It’s clear that Eurasia is the natural space for Russia to exist and it is in Moscow’s interests "to have a pacified, harmonious and collaborative set of relations" in the continent, Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels, told Sputnik.
Developing a new security architecture in Eurasia should become the main priority for Europeans, Raffone said, expressing regret that European leaders are "so mean and insignificant intellectually and in terms of power, that they are paralyzed by their self-fulfilling narratives."
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s "words and peace proposals are undoubtedly a kind gesture that Europeans should grasp to abandon the zealous standing and try to regain a ‘space’ in world affairs," the analyst stressed.
He recalled that Putin’s security vision on Eurasia was outlined in the Russian president’s speech at the Munich conference in 2007.
"Today, seventeen years later, those thoughts resound not as a prophecy but as an urgent need to deal with reality," according to Raffone.
"On the table remain a broken military alliance (NATO), the clear political defeat of European bellicose governments and political parties, and, more importantly, the absence of vision and a new security architecture for Europe and Eurasia," the CIPI Foundation director said.
Russia believes that this "dangerous situation" should be urgently resolved given "the reality of an irreversible multi-nodal and multi-centric world that requires harmonization in bilateral and collective actions," Raffone concluded.
He spoke after Putin underscored the need to start an extensive discussion on a new system of bilateral and multilateral collective security guarantees in Eurasia, a proposal that he made in a speech at Friday’s meeting with senior officials of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The Russian president stressed that his proposal pertains to the formation of a framework for equal and indivisible security pertaining to Eurasia.
Putin underlined the need to promote the idea of a Eurasian security system by intensifying dialogue within the Union State, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).