June 16th, the Ambassador of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Sivieng Phetvorasak attended a working meeting with MGIMO Rector Anatoly Torkunov. This year also marks ten years since the creation of the ASEAN Centre. S.Phetvorasak remarked that the Center has positively contributed to the development of the Russia-ASEAN strategic partnership and praised its different achievements. The guest expressed the desire to further expand cooperation with MGIMO in training exceptional international experts.
June 5th, a Moscow-Geneva online conference was held in honour of the International Day of the Russian Language. The meeting had for participants Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the UN Office in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, Permanent Representative of Russia at the UN Office in Geneva, Anatoly Torkunov, Chairman of the United Nations Association of Russia, Anatoly Karpov, Deputy of the State Duma and World Chess Champion, the Head of Rossotrudnichestvo, Eleanora Mitrofanova and the Deputy Minister for Culture Maxim Ksenzov.
June 4th, a joint meeting of the Supervisory and Academic Councils of the Swiss Academy of International Law, created by the Association of Lawyers of Russia in conjunction with leading Russian universities, unfolded online. Among those attending the meeting was the Rector of MGIMO, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Member of the Supervisory Board of the Swiss Academy of International Law Anatoly Torkunov.
June 4th, the Primakov Readings, a joint project of Interfax and IMEMO with the support of the Gorchakov Foundation, were held online. The event was devoted to discussing the topic: “China and the USA: is there a risk that the emerging bipolarity will turn into Cold War 2.0?” Among the speakers at the event were MGIMO Rector A.Torkunov, the Deputy Director for Research, Head of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies of IMEMO at the Russian Academy of Sciences A.Lomanov and the Scientific Director of the Institute for U.S and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences S.Rogov.
May 27th, the Interregional Conference of Russian and Uzbek Universities’ Rectors took place remotely. The goal of the online meeting was to assess the progress of bilateral educational and scientific projects and mull over new paths for interuniversity cooperation ahead of the Second Russian-Uzbek Educational Forum to be held in Moscow in autumn.
As you know, what the President of Russia announced as a non-working week has just set in and as of today Moscow has also drastically tightened measures relating to self-isolation and restricting movements around town. The specific details and technicalities of all these measures can be discussed at length, but they are instructive in one essential aspect: the situation is complicated, and the efforts to tackle it come across to many, especially from the younger generation, as absolutely unprecedented. For this reason, I will keep reminding you to be careful, cautious and prudent. Consider each thing you do these days keeping in mind the goal of curbing the risk of infection!
For many years, US geopolitical thinking focused primarily on the danger that would arise if an anti-US alliance, coalition of powers or single anti-US state were to gain dominance on the Eurasian continent. This idea has its roots in the writings of two pioneers of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman. They attached great strategic importance to the central part of the continent (the ‘Heartland’) that Russia had historically dominated and argued for the need to contain Russian influence. In their view, only military and political expansion by a major continental power could unify Eurasia. That would spell the defeat of the West and, effectively, world domination by that conquering power. According to Mackinder’s famous formula, ‘who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; and Who rules the World Island commands the World’.
A two-volume edition, edited by MGIMO Rector, Academician Anatoly Torkunov, Professors Boris Martynov and William Wohlforth (Dartmouth College, USA) was published by Cambridge Scholars, a British publisher. The authors are professors and associate professors of MGIMO’s Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia. The introductory chapter was written by Professor William Wohlforth, a leading researcher at MGIMO’s Institute for International Studies.
January 28th, a meeting of the MGIMO Supervisory and Board of Trustees was held at the University and chaired by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The main topic discussed during the meeting was MGIMO’s Development Strategy for 2020–2025. MGIMO Rector, A.Torkunov, gave a detailed report, outlining the main directions of the strategy and the characteristics of the new financial and economic model of the University, which will require significant investments in infrastructure and the creation of a specific IT architecture. The MGIMO Supervisory and Board of Trustees adopted MGIMO’s new Development Strategy for 2020–2025 and entrusted MGIMO’s Rector A.Torkunov with its implementation.
January 24th-25th, a MGIMO delegation led by its Rector A.Torkunov went to Baku to attend several important events. The Rector participated in the conference «Moscow-Baku: Dialogue of Cultures», organized by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and the news agency TASS. The Prime Minister of Azerbaijan A.Asadov received Anatoly Torkunov and other participants of the conference. On the evening of January 24th, the Rector attended an informal meeting devoted to the 70th anniversary of the First Deputy General Director of TASS M.Gusman. On Saturday, MGIMO Rector visited ADA University, where its Rector H.Pashaev took him on a tour of the new parts of the campus and university building.
