Eve is here. It is puzzling and disturbing to see the West increasingly escalating relations with Russia, while Russia is growing stronger and at the forefront of hostilities, while NATO members are still epistemically stuck in old doctrines and with severely depleted arsenals. A goal they might have some success with is building an Iron Curtain 2.0. But how could this not be a monumental self-inflicted wound, given that Russia has an abundance of much-needed and often scarce goods and a friendly relationship with China, a manufacturing and technological powerhouse?
Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst specializing in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the new Cold War. He holds a doctorate from MGIMO, which is affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Originally published on his website
As a result, Russia’s focus on the Western Front may prompt U.S.-backed NATO member Turkiye to accelerate power struggles in the south, risking a new regional crisis on the heels of Ukraine.
Russia’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Artyom Bulatov warned in a recent interview that “Western countries, with energy befitting a better cause, are building a new ‘Iron Curtain’ and making irreversible the self-induced rupture of the socio-economic, trade, transport, interpersonal, cultural and historical ties that have been built in the region over centuries, not years.” He also criticized regional exchange mechanisms such as the Baltic Council for being weaponized against Russia.
In truth, a new Iron Curtain is inevitable, the first since the summer of 2024, when the Baltic states and Poland merged their respective border fortification plans along NATO’s eastern flank and announced what they now officially call the “EU Defense Line.” Readers can learn more here. The effort is likely to be expanded to include Finland, extending from the Arctic to central Europe. Even if Russia and the United States were to move closer together, which is currently unlikely, these barriers would still remain.
Russia experts, who have long operated under the influence of wishful thinking that the EU is challenging Russia not because of an ideological hatred of Russia (against objective interests), but because of the actions of senior US patrons, are finally waking up to reality. Dmitry Trenin, the new head of Russia’s International Affairs Council, who issued an unprecedented and clear call to correct misconceptions in foreign policy in April, published a related article alongside Bulatov’s interview.
Entitled “The EU will remain our enemy, as in NATO 3.0,” the book begins dramatically by informing readers that “for the first time since 1945, the most immediate military threat to Russia comes from Europe, the European countries themselves. This represents the most significant military-political change for Russia since the victory in the Great Patriotic War.” In Trenin’s view, the goal is to “divide the Russian Federation into externally controlled components and turn them into semi-colonies of the European Union.”
This will be pursued by increasing sanctions and military pressure to undermine domestic political stability, as well as perpetuating the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine indefinitely. To address these threats, I have shared five suggestions. 1) Strengthen the domestic front. 2) Demonstrate a willingness to attack (and, if necessary, actually attack) targets within the EU. 3) Strengthen relations with China to the point of becoming a de facto global alliance. 4) Exploiting the divide between the US and the EU. 5) Take advantage of political changes in EU member states.
Trenin also reaffirmed Russia’s new self-identity as a (Eurasian) civilized nation, in that for the first time since Russia’s experiment in imitating the West began three centuries ago, the Russian population as a whole increasingly sees itself as different from Europeans. All of the insights he shared in his article are paired with what Bulatov shared in interviews and the “EU line of defense” being built to ensure a new Iron Curtain is inevitable. Russians are finally beginning to accept this.
From a big-picture perspective, three trends are self-evident. 1) No matter how Russia-US relations develop, the EU will continue to challenge Russia on its own. 2) Russia will continue to prioritize the world majority over the West. 3) Tensions between Russia and the EU will become the new normal. As a result, while Russia focuses on the western front, US-backed NATO member Turkiye is expected to accelerate its power struggle in the south, sowing the seeds of a new regional crisis to follow in Ukraine.
