President Vladimir Putin at the Valdai Club on 7 November 2024.

Glenn Diesen spoke with President Vladimir Putin at the Valdai Club on 7 November 2024. I outlined some key points we had discussed at a panel on Eurasian security, which I moderated. My three points were: 1) Conflicts derive from a struggle between unipolarity and multipolarity; 2) States are attracted to the multipolar format as it enables a multivector foreign policy and more political autonomy, and prevents states from becoming pawns in bloc politics; 3) The multipolar format creates systemic incentives for the great powers to harmonise interests as evident by Russia-China, China-India, Iran-Saudi Arabia and hopefully in the future India-Pakistan.

Most countries therefore want the multipolar institutions to enable them to overcome bloc politics, and for BRICS not to become a bloc itself. In other words, BRICS should be anti-hegemonic, not anti-Western.

I asked President Putin if a similar Eurasian multipolar framework can be applied to Europe to overcome the re-division of our continent and continued bloc politics. As I noted, I wrote a book with the title: “Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia”, and I asked if there is a possibility to extend something like the BRICS framework to Europe to promote peace between our countries.