On Friday, 31 March Vladimir Putin signed into law the new Foreign Policy Concept which will guide Russian diplomacy in the years to come. It replaces the existing Concept promulgated eight years ago and sets out on 43 pages in logically organized form what we have been witnessing in Russia’s behavior on the world stage since the launch of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine and subsequent nearly complete rupture of relations with the US-led Collective West. There are few surprises in this document though there are some very important new directions taken over from the USSR which I will tweak out in a separate essay later today or tomorrow.

What I wish to call attention to here is how Russia’s new Foreign Policy Concept was greeted by the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell and by an unidentified spokesman for the United Kingdom’s…