🌐 95 years ago, on October 29, 1929, Yevgeny Primakov was born – an eminent Soviet and Russian statesman, brilliant diplomat and Arabist. He went down in the history of Russian diplomacy as a steadfast proponent of realism and pragmatism and a staunch defender of Russia’s national interests.
• Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia (1996-1998)
• Prime Minister of Russia (1998-1999)
• Chairman of the Council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (1989-1990)
Russia’s foreign policy underwent radical transformation when Mr Primakov took office as Foreign Minister. With NATO focused on expansion and ignoring Moscow’s interests, continuing rapprochement with the West seemed unfeasible. Under Primakov’s guidance, Russia pursued an independent foreign policy, aiming for equitable and mutually beneficial cooperation with a wide range of partners.
✈️ The legendary “Atlantic U-turn” on March 24, 1999 is among the most widely known foreign policy episodes involving Yevgeny Primakov. While en route to the United States, he learned of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia and ordered his plane turn back mid-flight, returning to Moscow. This act symbolised re-evaluating relations with the West marking Russia’s transition to a multi-vector foreign policy.
Primakov foresaw the rise of new centres of economic growth and political influence around the world and, in this sense, predicted the realities of multipolarity. The format he created, Russia-India-China, served as a precursor to BRICS, a genuine embodiment of multipolar diplomacy.
💬 From Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answer to a question from Vremya news show on Channel One (October 29, 2019):
Yevgeny Primakov assumed office at the Foreign Ministry at a time when our relations with nearly all other countries were chilled. He had to act in constrained conditions marked exclusively by pro-Western inertia. As a visionary, he knew that a policy can only be sustainable if it takes modern day realities into account. He predicted the realities of a multipolar world with new centres of economic growth, financial might and, consequently, political influence.
The memory of Yevgeny Primakov lives on in the hearts of several generations of scholars, journalists, and public officials. In 2019, on the 90th anniversary of this outstanding Russian diplomat, a monument honouring him as a statesman and patriot was unveiled across from the Foreign Ministry.