№ 3 - 2000
Kolosov V.A., Turovsky R.F.
Russia’s Geoolitical Situation on the Treshold of the 21st Century: Realities and Prospects

The article by two specialists in geopolitics investigate geographical configuration of Russia’s nowadays external links and of her foreign politics in general. Political events usually numbered among signs that may be indicative of the state of a given country’s external politics, include visits abroad made by the country’s political leaders, and, vice versa, visits to the country made by foreign political figures. Addressing themselves to Russia’s external links, the authors, for that matter, deal with the period of 1995 to 1999. They take into account visits (both abroad and from abroad) made by presidents, prime ministers, vice-premiers, foreign ministers and defence ministers, i.e. figures constituting that part of the political establishment of any country all over the world, which determines its foreign policy. The authors calculate: the overall number of the geopolitically thus relevant visits; the balance of visits abroad and those from abroad — for each of Russia’s partner countries and for each region of the world; proportion in which they are numerically divided between geopolitical areas. These quantitative data, differentiations, dynamics are analyzed in the article as indices of changes in the country’s foreign policy orientations.