NO REST FOR RUSSIA’S DIPLOMATS

The past fortnight was a frenetic one for Russia’s foreign and security policy elites, as the Kremlin unveiled a new Foreign Policy Concept and Russian President Vladimir Putin embarked on high-profile visits to China and North Korea. The visits were the culmination of a roughly one-month block of time in which Moscow has focused its attention on relations with Russia’s Asian neighbors. Putin’s Asian tour is to be capped by the July 21-23 summit of Group of Seven countries (G-7) and Russia which is to take place in Okinawa, Japan. Back in the Russian capital, meanwhile, the Kremlin also found itself in the middle of a brawl between Russia’s top two military commanders. The unseemly row reflected long-simmering tensions between Russia’s strategic missile troops and the country’s long-suffering and underfunded conventional forces.