own people. So, the – that’s the reason, if you like, that some of these my – that we’ve failed, is because some of these myths have become embedded over space and time.

So, by way of example, if you like, the myth that Russia was promised that NATO would not enlarge, tackled by John Lough, is a rather hoary old trope that crops up frequently and is probably particularly vexing to John, who set up the first NATO Liaison Office in Russia way back in the last century. Or the myth that all decision-making is done via Putin without regard to any other individual is not just a – sort of, a personal bugbear for Ekaterina Schulmann and Ben Noble in their chapter, but it’s something genuinely unhelpful and possibly even dangerous when having interactions with Russia, at an official level or otherwise.

My chapter, for example, on – also on Russia and China, is the contention that we should make nice with Russia, presumably forgiving and forgetting the recent past and turning a blind eye to future transgression, in order to gang up, I suppose, more effectively on China. That’s especially – that’s – that is newer and that’s especially modish right now. But these myths about Russia are pervasive, corrosive and inevitable, but we couldn’t just accept them. In fact, they should be debunked, as far as is possible, from a purpose of giving policymakers as accurate a picture as possible in order to make the best decisions for Western core interests.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, James. Isn’t one of the reasons why myths abound in countries because of the difficulty of accessing the country’s policy or thinking or engagement? So, I guess, is Russian policy, Russian action, so inscrutable?

James Nixey

Yeah, I mean, obviously, in a country with as long and tumultuous and controversial a history as Russia, that is inevitable. It’s in their – it’s in its nature, it’s in the nature of myths, it’s in the nature of Russia. I couldn’t say if there are more myths emanating from Russia than from anywhere else, but the thing is they do provide superficially attractive explanation, of course. It’s a common error to infer, as we all know, that things that are consecutive in order of time necessarily have a relationship of cause and effect.

So, whilst some of these myths, you know, are the result of an understandable lack of knowledge, many, if not most, are cultivated and propagated by the Kremlin. They don’t just serve Russia’s interests as a self-proclaimed great power or a great power aspirant, but they are essential to the regime’s survival and to its credibility with its own people and with itself.

Take another example, I mean, take the example of James Sherr’s chapter, which is, effectively, whataboutism, as we call it, the first chapter of the publication. It’s superficially attractive when you look at the travesties committed by the West, but it breaks down when you look at the scale and the context of those travesties committed by Russia.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, James, and I’m sure we’ll come back to that in the Q&A, for sure, but I’d like to bring in Ekaterina now, if I may, because, Ekaterina, we’re looking at the fourth term in office of Putin, and nearly two decades on, there’s often a tendency to conflate the Russian state with the Putin state, let’s say, but to what extent is Putin the state and can you help us unpack that a little bit [pause]? Ekaterina, you’re on mute.

Ekaterina Schulmann

Yes, and I’m turning my sound on. Thank you for the question and thank you for the opportunity to be here as part of this discussion and as part of this collection of articles. I think I’m the – if I’m not mistaken, I’m the only one among the Authors who is actually based in Moscow, which doesn’t make me the most knowing of all the participants, but still gives a kind of peculiarity to my position. Also, I think that our chapter, Ben’s and mine, together with possibly the succeeding chapter by Nikolai Petrov, are the two ones dedicated to internal Russian affairs, to internal policy, rather than to foreign policy.

When I was invited to join this effort, I was enthusiastic, and I must say that, despite the many months of work, my enthusiasm hasn’t cooled, well, maybe a little bit, but not quite evaporated. Because in my sphere of competence, and I study and teach legislative process, and therefore Russian internal decision-making process, myths and misunderstandings absolutely about, I was, kind of, irritated even by this quotation from Churchill about Russia being so enigmatic, because it, sort of, reminds me of the century-old myth about the mysteriousness of women. You may remember this joke, women are so unscrutable, one never knows what they want. There’s a mystery around them and there’s even something enchanting about this mystery.

And this mystification, this othering, goes hand-in-hand with another bad thing, simplification, for some reason. If we name something hard to understand, mysterious, unpredictable, then we tend, at the same time, to offer simplistic explanations of the behaviour of this same subjects – subject, and this is the same, well, misfortune with discussing Russia. Myths would not be, and misconceptions wouldn’t be, so durable if they hadn’t had some foundation in fact. They can never be completely groundless and that’s the problem.

When we say, as we say we have done in our chapter, “Russian policymaking, policy implementation, is not all about Putin. The personification of political process is overblown. Russia is governed by a widespread, partly competent and very resourceful bureaucracy,” then people say, “Oh, yes, but all the important things are decided by the President personally,” or, “Isn’t he the maker and the creator of this system?” And then you have trouble explaining things, because yes, of course, the President is powerful, he’s been on his job for 20 years, he’s as much a creation of this bureaucratic system as the creator of it. They are interdependent political organisms. So, every expert explanation finally boils down to saying, “It’s complicated, it’s not so simple as you think, it’s not how it looks.”

And speaking about the other issue, you mentioned transparency or lack of transparency, which relates to this same famous Russian mysteriousness. One of the points that we make in our chapter is that while of course Russia, not being an electoral democracy or a liberal democracy, is not very fond of publicity or transparency, and the prevalence of propaganda, of course, muddles public sphere, public environment, informational sphere, with intentional war, not intentional disinformation, but at the same time, being so bureaucratic, and bureaucracy tends to regulate everything that moves, and regulation happens by papers. There’s quite a lot of publicly available open data, open information, which is out there for those who know how to find it and how to read it.

So, we have quite enough sources, again open sources, which allow us to judge of the state machine’s intentions, decisions, success or lack of success in implementing those decisions, but these – reading these sources, understanding this information, demands a special set of skills. And this, again, leaves us open to the accusation, which is often aimed at experts, that every expert recommendation is about we need more experts, and we need more budgets for expertise. This doesn’t sound very virtuous, but still, this is a necessary thing.

Instead of musing about the mysteriousness of Russia, we’d better really invest into expertise which can both communicate with and understand the pronouncements, the public position, the internal workings of this same great and mighty, sometimes clumsy, sometimes effective, bureaucratic system, and this is what we tried to explain, as best we could, in the chapter that we co-authored with Ben Noble.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, Ekaterina. So, the point that myths, in a way, contribute to the prolongation of this notion of inscrutability and unpacking it is not only necessary but feasible if you know where to look and how to ask the right questions.

I do want to come back to you a little bit later on questions arriding – arising from the relationship between Putin and the bureaucracy, and in particular the relationship between something that is – gets a lot of coverage in the West, which is the elites around Putin and in particular, the wealthy, sort of, Moscow-based elite. I’m just thinking of a report this week that was in the Financial Times about oligarchs and billionaires and Russia’s high rate of billionaires, so I’m going to pause you on that, but I’d like to come back to that in the questions, if we can, to talk about some of the drivers of domestic policy therein.

But before that, I’d like to move onto Kier, just one of the Authors of this work and, Keir, you have focused, in particular, on a number of questions, but also on Russian foreign policy and Russia’s engagement abroad. And one of the things that I think we’ve seen in the last 15 years has been a certain amount of expansion of Russian policy engagement, beyond a focus on the near abroad, beyond the focus on its immediate region. But we’ve seen Syria, we’ve seen quite a bit of action in Africa, Libya, we’ve seen through the Wagner Group, Russia’s engagement and interactions. So, I mean, I’m putting it to you, do we have a sense of Russia as a more internationalised actor, or at least is there a more risk – higher risk appetite in Russia’s foreign policy engagements today than we’ve seen in the past?

Kier Giles

Well, Renata, I think yes to all of the above, and importantly, this comes back to a point you’ve already raised, is Russia inscrutable, or is it, to some degree, actually predictable? I’d agree completely with Ekaterina that yes, we can pass what you see being said by Russia, but also to suggest that we don’t know what Russia is going to do next is to suggest that we’ve learned absolutely nothing, not only from the last 30 years of Russian actions and declarations, but also from preceding history. And what we’re seeing now is the culmination of a trend of Russia being able to reassert itself, not new policy, not new initiatives, not a new drive for what Russia wants to do coming from Moscow, but instead, the capabilities developing to match the intentions.

We saw that progress very clearly in the difference between Russia’s reactions to Western intervention in Libya in 2011 and in Syria in 2015. In Libya, there were protests, despite the extension in the United Nations against Western intervention. By the time of Syria, post-Crimea Russia felt able to actually do something about it. And so, while the country policy from Moscow has been more or less unchanged throughout the whole of the post-Cold War period, and that’s something which is routinely underestimated in the West, the extent to which Russia was still talking itself – about itself as a great power during the 1990s, what’s changed now is that they have the resources and the will and the lack of restraint to actually push hard to achieve those ambitions.

But that final point that you’re talking about is a change, really, that’s come about over the last two to three years, that push for global interence, interest and influence, and the fact that Russia is now looking to find inroads in places where it had no traditional interest and no immediately obvious gain for its policy or for its economics. The headlines that you were talking about there, the Wagner Group in Central Africa, involvements in Syria, Libya, etc., are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a much broader global initiative to try to resurrect that influence that Moscow had previously, including expanding it to areas where they were never previously a factor.

Dr Renata Dwan

And can I ask you, is that driven, Kier, by a clear strategy? Is it driven by an assessment of interests and focus and objectives, or is it an opportunistic approach, which is where there’s opportunities to engage, to challenge, to – particularly to challenge US and Western interests?

Kier Giles

Well, this is one of the key questions. It comes up again and again when people ask us, “Just what is it that Russia is looking for?” And we always have to challenge the phrasing of the question, because as with so many things, it’s not an either/or question. It’s presented as either Russia has a grand strategy, or it takes opportunities where they present themselves, but the two are not mutually exclusive, like so many other things which we think are different, but which, for Russia, are all part of the same approach.

Now, I’ve heard it described, not so much as a strategy that Russia has, but of a vision of something that it wants to achieve in the long term, along the road to which it will take these opportunities that when they present themselves, when there is the sense of a vacuum of will or of presence, or of intention by Western countries, and Russia can expand its encroachments and its influence and its weight and its relative importance in the world. So, it is both, yes, there is a strategy in the form of an ideal that Russia wants to aspire to, but at the same time, we need to be alert for targets of opportunity that Russia may see of interest.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks. Thanks, Kier. Maybe I can bring in you here, Annette, in terms of objectives and goals. This is in – you’ve written in – contributed to the report on the question of Russia-China relations and you’ve challenged the myth that we should drive a wedge, the West should seek to drive a wedge between Russia and China. I guess the question there that I would frame to you, to what extent is there an axis or an alliance between these two countries, both in their interests, but their vision, as Kier said, and their agendas in terms of how they relate themselves into the international system, norms, rules and institutions?

Annette Bohr

Right, well, thank you, Renata. Well, I would say that adherence of my myth in particular tend to ascribe a behavioural convergence and a, sort of, grand conspiratorial character to the Sino-Soviet relationship, but in fact, each state’s commanding imperative is to retain full autonomy in decision-making. And while it’s true that the Sino-Russian entente is booming and Beijing and Moscow as close as they’ve ever been, fundamentally, their relationship is based on each state’s calculated and concrete interests.

And so, the degree of competition between China and the West, or the degree of conflict between Russia and the West, for that matter, whether increasing or decreasing, is not going to change that bottom line, but at the same time, this de facto nonaggression pact that Putin and Xi Jinping have established in recent years stands in stark contrast to the fraught period during the Cold War, of the Sino-Soviet split. So, as things become more fraught with the West, this pact gives both Beijing and Moscow one less theatre of conflict to worry about.

And as regards the increased potential for a Russia-China alliance in general, yes, the two powers have complementary economies and interests in the spheres of technology, cyber-co-operation and defence. For its part, Moscow is in a hurry to close deals on the sale of sensitive in – other technologies – sensitive military and other technologies, to China, before Beijing’s own research and development advances make such purchases obsolete. But it’s important to bear in mind here that China is the principal driver of economic growth within the relationship, which puts Moscow at risk of economic and political dependency on Beijing.

Ultimately, this disbalance will give China huge pricing power over Russia, leading to an even more lopsided relationship. At present, though, the two powers have more to gain from co-operation than competition, and so both Russia and China have chosen to push their differences to the background for the foreseeable future. But in the much longer term, perhaps in a decade or so, the widening gap in the two states’ capacities is likely to prove a gamechanger that could presage a fundamental shift in the relationship.

Dr Renata Dwan

So, Russia coming from a position of convenience, both sides – both powers, Russia and China, seeing a certain convenience in the relationship, but the asymmetry in the relationship, and in particular, as you said, Annette, the power balance, having some significance.

I was struck last week, listening to a debate on the Security Council, under a Chinese presidency, on the future of multilateralism, at how Russia, or let me say China and the US, both referenced a lot the rules-based international order, the rules-based international system and their commitment to it, and I was struck by how Russia challenged that notion in Lavrov in his speech, questioned, “Why use the rules-based international system rather than international law?” and there’s something subversive for international law to use this framing. Maybe just to ask you, Annette, do you think that, you know, in this respect, Russia is contesting the current international system and framework of order, institutions, frameworks, in a way that China isn’t?

Annette Bohr

Certainly. I mean, for its part, Russia feels that it’s been the loser in the current economic order, and so it definitely finds utility in partnering with Russia, because it dovetails perfectly with its quest to restore a measure of international prominence during its twilight years as a leading global power. Whereas China, on the other hand, for its part, finds utility in Russian efforts to bring down the US-led International Order, but it is less concerned with forming a fully-fledged alliance with Russia than it is with ensuring that Moscow does not get in the way of its upward global trajectory.

And we have to remember here that Russia and China have different views of the International Order. Beijing envisions a future world order that revolves around the US-China relationship, with other major powers playing roles, to varying degrees, of course. Well, Moscow’s not ready to view itself as a second-tier power, and so wants to see a world order that gives it an equal status, at least in certain spheres.

I would also say that in addition, the relative decline of US power and the rise of China has meant that policymakers in both Moscow and Beijing see a greater chance to modify some international institutions. But as I mentioned before, Renata, many Western observers tend to greatly overestimate the degree of co-ordination between Chinese and Russian policies, often viewing Russia and China as some sort of strategic – single strategic entity that was somehow allowed to develop by negligent Western policymakers.

And this downplaying of tensions within the Sino-Soviet partnership, together with a depiction of the relationship as a grand alliance against the West, allows Beijing and Moscow to use respective co-ordinated actions, particularly in the military sphere, I would say, to spook Western policymakers and ultimately place into Russian and Chinese views of the US as a declining power that is seeking to reassert its demo – its dominance and with limited advantage.

Dr Renata Dwan

Fascinating, Annette, and we’re going to come back to that, I’m sure, in the questions session later.

I’d like to just take the last question to the panellists, to go back to Ekaterina, because I think it would be great to get – to end with a view from Moscow, at least this portion of the discussion. Ekaterina, you know, this question that we’ve heard of foreign policy and perhaps scale of ambition, Kier talked about a rising sense of a vision, Annette talked about a contest of a vision of an international order. Back home in Moscow, to what extent – what does the world look like? Does it look like a threatening world in which Russia is faced by enemies on all sides? Does the Putin sense of Russia as a great power still hold attraction, particularly if we think about the annual videos? To what extent is there that interest and focus in foreign policy perceptions, debates and engagements in Russia right now?

Ekaterina Schulmann

Here in Russia, the most perceptible thing is the great gap between what is being told on TV, what is the content of the state propaganda, what is the content of official speeches, and what is the degree of interest in foreign policy, as we can see it from the polling data from [inaudible – 29:38] data? Since 2018, we perceive a steady decline of both interest and, I would say, pride in foreign policy achievements as interests of people back at home, centred, quite naturally, on social and economic issues, economic issues first of all. We are in the, I think, seventh year of a steady decline of people’s real disposable incomes. 2020 has been a hard year for the humanity in general, but here in Russia, it has exasperated those tensions and those difficulties which Russian society lives under. It has been a year of not just lower incomes, but of sharply rising prices of higher consumer inflation.

And if we look at the polls, at questions like, “What are your concerns? What are your troubles? What do people hear?” we’ll see that while there’s rising tension, there’s rising anxiety on every possible subject. Among them is the anxiety for the possibility of the large-scale war and armed conflict of Russia with Ukraine, war of a foreign invasion, or still higher are the fears of state repression, of police violence. This is what concerns the respondents politically, but of course, the top concerns are the economic ones, are low wages, high prices, fear of unemployment.

At the same time, on the official public level, every internal political issue is immediately connected to some foreign influence. Everything, protests, Alexei Navalny and his activity, now the – are concerns of the younger generation. Every – elections, of course, parliamentary elections, everything is translated as some foreignly influenced affair.

We have come to the situation where even internal policy issues are decided not by – as we’ve been used to experience, not by the internal policy block of the presidential administration, but by the security services and by those parts of the security services that specifically deal with spying and counter-spying. This is, well, if not unexpected, at least a very uncomfortable situation for most everybody inside. But coming back to your specific question of what rivets the attention of an observer is, of course, this very manifest, very perceptible gap between what is being told officially and what people care about.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks. Thanks very much, Ekaterina, and a good reminder to us that mythmaking and myths go both ways and that we are also in a struggle of narratives, domestically, regionally and globally.

I’m going to move onto our questions now and – because we already have quite a number, which is great, and keep them rolling, folks, as long as we can. Can I ask all our Authors to put on their screens and I will direct some questions to them in due course, so welcome to the rest of our Authors, great to have you with us today.

The first question I’m going to refer to is from Petr Luňák and it’s really a question about the myth number four in the book, which – the report, which is “Russia is not in a conflict with the West,” and so I think, particularly, how would you respond to the extension of the non-enlargement pledge? Was this pledge made? Was Gorbachev offered a promise not to enlarge and did Gorbachev take it for granted that NATO had promised and committed not to enlarge? And so, this question is to what extent and why has this been so pervasive, this myth? And maybe I can bring in one of the Authors who’s worked a lot on this question, John Lough. I’m going to bring you in to maybe share some thoughts on this myth and its pervasiveness.

John Lough

Thank you, Renata. The question is both complicated and simple, because a lot of things were said to Mr Gorbachev after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the realisation that we were going to have a united Germany. There was a lot of discussion about the security arrangements for the united Germany. Mr Gorbachev thought, at one point, that Germany could be part of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. There were some, sort of, amazing ideas circulating, but he accepted in the end that it was better for the Soviet Union, for Germany to be integrated into NATO. There then came the issue of which forces would be located on German territory. So, it’s – in short it was quite a complicated question.

Around that time, also, some Western leaders, when asked by the Soviet leadership what was going to happen, they said, I think quite sincerely, that they saw no prospect for NATO enlargement, beyond the integration of a united Germany, because the Soviet Union was still in existence, you know, as was the Warsaw Pact. So, I think those remarks were made in – quite sincerely.

I was at a lunch in 1996, March 1996, with the Russian Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, when he let – he read out a list of statements made by four or five Western leaders to the Soviet side and he basically said, “You’ve broken your word.” But the point is, in the meantime, the Soviet Union had collapsed, and we were confronted by a new geopolitical reality, so, to say that Moscow was deceived is, to my mind, to simply assume that the security interests of the Russian Federation should be the same as those of the defunct Soviet Union.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thank you very much for that, John. I’m going to keep moving, if I can, just because we have quite a few questions coming in. Maybe the next one from Elizabeth Sears, really building on the question that we began with you, Ekaterina, if Putin is not making the decisions, is there a – kind of, an inner circle or, kind of, a cabinet? And that gets at who’s in that cabinet and where? Maybe I might start – Nikolai Petrov, I’ll ask you to speak first and then I’ll – Ekaterina, if you’d like to come in with any questions on that. Nikolai.

Nikolai Petrov

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Renata. There are a lot of speculations in Russia about who exactly and how are making decisions. Well, there are speculations about Putin’s politburo, the problem is that it’s absolutely non-transparent and we don’t have any institutions which can be seen as those who make these decisions, so it’s absolutely unclear, that’s why it’s leaded to well, dig down in a very serious way, in order to understand how this or that decision has been made.

And I would say that, in my view, and this is my personal view, for sure, any decision can be decomposed and there is some, well, major decision or matter decision made aware, perhaps, well, many years before certain move is made, like, say, annexation of Crimea and there is the whole chain of decisions. And if, at the initial stage, major shareholders, I would have in mind, first of all, Putin’s oligarchs, do participate in making these decisions, then at the very latest stage, perhaps [Slovakia – 37:54] or any institutions which should realise these are their particular decision, come into the surface.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thank you very much, Nikolai. Ekaterina, and then I’ll come to Ben, do either of you want to add something to this? And feel free, also, to bring in the question of billionaires and the rating of Russian – the proportionate to the populations which sees it amongst the top in the world? Katerina?

Ekaterina Schulmann

In order not to add to the mysteriousness that we have tried to somehow dispel, I must say that every historical comparison has its limits. I don’t think that anything in modern Russia can be compared to politburo, which was a collective decision-making body, but the nearest approximation towards what is called Putin inner circle is nothing mysterious, but these are the people who are permanent members of the Security Council. They meet every week; it’s quite official.

The meeting itself is closed, of course, to the public, but the fact is open, and these meetings have been happening weekly since 2003, since the moment that the then young President Putin got his own Prime Minister and his own Head of the Presidential Administration. He has installed these weekly meetings that have been going on for these 17 years. So, there’s every reason to suppose that these are the people who discuss and decide all the important internal and external policy issues. If you look at the membership of – the permanent memberships of the Security Council, you will see how stable is this circle of people. They’ve been there for decades. There has been very little change.

Speaking of oligarchs, despite all the comparisons of the Russian political system with the court and of the President with a Tsar, favouritism is, in fact, not a prominent feature of Russian political system. Everybody who is anybody either hold official posts or are quite open and well-known beneficiaries of state procurements and state tenders. The state oligarchs are either Heads of State Operations and State Banks or people like the Rotenbergs or the Kovalchuks, who again own companies, who win tenders, who receives budget grants, who receives state money. There’s nothing mysterious about that, there’s no – again, as far as we know. There is no [inaudible – 40:27], there is no Rasputin, now, there’s no mysterious hidden person who has the ear of the President. Again, let us not descend into this fog of mystery. Things are much more open if we choose to read this open information correctly.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, Ekaterina. Ben, do you want to add anything before I move onto the next question?

Ben Noble

Thanks, Renata. I’ll just add something very quick and that’s even for those decisions where we know that Putin has played a crucial role, and there certainly are lots of those decisions, I’ll, of course, take into account what Nikolai has said about the difficulties in actually working out for every decision what’s going on. There are clearly a subset of decisions in which Putin does play an incredibly influential role.

However, we have to remember that even in those situations, the bureaucracy that Ekaterina and I point to and the influential role that they play is partly in terms of agenda setting power. They can control, to a certain extent, the information that is provided to Putin, the options that are put on his table, and so, even for those decisions in which Putin plays an incredibly important role, we can’t lose sight of this broader environment and that’s precisely what is lost sight of when people focus on the myth that governance in Russia is just down to Putin.

And I’ll just – one final point, for another set of decisions, we can point to Putin as being an arbiter, where he doesn’t necessarily impose – dictates his own policy position. He’s there to pick between different interest groups vying for power and the balance of power between those groups can change over time, which is why we see policy U-turns in certain areas quite frequently. That isn’t a sign that Putin’s vacillating, it’s a sign that he’s responding to particular interest groups and, as I say, that shifting balance of power over time.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, Ben. I want to, sort of, frame a couple of questions that have come up about the nature of myths, so I’m going to flag those and then we’ll move onto some issues around Russia-US, as well as Russia-China policies.

So, I think the first, and it’s two questions that are quite closely related, one from Natasha Court and another from Alicja Próchniak. One is about methodology, the deconstruction approach, which suggests there are objective facts behind the myths, and Ekaterina, you alluded to this, while many Authors have pointed out that the myths are neither real nor false, and somehow part of storytelling around Russia. I’m going to ask you, James, to maybe comment on this, James Sherr, if I can, to bring you in this perspective around the deconstructing of these myths.

But I want to build on that with Natasha Court’s question to why – and it’s, in a way, the question I started off with. Why are there more myths and misperceptions more than ever and could part of the reason be that there’s a lack of sufficient investment and expertise on Russia in some policymaking circles in the West? So, James, I’ll give you that double-part question and bring in a couple of other folks.

James Sherr

Thank you, Renata, and good afternoon to everyone from Tallinn, Estonia. The – we did not – I think I could fairly say we did not employ, in the academic sense, a formal methodology, but we recognised that there was a definable problem. All of us, despite our diverse areas of expertise, I think have found, over 20 to 30 years of working in this area, dealing with different publics, official bodies, students and the rest of it, that there is a persistent set of potted orthodoxies, cliches, conceptions, that we find in many different formats, that are either factually wrong, in some respects significantly, or if not factually wrong, at least distorted.  

Yet, what is striking is their pervasiveness and tenacity, and that is why we thought it would be a good idea to draw up a shortlist of these, and I assure you there were a great many other issues we wanted to discuss, and address them. And, you know, standard contrast, if somebody says, and Orysia addressed this directly, Crimea’s always been Russian, it’s just factually wrong. If somebody says, before Russia intervened in Ukraine, Russian speakers were in – persecuted there, I could say, and a great many others could say with conviction, this is thoroughly wrong, but there are a lot of judgments here and there are a lot of factors that have to be taken into account. So, that is why that we have a mixture of issues that could be factually – simply factually addressed and others that are a matter of judgment.

I think, coming back to the ques – I don’t know if it was next que – it was, I think, Jana’s question, about expertise, they’re two interesting problems. The first is that a large proportion of people who we used to consider Sovietologists were, in the past, Russianists. They knew the Russ – they knew Russia, what we now call Russia, intimately. They did – many of them simply did not, and still do not, understand Russia’s significant neighbours in the former Soviet Union in their own terms and they did not spend much time in these places, and so here are highly expert people who think they know something that they don’t necessarily know. So I think that’s part of the problem; it’s not absence of expertise. What sort of experts are we talking about and how has their expertise been formed?

Finally, there is a com – I think there is a communications problem that we face and the government space, which is much more important than a deficiency of experts.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, James, interesting thoughts, and I’m sure others will come in on this question. I’m going to move onto a question from Alice Wells now and there’s a follow-up question to it, really about how you, as a panel, see or assess the Biden administration’s early approach to Russia, and of course we’ll see, in two days’ time, Lavrov and Blinken meet in Reykjavik in the margins of the Arctic Council. So, maybe, Duncan, I can ask you to come in here on the Biden administration and how you assessed some of their initial interactions.

Duncan Allan

Thank you, Renata. Well, look, first of all, let’s just be clear that it’s still early days. This is still a ver – we’re still in the initial period of the Biden administration and this is a difficult and complex relationship at the best of times, the more so at present. So, I would say that my initial impression, so far, has been pretty favourable. I think this is the first administration, the first President, who’s come to office, probably since the end of the Cold War, who’s come – taken office, not expecting there to be a significant improvement in relations in the foreseeable future.

Now, in many ways, that can be considered regrettable, but I think that’s a realistic assessment of where the relationship is, and it’s a realistic assessment, also, I suggest, of the reality that there are some major differences of interest between Russia and the US that are prob – almost certainly not going to go away anytime soon. And it would be, I think, a grave mistake to build policy on an assumption that those significant differences did not exist or were less serious and significant than they really are, so I think that that’s a really important starting point.

Now, having said that, I welcome the fact that the US and Russia have rolled over the New START treaty. It’s important, more generally, that communication and focused dialogue does take place, so therefore, I think it’s very important that high-level meetings do take place as scheduled, not with the expectation, necessarily, of there being major strives forward in terms of new co-operation and new agreements, but at the very least, so that areas of disagreement and conflict and confrontation can be clearly delineated and understood on both sides, so that both sides can make a better attempt at managing those differences. And it seems to me that going forward, managing differences between the US and Russia and between Western countries, more generally, on the one hand, and Russia on the other hand, is – really should be the, I think, uppermost in the minds of policymakers.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, Duncan, and I’m going to maybe build on your question to frame one that has come in with – to – and direct this question to Mathieu. Mathieu, one of our questions that have come in is about, you know, is it a myth that Chan – Vice President Chaney described Russia as a second-rate power with nukes? And building on Duncan’s approach of a much more yes to discussions, yes to summits, but very clear about what the limits are or where you can engage, what do you see as the prospect in the space of nuclear weapons and nuclear arms control treaties? We have, of course, New START, as the extension, but is that a scope for structured engagement of the type, the clear-eyed structured engagement that Duncan was talking about between Russia and the US?

Mathieu Boulègue

Absolutely. Thank you, Renata, and it’s great to be here. There is definitely scope for engagement, as long as it is based on, I would say, sort of, a change of software in the West. We are not going to influence Russia’s policy. President Putin is not going to feel deterred by actions or proclamations and he is not going to change the way he is ruling Russia. What we can do, on the other hand, is in and on ourselves, try to first have a, sort of, smallest common denominator, what is it we want to achieve from and with Russia, moving forward, what would be a potential policy cost for us of changing Russia’s approach to a certain number of issues and engaging the Kremlin when we have to, while being considerate with the fact that we should not bring any olive branches or making promises on our values or respond to Moscow’s terms.

So, there are, of course, a certain number of issues we can engage. Arms control, as you’ve very rightly pointed out, is one of them, not just because we have to discuss these issues jointly, but because they’re inherent to wider security implications. The Arctic, and you mentioned also the Reykjavik meeting, is an issue and is a growing space for geopolitical competition, where we have an interest in dealing with these things jointly in an era of low tension, as we call it. So, as long as we are aware that we should not fall into the – you know, the sort of pitfalls of coming to Russia, rushing to Russia, just because we need to deal with the Kremlin for every single and smallest policy issue in the world, there is very – there is something that we should be cognisant of.

And on your last point, on this mention of Russian as a second-tier power, this is, of course, getting under the leadership’s skin in the Kremlin, as you can imagine. This is denying Russia’s sense of great power status and sense of entitlements, that it is more sovereign or more than any other country. And this is a train of thought that we have in the US right now, for instance, with this logic that Russia is a declining power and therefore we should basically not bother with a – you know, a declining Russia, because it will once again lose it – you know, lose its status and not be an impediment, while China is the greater threat. I’ve no doubt this is another myth and, oh, could’ve been an 18th chapter, in a way, to our report, but that might be for a further point [inaudible – 53:20]. Thank you.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, Mathieu, and thanks for bringing some concrete policy recommendations also to – into your discussions. I’m going to turn back to Annette and maybe James in this question now, because we’ve had a number of questions come in about the Sino-Russian relationship. One question that echoes some aspects that you’ve referred to already, Annette, ongoing in the, in particular, US policy debate, about – fro – the question that the US should seek to wean Russia off its cosy alignment with China, and they quote some of the debates that are going on, including Charles Kupchan, for example, but others, I think, that we hear in the US debate. To what extent do you think this is overblown? You’ve flagged it already that you think there are some limits in it, but how can one effectively engage with this debate, ongoing, that somehow the West can and should wean Russia off and – this alignment?

Annette Bohr

Oh, thank you, Renata. Yes, I certainly agree with you that this particular myth is primarily a US-led policy debate and a perennial favourite of US presidential administrations, in particular, although it has gained some traction in France and Australia, to a much more limited degree. But indeed, numerous policymakers and commentators have warned that the West ignores the Russia-China’s revisionist axis of authoritarian at its own peril, urges Washington to act before it’s too late, but this, of course, fundamentally misunderstands Western leverage, for a start.

It gives rise to the false notion that Washington and its allies have the leverage and the capacity to split the Russia-China entente apart, despite numerous failed attempts in the past and the Kremlin’s unequivocally adversarial stance towards the West. Quite simply, what the West has not joined together cannot put asunder.

But mainly, this myth misunderstands the nature of the Sino-Russian relationship itself, including the factors that draw the two powers closer together, as well as those that constrain it, and I referred to those earlier in this webinar. So, not least there are terrible policy implications, but I think that I’ve said my two words on this and I – probably James, who’s also written a chapter on a different myth, a slightly different standpoint, would have more to say.

Dr Renata Dwan

Yeah, and if I may, before I bring it in, James, to you, I also want to reflect the question from Dara McDowell, that how do we understand the potential implications of the Sino-Russia relationship for Russia’s policy towards India, and of course, traditionally, the relatively close relationship that Moscow and New Delhi had for many years? Is there an implication of some tension there, or can that be bridged? I’ll start with you, James, and then if anyone else wants to come in.

James Nixey

Sure. Just to continue Annette’s thoughts and the previ – your question, or – can’t remember whose question it was now, but if I move onto Dara’s, then the myth that I wrote about – actually, I suppose it’s not really a myth, we use myth in the loosest sense, it’s more highly inadvisable policy action, I think, ‘cause some – as James Sherr said, some are factually incorrect.

This is highly – the idea that Russia should be brought onside in order to deal with the greater, supposedly longer term, systemic threat of China, is, as I said at the beginning, you know, quite faddish at the moment, but it feels sort – part – quite apart from the moral vacuousness that would be involved and the sacrifices that would be involved of a détente with Russia, well, that would involve, effectively, some form of new Yalta, then it just wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t work, partly because the Russians don’t particularly wish to be associated with a declining power – sorry, the Chinese don’t wish to be associated with a declining power like Russia, and actually, the Russians are actually also quite cautious about getting too close to China, because they know about its abilities, as well.

So, it also – the problem with it is that it presupposes that some form of relationship, some form of workable relationship, cannot be worked out with China. It may or it may not, I honestly don’t know, but I think – don’t think we should – we shouldn’t be – we should be mindful of the possibilities, at least, there, which I don’t think is true as far as Russia is concerned. I know my colleague, Kolai Petrov and I have disagreed over this over time. I think that any sort of relationship with the current regime in Russia, you know, beyond the most low hanging fruit, is as near as impossible as you could possibly imagine, based upon the truly irreconcilable differences in – frankly, in world view.

As far as Dara McDowell’s question’s concerned on Russia and India, I mean, there is long been talk of a Russia-India-China triangle. Again, it has no real – it has no more traction, no more basis in reality than the axis of – not the axis of convenience, I know Bobo Lo is listening in, as well, but it has no more basis in reality than a strategic partnership between Russia and China. When it is appropriate and opportune, then the Russians and the Indians do, indeed, get on very – they have a tremendous amount in common, but nobody wants to be hitched or locked into a relationship with powers that can undermine as much as they can assist.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thanks, James, and I can already see lots of questions about the nature of statecraft if it isn’t about compromise across different world views, but we can come back to that in a moment. I’m going to suggest, colleagues, that we focus – turn a little bit to some of the economic questions that are coming up right now, and then I’d like to come to some of the questions around Central Asia and Russia’s near abroad, before we get to some of the questions about Russia’s perceptions, thinking and the extent to which Russia wants to be understood.

So, let me first turn to you, Nigel, if I may, Nigel Gould-Davies. Nigel, you’ve written the paper that was there in the report on sanctions, and I think we’ve heard from Kier talking about part of Russia’s adventurism, perhaps, or increased activity globally, is an economic one. There is both uneconomic reasons, but there’s also some more economic capabilities, but we also heard from Ekaterina of just the concern and economic constraint that is felt. So, the question from Paul Waller is really about the current state of Russian resources and whether Russia has the capacity, the financial resources, to maintain a significant military engagement and profile at home and abroad and whether sanctions are having any impact on this. So, maybe over to you, Nigel.

Nigel Gould-Davies

Okay, thank you. So, yes, two parts to that question. On the Russian economy and its financial condition more broadly, there’s much that one could say, but very briefly, someone, I think it was Ekaterina, referred earlier to the fact that the Russian economy now is – has been stagnant for some time. In fact, Bank of Finland’s just come out with some work that suggests that real disposable incomes are now as low as they were ten years ago. So, yes, it’s been a bad COVID year, but that has followed several previous pre-COVID years of chronic systemic underperformance and there is no reason to think, unfortunately, that that situation will change, as long as the system remains essentially as it is. So, economically problematic.

That does not necessarily mean that Russia cannot sustain significant military forces, both conventional, and Putin also talks a great deal about investment in hypersonic weapons, perhaps a little more than is warranted. But also note that in his – one of the most memorable remarks from his recent State of the Nation Address was his threat that any challenge to Russia’s red lines, as Russia defined them, would be asymmetric. And we’ve seen, of course, Russia invest in relatively inexpensive, but in their own terms, sometimes effective cyber weapons, as well, and that’s something, of course, Kier and others can speak about.

Financially, Russia has worked hard to build up war chests and protect itself from adverse international circumstances, whether caused by crises, like in 2007/2008, or by Western policies that might try to impose pain and pressure on Russia. So, that’s very briefly on the broad situation there. Specifically on sanctions, I see this myth or misconception, and I accept that reasonable people can hold a version of it, although I do think it is a misconception. It’s a misconception, not only about Russia, but about sanctions themselves, and I think, more broadly, we don’t really have as clear a way as thinking about sanctions and what they can do as an instrument of statecraft, especially against large powers, as we should.

We will all be thinking more about economic statecraft in coming decades, for not only Russian reasons, but China reasons, as well. Russia is the largest country to have been subjected to major economic sanctions since the Second World War, essentially, and it’s an area where the West enjoys an enormous, again that word, asymmetric superiority, not only economic, but more significantly, financial. And above all, it’s the United States that has the nuclear weapons, so to speak, of the fact that the dollar has this uniquely important role as a global reserve currency. It has put on notice, not only the Russian State, but Russian elites, that it has the capacity to target them and largely cut them off from the global financial system, if it wishes to. A threat that’s – that has been implemented in limited ways, but the West knows, and Russia knows, could be done on a much larger scale.

And I’ll just finish by applying this to the most recent moment of tension we’ve seen, the Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s eastern border, and then its drawdown again. In the wake of that, a senior White House official expressed satisfaction at the impact that the Biden administration’s new sanctions – policy and sanctions strategy had had on Russian behaviour, a very significant moment. And to – just to touch, finally, on your question about the Biden administration’s approach to Russia policy, I do, as Duncan said, see it as a much more effective and co-ordinated approach than we’ve seen under the previous administration, and the most significant aspect of it so far has been a much more disciplined and forward-looking and systematic approach to sanctions, this formidable instrument.

Dr Renata Dwan

Great, thank you, Nigel. I’m going to continue this question about economic policies and maybe if I can move to you, Kataryna, and it’s really around some of the questions that liberal market reform was bad for Russia, that many Western business interests benefitted from the chaos of the liberalisation in the 1990s. If we could turn the clock back, are there a set of Western policies toward Russia that could’ve helped bring about a different outcome? And this is a question from Samantha de Bendern. Kataryna.

Ekaterina Schulmann

I can’t quite say that I am the right person to…

Dr Renata Dwan

No, sorry…

Ekaterina Schulmann

…answer.

Dr Renata Dwan

…Ekaterina.

Ekaterina Schulmann

Yes?

Dr Renata Dwan

Sorry, my question – I’m speaking to Kataryna Wolchuk from University of…

Ekaterina Schulmann

Good.

Dr Renata Dwan

…Birmingham. My apologies, sorry. I should’ve picked out my right Kataryna.

Kataryna Wolchuk

Thank you very much. There is no doubt that the 1990s, following the collapse of the USSR, was a very traumatic and difficult period in Russian history. Having said that, we were collectively, not only we in the West, but also in Russia, learning about the Soviet Union, that it was a very comprehensive but also shallow state. And when it collapsed overnight, it – basically, it was filled with all kinds of practices, the long-term consequences of which we still live with today.

So, from that point of view, I can really refer everybody to the myth which deals very well with blaming the West for what happened in Russia, and this is about the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nature of the Soviet Union and decisionmakers. We may have been wiser, but nobody was, and to blame the West for how Russia has developed over the last 30 years, I think it’s a – it’s one of those, sort of – one of their, sort of, perhaps fattest myths that we have still prevailing. But what we have, also, when it comes to the long, sort of, term consequences, not only that the Soviet Union – how it was created, but how it basically crumbled within weeks, so we didn’t even have our Brexit process, which took five years. It happened within weeks and months, and we had the most tightly integrated, controlled country in the world and it basically disintegrated. So, from that point of view, we wish we had a bit more foresight what it meant, but well-meaning advice from the West, there was no imposition, there was not really ta – it was take up, it was interest from the Yeltsin team.

But what we have is the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the USSR and it’s very important bec – though, because the parallels that have been mentioned here, in terms of politburo, for example, the inner circle, who makes decisions. This idea of Russia being governed by a tight group, which is basically not embodied in any particular formal institutions, also means that our Western approach – and this really feeds so many myths that we have, we tend to approach Russia and the post-Soviet countries in a compartmentalised, like, way, either sanctions, economics or ethnic relations, or conflict or politics. This sense of segregation, of different, sort of, problem-solving issues, does not really help us to understand, especially when we have this joined up thinking in Russia. And I would like to stress the issue of complexity, you know, who of us knows so much about trade relations, ethnic issues in Ukraine, versus the history of Crimea? So, we are all collectively caught in this constant, sort of, need to keep – expand our expertise and it’s hardly surprising that busy policymakers and public officials look for quick problem-solving approaches based on myths, rather than a deep, long, sort of, exposure to how Russia functions and what it’s trying to achieve in the world. Thank you.

Dr Renata Dwan

Yeah, no, thank you very much, Kataryna, and that brings us very much to a question I’d like us to get to before the end and bring in Orysia and Anaïs, on Ukraine and Crimea, and – because one of the questions that has come in is the scale to which we think there could be conflict over the notion of spheres of influence. And, of course, that’s one of the myths that you tackle in this report, the idea that there are some spheres of influence that must be recognised and respected and obviously pertain particularly to Ukraine. So, Orysia, I’m going to start with you, to what extent do we see real prospects for conflict and continued misunderstanding and misperception in understanding the relationship between Russia and Ukraine?

Orysia Lutsevych

Thank you very much, Renata, and I’m really pleased, of course, that the target of this report is Western policymakers, but indirect beneficiary of better policy will be the whole of Russia’s neighbourhood, and especially countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, that have an aspiration for Euro-Atlantic integration. And it is better understanding of what the future for these re – for these specific countries hold that will help Western policymakers to formulate a better policy, and I think, here, of course, Russia wants to blur the lines, it wants to create chaos, it wants to offset Western policymakers. And I do hope that these publications will, you know, help us put our thoughts in order better, because we do know that our thoughts determine our action. And I think it’s important today that our launch take place on the 76th anniversary of deportation of Crimean Tatars, and it’s quite symbolic that they – when they were deported in 1944, over 180,000 people were sent to Kazakhstan and half of them died en route. In 2014, 70 years later on, almost 35,000 people had to flee, and this is what we call, you know, Russia is predictable, Russia is repetitive and there are patterns.

Of course, history, you know, teaches us some lessons and I think we already see conflict in the region. It’s not hypothetical situation, there is conflict in Donbas. There were over 13 thou – 14, actually, thousand people dead because of that conflict and the West is already involved as, you know, being a pro-Ukrainian supporting in this way. And this – their reporting particularly gives very strong policy recommendations. It says – insists that Russia is not entitled to exclusive spheres of influence, reject the concept of a single Russian nation encompassing Ukraine and Belarus. These are very important messages that we do hope that Western policymakers take to heart and mind and will actually stay strong and committed, not just by proclaiming concerns, but by building resilience of countries such as Ukraine, Moldova, and protecting nation democracy and opposition in Belarus.

Dr Renata Dwan

Thank you, Orysia. Anaïs, can maybe you help us think about maybe the final question I’d like to put out today, from Anthony Forman in the chat, which is can we imagine a way in which examining these myths and looking to better understand perceptions and thinking within and across Russia and in the West could lead to a better integration of perhaps interests and capacity to engage? Do you see these myths as a way of informing better policymaking, as Orysia suggested?

Anaïs Marin

Thank you, Renata. Yes, I fully subscribe to what Orysia just said. I think it’s important to remember, as well, that, well, the myths that, for example, I tackle upon in my chapter on the unity – elite national unity between Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, they are important to – because they breed other myths about Crimea having always been Russian, about Belarus, for example, not having the right to be a standalone nation, allowed, for example, to opt for neutrality instead of alignment with Russia, etc. And what we have noticed while doing this research is that in some countries, even in the West, even in my home countries, for example, in France, there are numerous intellectuals or Politicians, Members of Parliament, Members of the European Parliament, who tend to actually deny any kind of act [inaudible – 74:18] and legitimacy to exist outside of this Russian sphere of influence, to Ukraine and Belarus. And I believe that at this time, with the events that are taking place in both countries, it is important to remind that, well, they do have the right to choose their geopolitical orientations.

Dr Renata Dwan

And very much part of the question about shaping, perhaps, the future of EU-Russian and US-Russian relations and, of course, as we know, the Secretary of State, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, visited Ukraine already last week, so to that extent, Anaïs and Orysia, it might be quite central as we think about the – some of those Western-Russian relationships.

I would love, colleagues, if we could continue the questions. We have questions on Nord Stream 2, we have questions about Russian perceptions, about myths, about whether – the extent to which Russia’s political and education system contribute to those myths or not, but I think what this illustrates is the richness of this report. You might not agree with all the myths in it, or indeed the treatment of myths, and as Ekaterina said, it’s important not to further mystify myths, so I think this report is intended to both unpack certain myths, and with a view to perhaps also suggest some possible avenues for engagement with and on Russia. And I think it’s certainly going to be one that has lots of controversy, one that has lots of issue interest and we would really welcome your continued engagement with us on this.

So, let me just congratulate all the Authors for really engaging with us today, for your work to date in this report. Please do follow the report online. I know that we will continue to have events on this and perhaps allow us to go into more depth into any one of those particular sets of issues, ‘cause each one is so large. But let me just thank our – all of the panellists today, congratulate them on the reports. It’s, I think, interesting from a political science perspective, as well, as we think about myths and how we understand that in our narratives, what that means for expertise, and how we go forward in formulating practical quality proposals.

Let me also just thank you, all the pan – the audience, for joining us today, and I very much hope that you continue to engage with us on our dialogue on ways forward in Russia and Eurasia. So, with that, thank you very much, and we look forward to your future engagement. Bye, bye, thank you.