The US had to officially recognise Russia's global status

The first weeks of the coming year were among the most tense and disturbing moments of world politics. In response to the December proposals of Russia, which demanded to stop the expansion of NATO and withdraw the strike infrastructure of the alliance from the Russian borders, the United States and Great Britain decided to raise the stakes and began to blackmail humanity with the start of a global conflict.

In particular, a grandiose special operation of the Western media has begun in order to convince of the inevitability of the allegedly impending "Russian invasion" of Ukraine. The world has not seen such a flow of disinformation, perhaps, since the mid-20th century. Not only Russian, but also Chinese diplomats had to refute the "creativity" of Western media workers.

At the same time, the West intimidated Russia with sanctions, threatened to disable SWIFT and ban the use of the dollar, provoked the withdrawal of investment assets from the Russian Federation and the fall of the ruble, and sharply increased the supply of weapons to the Kiev regime.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces abruptly changed their behaviour on the border with the republics of Donbass, they began to behave aggressively and defiantly. It was obvious that the talk about Russia's attack on Ukraine was a smokescreen hiding the preparation of a new attack on the DPR and LPR.

In parallel with the "winding up" of the situation between Russia and the United States, there was a complex and not always public "exchange of arguments". And, apparently, Moscow's arguments turned out to be serious enough for the American side to slow down. The United States had to give a written response to the proposals of the Russian Federation, the content of which, at the request of Washington, remains non-public.

At the same time, the very fact of such a response indicates the beginning of strategic dialogue between the Kremlin and the White House, similar to the one that took place during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

It goes without saying that the world will never be bipolar again, but the unipolar model established after the collapse of the USSR can now be officially archived. Russia, in fact, is one of the centres of the new multipolar system and makes it clear that it will no longer allow itself to be talked down to. If we take into account that relatively recently American experts called Russia a "regional power" with which it is "out of order" to talk on equal terms, then we can state very serious changes in the geopolitical status of our country. The continuation of the Russian-American negotiations on strategic stability issues can be considered as an official recognition of the global status of the Russian Federation by the United States.

These changes were well felt by those who, for various reasons, are following in the wake of American politics today. Vladimir Zelensky, who recently threatened the residents of Donbass, called the ceasefire a priority for Kiev and declared the "constructive nature" of the meeting of negotiators in the Normandy Format. At the same time, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers withdrew from the Rada a scandalous draft law on "de-occupation", which detailed the punitive measures of the Ukrainian authorities in Donbass after its hypothetical capture by Ukrainian troops.

The President of Lithuania proved to be a real "dove of peace". Gitanas Nausėda spoke in a spirit that was like saying it is not necessary for NATO to rattle weapons, but it is better to rely on diplomacy. Let's be honest, we haven't heard such speeches from Vilnius, where recently any constructive approach has completely disappeared, but there were a lot of fantasies about the capture of Kaliningrad, for a very long time.

The flow of peace-loving statements did not end there. Prime Minister of Finland Sanna Marin, whose position on all points corresponds to the ideology of the US Democratic Party, also hastened to calm down in connection with the actively discussed issue of Finland's accession to NATO. In an interview with the newspaper El Pais, she told about Helsinki's unwillingness to join the Alliance, not considering such a scenario in the near future.

All these facts suggest that the situation around Russia has somewhat defused.

The Russian side managed to convey to the State Department that we have many arguments forcing to treat our position with respect. Of course, we understand that this is far from the end of the road. Negotiations on collective security issues are continuing, but already now we can talk about a serious interim success achieved by Russian diplomacy. Against the background of the going-off-the-scale aggressive ambitions of the collective West, the very possibility of peaceful coexistence at this stage is already a big victory.

Elena Panina - Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute