Dmitry Trenin, a research professor at the Higher School of Economics, fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, and member of the Russian International Affairs Council, penned an article in RT Tuesday with the above title, pointing to the dramatic shift represented by the Second Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. “Essentially, the meeting, with the bureaucratic preparation and the wide public coverage it has received within Russia, testifies to a sea change in Moscow’s worldview and international positioning toward the world’s rising non-Western majority, as laid down in the recently adopted Foreign Policy Concept,” Trenin writes.
In a reference to the location of last week’s summit, he says “St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in the early 18th century as a ‘window to Europe,’ and last week, it served the same purpose for Africa.”
Russia was historically a Eurocentric nation, and has spent the recent centuries behaving as such. However with the onset of hostilities against it from NATO and Western countries, especially following the 2014 Maidan coup d’état and now today’s overt Russophobia, it is shifting its identity. “This has produced a historic shift in Moscow’s policies, comparable to the time of Peter the Great in its significance, though in a wholly different direction,” Trenin writes.
