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Meeting Russia in Minsk
On October 7-8, 2019, an expert Minsk Dialogue Forum was held in the capital of Belarus. The Minsk Dialogue Forum provides a unique platform where relevant stakeholders can engage in discussions and seek on minimum standards of security. The event gathers high-profile representatives and leading experts from the EU, Russia, USA, China, East Europe and South Caucasus.

The event is organized by the Minsk Dialogue Council on Foreign Relations in collaboration with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the GCRF Compass project, RAND Corporation, the Russian Academy of Sciences and others.
Minsk Dialogue Forum 2019 - promo
On October 9th, as a partner of the Forum, PICREADI held a Meeting Russia Working Breakfast, which was dedicated to the Russia-West political dialogue crisis.

A day before the Working Breakfast, we met with the Meeting Russia alumni Zachary Paikin (MR 2017) and Reid Standish (MR 2019) who shared their expectations of the coming seminar on Russia-West political crisis and their own impressions of the Minsk Dialogue Forum.
Meeting Russia Alumni Club on the Minsk Dialogue
  • Reid Standish
    Special correspondent, Foreign Policy
    Today the US Ambassador to Russia John Huntsman just published an article, and one of the things he called for was the importance of dialogue. He understands obviously the huge differences and also the fact that the results of the dialogues could not come very quickly. But it is important to talk, to establish relationships between people, and to have a deeper understanding of them, of their voids, of their characterizations of the situation. The idea is to be able to figure out good solutions by asking the right questions. So I think this is the value of bringing people together here, bringing all the diversity of political leaders, experts, journalists who have different sets of experience and different viewpoints. Finally, they can find a surprising overlap that exists in some places you don't find until you get together.
  • Zachary Paikin
    Researcher, University of Kent; senior editor, Global Brief
    I am not able to attend tomorrow's session of MR, unfortunately, but I'm really excited you're organising this. It's fantastic to see you among the list of partners of the Minsk Dialogue Forum from which you've got here all the platform of organisations from both the East and the West. Sure it's gonna be a fantastic session and it would be a lot of learning experience for everyone!
Our speakers Ulrike Reisner, political analyst, journalist (Austria) and a graduate of Meeting Russia 2019, as well as Ivan Kiseev, business expert, executive director of Creative Diplomacy, shared their views on the most pressing issues. The discussion was moderated by Natalia Burlinova, president of Creative Diplomacy.

After the moderator's opening remarks, the discussion began with Ivan's speech on the "5th anniversary" of European sanctions against Russia. Ulrike presented her own view on the problems of political communication in the digital world. The speakers also answered guests' questions about the Russian strategy concerning the West, the domestic political agenda and economic policy in Russia, and many others. We are thankful to all colleagues from Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Poland, Latvia, Azerbaijan who actively participated in the working breakfast.