The Third Shore
For decades the West was Russia’s first shore, and China became the second. The third was assembled by a man who spent ten years in the Gulf looking for money and ended up holding something more useful — a telephone book.
A Ministry With No Sign on the Door
Russia has a foreign minister with half a century of service behind him, a Security Council and embassies almost everywhere. For its most sensitive conversation with Washington in years, Vladimir Putin needed one more man — and one more chair.
A Language That Needs No Interpreters
Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy is heard in Washington in a way career diplomats are not. The reason is not his English. It is that he learned the language of the deal inside America’s own consulting firms and investment banks.
A Man Without Rudeness: Who Could Replace Lavrov at the Negotiating Table
Moscow is quietly assembling a new team for talks with the West — and Sergei Lavrov is not on it. The key role is being prepared for an energy minister almost unknown abroad: a former naval officer who once walked out to a crowd ready to tear him apart.
Seventy-Six Hours: How a British Scorpio Saved Russian Submariners
August 2005, off Kamchatka: for the first time in history the navy of a NATO country saved the crew of a Russian Navy vehicle — at Moscow’s first call, in a restricted area, with seven lives on the clock.
A Treaty on Two Pages: How Moscow and Washington Cut Their Arsenals in 2002
Five short articles instead of five hundred pages: the Moscow Treaty of 2002 cut the two largest nuclear arsenals of the planet by roughly two-thirds — and fit on two pages.
At the Head of the Table: The Year Russia Chaired the G8
In 2006, Russia for the first time — and, as it turned out, the only time — assumed the presidency of the G8, the club of the world’s leading industrial democracies. The culmination of the year was the July summit of leaders in Strelna outside St Petersburg: a country that fifteen years earlier had stood on the other side of the world’s great divide was setting the agenda for the most prestigious forum on the planet.
A Ticket to World Trade: How Russia Paid for Its Seat at the WTO
Nineteen years of talks and packages of concessions to the EU and the United States: Russia deliberately paid for its place in the world trading system — and joined the WTO in 2012.
Everything but Institutions: The Four Common Spaces of Russia and Europe
In 2003, Russia and the EU agreed on four common spaces — integration without membership. Prodi’s formula: everything but institutions.
A Weekend at Camp David: The Tieless Diplomacy of 2003
Six months after their quarrel over Iraq, Bush hosted Putin at his private retreat. That said more about the relationship than any communiqué.
Paying the Soviet Union’s Bills: How Russia Cleared Its Paris Club Debt
In 2006, Russia repaid $23 billion of Soviet-era debt to the Paris Club ahead of schedule — deliberately overpaying for its reputation.
