YEREVAN (Armenpress)–"After Vladimir Putin and his administration have taken the authority–Russian foreign policy approaches have changed greatly," Executive Director of Eurasian Media Group Alan Kasayev said at the meeting of the association of cultural relations with foreign countries on May 14.
Kasayev said that relations with neighbor countries–big countries–and including countries called "strategic partners," are being reviewed from the point of view of economic pragmatism. Thus–the relations are being built taking into account the calculations of specific profits of cooperation with a certain country. Kasayev thinks that this is the result of close Russian-American relations and increase in trade turnover between Russia and Germany.
He said that Moscow today pursues the same strategy in relations with Caucasus countries. Kasayev thinks that the present Russian-Georgian crisis–often ascribed to the disputes about Russian troops in Georgia–Russian peace-making forces in Abkhazia–as well as the problems of visa regime–is the result of global economic events–that come from the Russian pragmatic foreign policy. It has also resulted in "monotonous" relations with Armenia–as there are hardly any global economic profits in bilateral relations.
Kasayev said that Russia does not intend to spend money in any region to realize its political interests or to provide strategic stability. "Moscow is likely to announce the list of the countries in which it takes economic or political interest soon. Armenia and Georgia are supposed to be among the countries that interest politically–while Azerbaijan is likely to be included in the second group," Kasayev said.