Review of foreign policy results of the year

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published a detailed overview of foreign policy activities for 2021, highlighting key areas of work, including relations with the US, EU and ASEAN countries. An important result of work in the field of maintaining strategic stability was the extension for five years of the Russian-American Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (February). According to the agreement reached at the Geneva summit in June, the Russian-American dialogue on relevant issues has been resumed. In order to form legally binding security guarantees in the western direction, excluding further NATO advances to the East and the deployment of threatening weapons systems near the borders of Russia, in December the United States and NATO countries were handed over a draft agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees and a draft agreement on measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation and member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In the field of information security, the Russian-American UN General Assembly resolution “Advances in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security and encouraging responsible behavior of states in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT)” was developed and adopted by consensus. At the Russian initiative, an open-ended UN Working Group on security issues in the use of ICTs and ICTs themselves was created for 2021-2025. Bilateral cooperation in the field of information security also expanded: Russian-American consultations on this topic were launched, intergovernmental agreements were concluded with Indonesia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua and Uzbekistan, and the Russia-ASEAN dialogue was launched. The strengthening of international security was facilitated by the adoption, at Russia’s initiative, of a UN General Assembly resolution on not being the first to place weapons in space. The Russian draft resolution on measures to ensure transparency and confidence-building in space activities was approved. The number of countries participating in the Russian initiative to prevent an arms race in outer space has increased to 30 (in 2021, the Republic of Congo, Seychelles, Sierra Leone and Togo joined it). Russia played a key role in launching negotiations to restore the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to resolve the situation around the Iranian nuclear program in its original form, without additions or deletions.