What is Russia’s official and unofficial stance on relationship with EU, US, China, India, Brazil?

Russia still thinks in Cold War terms. They do not believe in the global village and tend to have zero-sum thinking (a win for you is a loss for me). Russia is still dealing with the loss of empire and super power status. In reality, Russia is not a real player in the G20. An example of this is the summit where bi-lateral talks with Obama counted more for them than the G-20 talks. Their policy seems reactive; they have an idea of what they don’t like but no real solutions or proposals on how to improve policies. There is a lot of posturing involved in their foreign policy, talk big but cannot deliver. Contrast to China who talks modestly about being a global leader. They do not want to press this point because as a global leader they would need to take responsibility on some key issue such as pollution and environment.

Putin has developed closer ties with China but this is more a capitulation than real cooperation. Russia is the biggest provider of military hardware to china. Putin has allowed Chinese war games to take place on Russian territory of Chelyabinsk. China has taken on a bigger role in Central Asia and is slowly pushing Russia out of the game in this region. Central asian countries are developing oil and gas lines to china.

For the first time since Kruschev, Russia has given back large parts of its territory to other countries. In 2004, China has taken control of the Big Ussuriyskiy Island and Tarabarova. The total are of these 2 is 340 square kilometres. On the Big Ussuriyskiy Island, there is a development of a city capable of supporting a population of 2.5 million people.

China presents a real threat to Russia. In 2006 China conducted major infantry war games in the Peking and Shenyang regions. This seems to be aimed at Russia. Russian scenarios for defence seem to be aimed primarily at deferring attacks from US and Japan, there seems to be nothing that would prepare Russia from an attack from China.

There is little concern for Russia about the foreign relations with india and BRazil.