How can we help the Economist lose interest in the Kortunovs?
On May 20, the clever the Economist, led by the charismatic and expert Zenny Minton Beddow, who was the guest speaker of the Ukrainian Davos Breakfast Discussion on May 25, posted a column by Russian Andriy Kortunov on three scenarios for ending the war in Ukraine.
Two options (either the military defeat of Moscow and the end of the war, or the continuation of the war and the lack of agreements "on Ukraine") are hopeless, writes Kortunov.
According to the Russian analyst, the working option is an "imperfect but mutually acceptable settlement" that will delay the final clash between the Russian and Ukrainian "models". In the event of a "settlement", Kortunov openly warns, competition between Ukraine and Russia will continue "in a less brutal manner."
However, this is not very scary, he says, because a bonus to the imperfect understanding between the West and Russia in Ukraine is a fundamental compromise between the West and China. Establishing a new, more stable global order will make "Ukraine's victims not in vain," the Russian columnist said.
[BANNER1]Those who followed the World Economic Forum in Davos last week heard something close to these Russian theses from some of the speakers, supplemented by threats of global hunger, logistics crisis and economic recession if Kyiv does not make a "nonviolent transition from war to peace" today.
However, back to Andrei Kortunov. It is important to understand who is this person who is concerned about the meaning of Ukraine's sacrifice in the war with Russia and whose opinion is probably important to the authoritative the Economist?
Kortunov is the director of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Russian NGO that, along with colleagues from the Valdai Discussion Club and the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, has long and confidently shaped Russia's modern imperialist narrative and created communication networks and platforms for promoting and laundering Russia's agenda among Western intellectuals and policymakers. Those who are interested can simply visit the sites of these NGOs via VPN.
The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Council International Affairs is the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov (under the sanctions of the EU, Great Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, and Japan). Another bright trustee is Konstantin Kosachev, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation (under the sanctions of the EU, Great Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, and New Zealand). Recently, Kosachev has gained popularity as a provider of the topic of "US bio laboratories in Ukraine". There is Mikhail Margelov (under the sanctions of Ukraine and New Zealand), another guardian of the Russian Council, and executive vice president of SISTEMA, controlled by Russian military oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov (under the sanctions of Great Britain and Australia). Two other Russian sanctioned activists are worried about the fate of the Russian Council. There are Putin's aide Andrei Fursenko (under the sanctions of Great Britain, USA, Canada, and Australia) and Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and president of the once-good Higher School of Economics (under the sanctions of Great Britain, Canada, Switzerland, Australia). The Presidium of the Russian Council on Foreign Affairs includes such odious personalities as Dmitry Peskov (Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, under the sanctions of the EU, Great Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand), Piotr Aven (member of the Consortium Supervisory Board "Alfa Group", Chairman of the Board of Directors of ABH Holdings S.A., under the sanctions of the EU, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Australia). The corporate members of the Russian Council for International Affairs are the sanctioned Alfa Group, LUKOIL, and Severstal.
On May 15 (when Kortunov's column was probably already in the editorial order of the journal), the Russian Council led by him held an "assembly." At this meeting, Minister Lavrov (the main trustee of this structure) clarified the purpose of Russia's war with Ukraine. The Minister stressed that in Ukraine Russia is at war with the Western world, especially the United States: "This is not about Ukraine. It is an instrument for deterring the peaceful development of the Russian Federation. Today Westerners are ready to oppose Russia, as it is now customary to say, "to the last Ukrainian"
The Russian Council, headed by Kortunov, is one of the beneficiaries of the EU-Russia Expert Network (EUREN), established in 2016. EUREN is part of the Public Diplomacy project, funded by the European Union in cooperation with the the Russian Council of International Affairs. EUREN brings together representatives of truly high-quality Western universities and thinks tanks. Through the efforts of the EUREN expert network, public reports were created that tolerated Europeans' attitudes toward Russia's vision of global and European security ("building a just world order"), which normalized the neglect of Ukraine's interests and statehood for "major" security goals. Thus, at first glance, the ironic and futuristic EUREN report, released publicly in 2020, allowed the creation of another "free republic" in 2028 in the separatist-occupied Kharkiv. The Kremlin recognizes the Kharkiv Republic, the EU will not particularly fight this step of the Russians, the authors of the Russian-European report predicted. Among the co-authors of the document are representatives of the Institute of International Affairs (Italy), Control Risks (UK), Center for European Policy Studies (Belgium), Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Consent (Poland), Leiden University (Netherlands), Sorbonne University (France), German Institute of International Affairs and Security Affairs (Germany), Center for International Studies (France), Clingendael Institute (Norway), Institute of International Relations (Czech Republic), Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Innsbruck University (Austria), Finnish Institute of International Relations, German Council for International Relations, the Institute for Security Studies of the European Union, the European Center of Excellence for Combating Hybrid Threats (Finland). Andriy Kortunov, director of the Russian Council and a columnist for the Economist, has repeatedly stressed that the creation of such a network is its "most valuable asset" and without its work, the current activities of the Russian Council would be impossible… We would like to add that the activities of the Russian Council to launder the modern imperial agenda of the Russian Federation in the West would not be possible …
We understand that there are certain patterns, business relationships, and ideas about the quality of expertise, which were formed and capitalized by the Russians over the years. However, the moment in which we live is a great time to think about our stereotypes, values or even the admissibility of a particular communication.
[BANNER2]We assume that everything written about the director of the Russian council and the institution he represents for many years was known to highly professional editors of the Economist, which nevertheless decided to publish Kortunov's column. In this context, there are open questions:
What can we, Ukrainians and our partners, do to make non-Ukrainian colleagues (representatives of the "creative class") think about establishing certain "red lines" in cooperation with those who are intellectually responsible for Putinism? How to counter the use of media and academic freedom for the intellectual tolerance of figures who, over the past twenty years, have formed and disseminated neatly packaged Russian narratives that ignored international law. This activity of Russian intellectuals not least led to the current Russian-Ukrainian war and the almost destruction of the existing international legal system. Andrei Kortunov is certainly a prominent, but not the only, figure in this field of "scientists" whose intellectual achievements deserve not a column in the world's leading business publication, but real and harsh sanctions for active participation in shaping the concept of misanthropic Russian imperialism
What modern intellectuals can do to make the world's leading media (such as the Economist) a leader in moderating a broad debate on finding and formulating terminology, scientific vocabulary and optics that describe and captures the causes and essence of the Russian phenomenon of hatred of peoples, modus vivendi of post-Soviet Russia? Nazism is a hierarchy of people with the right to live according to nationality. Today's Russia is a denial of everyone's right to live.
Galina Zelenko, Natalia Kononenko,
Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
