Elena Ponomareva
One might be tempted to regard Russian premier V. Putin's paper “A new integration project for Eurasia: The future in the making”, which saw the light of day in Izvestia
on October 3, 2011, as the presidential front-runner's sketchily laid
out program, but upon scrutiny that appears to be only one part of a
wider picture. The opinion piece momentarily ignited wide-scale
controversy in and outside of Russia and highlighted the ongoing clash
of positions on global development…
Regardless of interpretation details, the reaction of the Western media
to the integration project unveiled by the Russian premier was
uniformly negative and reflected with utmost clarity an a priori
hostility towards Russia and any initiatives it floats. Mao Zedong,
though, used to say that facing pressure from your enemies is better
than being in such a condition that they do not bother to keep you under
pressure.
