Meeting Russia 2019: Looking in the same direction
On March 28-30, Meeting Russia, a program for young leaders from Western countries, , was held in Moscow for the third time. Guests from the European Union, the United States and Canada visited Moscow to obtain a deep and thorough understanding of Russian foreign policy.
The substantive part of the program began on March 28 with a variety of meetings on different topics. The participants visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where they met with Alexey Drobinin, Deputy Director of the Department of Foreign Policy Planning, Maxim Buyakevich and Sergey Nalobin, Deputy Directors of the Department of Information and Press.
Then two groups were formed to visit the Government of Moscow, where participants discussed successful examples of the development of Russian business in the West, and the Eurasian Economic Commission, where they learned about the work of the Eurasian Economic Union.
At the end of a long and busy day, Sergey Markedonov, expert on the post-Soviet space and the Caucasus, gave a lecture that we held inside of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.
On the second day, the participants continued visiting places related to Russian foreign policy and focused on discussing the problems plaguing relations between Russia and the West.
The guests visited the State Duma, where they met with Deputy Inga Yumasheva, a member of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, and the site of the International Discussion Club "Valdai", where they spoke with the Research Director and editor-in-chief of "Russia in Global Affairs" Fyodor Lukyanov. After that, there was a discussion on cyber security with Russian experts on the basis of the Russian International Affairs Council.
The day ended with a visit to the Tretyakov Gallery.
The last day of the Meeting Russia was devoted to discussions on topics in Russian-American relations, the crisis of leadership in the world and public diplomacy.
We invited many prominent Russian experts (Yuri Nadtochey (MGIMO), Maxim Suchkov (Al Monitor), Pavel Demidov (Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation), Dmitry Polikanov (Co-Unity, Public Chamber), Alexander Konkov (Rethinking Russia), and provided them with the opportunity to express their point of view to our foreign guests. Presentations were made by Bradley Reynolds (doctoral student at the University of Helsinki), Patricia Ahanda (Deputy Mayor of Champigny-sur-Marne (Paris region)) and Lauren Rogers (Fellow of the Federal Chancellor of Germany, representative from the USA).
The panel sessions were moderated by Lyubov Yaroshenko (En + Group), Ivan Kiseev (Creative Diplomacy), Lukyana Suvorova (Creative Diplomacy).