The Kremlin last week updated its 2016 foreign policy doctrine and made several noticeable changes, including identifying the U.S. as its main threat while stating that it is on a “unique historical mission.” 

The U.S., which has been providing Ukraine with some $120 billion of weapons and funding to fight Russia, was identified in the 42-page report as “the main instigator, organizer and executor of the aggressive anti-Russian policy of the collective West.”

The document was published on the Kremlin’s website and was called by DW.com as a de facto handbook for Russian diplomats. Washington is “the source of the main risks to Russia’s security, international peace and a balanced, just and sustainable development of mankind,” the document read. 

It is the Kremlin’s hope to “give priority to the elimination of vestiges of the dominance of the United States and other unfriendly countries in world politics.”

TRENDPOST: The doctrine identifies Russia as a “state-civilization” given the Herculean task of defending the “Russian world” and “traditional spiritual and moral values” against “pseudo-humanistic and other neo-liberal ideological attitudes,” DW reported. 

The Trends Journal has long forecast that the Ukraine War would have long ended had the United States, NATO and its allies had not supplied Kyiv with weapons, money and military advisors. And since the war began last February, we have continually noted that the United States and NATO have proclaimed that Ukraine would keep fighting and not discuss peace with Russia until they achieved their military goals. And that the longer the war rages the greater the tensions would increase between Russia and the United States.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, confirmed our position on Friday when he said the war ushered in “revolutionary changes” in world affairs. He said it is important that those changes are reflected in Russia’s official foreign policy document. (See “LAVROV CALLS OUT BULLSHIT BLINKEN’S HYPOCRISY” 7 Mar 2023, “LAVROV CONFIRMS TREND WE LONG NOTED: U.S. IS AT WAR WITH RUSSIA” 6 Dec 2022, and “PROPAGANDA MEDIA TWISTS MEDVEDEV’S NUKE COMMENT TO STOKE FEAR, ANTI-RUSSIAN HATRED” 24 Jan 2023.)

“The existential nature of threats to the security and development of our country, created by the actions of unfriendly states, is recognized. As the main initiator and conductor of the anti-Russian line the United States of America are directly named, as well as the overall policy of the West, aimed at the across-the-board weakening of Russia, which is a hybrid war of a new type,” he said.

Euractiv.com reported that the document informs European countries that there is “no alternative to peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial equal cooperation with Russia.”

Russia, meanwhile, identified India and China as strategic partners and believes that firming up these ties will increase its own standing on the global stage. 

Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Financial Times that Putin is similar to Joseph Stalin in that he sees the world as “divided into the spheres of influence, into which the great powers compete to gain more allies.”

“The more allies you have, the greater power you are,” Kolesnikov said. 

The document said Russia aims to enhance the capacity and international roles of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which we note in this issue will include Saudi Arabia as a member.