Russian Foreign Policy - Interests Vectors And Economic Impact

In recent decades, Russia's foreign policy was shaped by both a number of internal factors (government strategy, political elites, culture, economics and demography) and external ones (international treaties, changes in the structure of the international power balance). In the post-soviet era Russian foreign policy was radically different from that of other major economic powers. One of the factors that influenced decisively Russia’s external strategies was the collapse of the USSR as a superpower (phenomenon described by the president Vladimir Putin as "the most powerful geo-political catastrophe of the XXst century"). The shift from the former communist regime (a totalitarian one) to an authoritarian oligarchy (the current regime) was followed by the transition to a market economy, a phenomenon that coincided with Russia’s military and political diminished influence in the international arena. Our research aims to assess the main interest vectors that shaped Russian Foreign Policy considering the main events that constitute milestones: Russia’s emerging as a great energy power, the Crimean crisis and Western international economic sanctions that followed. Our paper will base the main assumption on a joint analysis both qualitative and quantitative, using main international economic indicators (GDP, FDI flows, trade flows, general government balance and general gross debt) and the most relevant approaches in the literature in the field.