Oleg Davygora23:21, 04/17/24

The creation of the Foreign Policy Concept and a secret supplement to it followed an appeal to Russian scientists with a proposal to develop a policy.

The Russian Foreign Ministry is developing plans to weaken Western adversaries, including the United States, and use the war in Ukraine to shape a global order free of American dominance, a secret Russian Foreign Ministry document says.

In a classified addition to the official – and public – “Concept of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation,” the ministry calls for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures covering “military-political, trade-economic and information-psychological spheres” against “a coalition of unfriendly countries “led by the USA.

“We need to continue to adjust our approach to relations with unfriendly states … It is important to create a mechanism for searching for vulnerabilities in their foreign and domestic policies in order to develop practical steps to weaken Russia’s adversaries,” says the 2023 document, which was provided to The Washington Post by one from European intelligence agencies.

The document is the first to officially confirm and codify what many among Moscow’s elite believe has become a hybrid war against the West.

The secret addendum, dated April 11, 2023, uses much harsher language than the overt foreign policy concept and argues that the United States is leading a coalition of “unfriendly countries” aimed at weakening Russia because Moscow “poses a threat to the global Western hegemony.”

The document says that the outcome of the war in Ukraine “will largely determine the shape of the future world order.” This is a clear indication that Moscow views the outcome of the Russian-Ukrainian war as inextricably linked to its ability – and the ability of other authoritarian states – to impose its will on the world.

The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, published on March 31, 2023 and approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, uses bland diplomatic language, calling for “democratization of international relations,” “sovereign equality,” and strengthening Russia’s position on the world stage. While the concept also accuses the United States and “its satellites” of using the Ukrainian conflict to escalate “long-standing anti-Russian policies,” it also states that “Russia does not consider itself an enemy of the West… and has no bad intentions towards it.”

Russia hopes the West “will recognize the futility of its confrontational policies and hegemonic ambitions and accept the complex realities of a multipolar world,” the public document says.

In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that it does not comment on “the presence or absence of internal documents of the ministry” and the progress of work on them.

“We can confirm, as we have repeatedly stated at various levels, that we are determined to resolutely oppose the aggressive steps of the collective West as part of the hybrid war unleashed against Russia,” the ministry added.

The creation of the Foreign Policy Concept and a secret supplement to it followed an appeal to Russian scientists with a proposal to develop a policy. One proposal, received by the Foreign Ministry in February 2023 from the deputy head of the Moscow-based Institute of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which maintains close ties to the Russian security apparatus, laid out Russia’s options even more straightforwardly.

Other parts of the policy proposal, which was also provided to The Post, call for Moscow to stoke conflict between the US and China over Taiwan to bring Russia and China closer together, and to “escalate the situation in the Middle East around Israel, Iran and Syria to distract the US problems of this region.”

Western officials have warned that Russia has been stepping up propaganda and influence campaigns over the past two years in an effort to undermine support for Ukraine. As part of this, it seeks to create a new global rift, with Russian propaganda efforts against the West finding echoes in many countries in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Russian interference in US politics

In 2019, special counsel Robert Mueller completed  his investigation   into Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign, proving the very fact that Moscow tried to influence the elections. But investigators have found no evidence that Trump or his aides colluded with Russia to win the election.

At the same time, Trump aides  tried to promote the idea  that it was Ukraine that interfered in the 2016 Ukrainian election, not Russia.

(C)UNIAN 2024