13 February 2019
February 13th, a meeting gathering Russian experts and Belarusian academics was held at MGIMO in the framework of the session devoted to the «Foreign Policy of Russia and Belarus in a Polycentric World». The event was organized by the Russian-Belarusian Expert Club and the Institute of History of the Belarusian National Academy of Sciences, and sponsored by the Standing Committee of the Union State of Belarus and Russia.
Andrey Sushentsov, Director of MGIMO’s Institute for International Studies and Program Director of the Valdai Club moderated the discussion and noted that Belarus faces a complex geopolitical situation, impacted by many different political and economic forces.
MGIMO’s Vice-Rector for Research, Evgeny Kozhokin, welcomed the guests and remarked that it is necessary for Belarusian and Russian experts to converse more frequently on major topics, especially in times of rapid changes. The Executive Director of the Russian-Belarusian Club and Vice-Rector of GAUGN for International Affairs Vyacheslav Sutyrin thanked MGIMO for hosting the event and noted that the results of the discussion would be used to help improve bilateral relations.
The main topics on the agenda of the conference were how to develop the Union State and overcome the barriers to developing relations between Russia and Belarus. Leading experts made presentations on the stage of integration of the Union, the challenges of Eurasian cooperation, Belarus’s foreign policy priorities, academic and educational relations, the perception by citizens of the integration process, the need to create a development fund and a strategic dialogue group to reinforce ties among experts.
— See the MGIMO web-site for russian version
