CER/KAS hybrid launch of 'Resist, constrain and change: A European strategy for relations with Russia'

Speakers:
Ian Bond, Deputy Director, Centre for European Reform
Ruth Deyermond, Senior Lecturer in Post-Soviet Security, Department of War Studies, King's College London
Jürgen Hardt, Member & Foreign Policy Spokesperson of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group, German Bundestag
Chair: Canan Atilgan, Head of the UK & Ireland Office, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung

The event launched Ian Bond's policy brief, 'Resist, constrain and change: A European strategy for relations with Russia'.

The policy brief argues that amid increasingly urgent warnings of Russian aggression against NATO countries in Europe, European governments (including the UK’s) are still reacting to what Russia does, without considering the longer-term ends Europe wants to achieve, or the ways and means available to pursue them. Europe cannot rely on the US to solve the problem that Russia poses for European security, so it needs its own strategy. The paper proposes that Europe's first goal should be to promote change in Russia, rather than believing the Russian narrative that everything other than Putin will be worse. A second goal should be to increase the cost to Russia of confronting the West, and to prevent Russia from benefitting from expansionist policies. And the third goal should be to constrain Russia’s power and influence in Europe and beyond by working to fill any power vacuums and reduce the opportunities for Russia to widen fissures in our own societies.