MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/. It is premature to discuss Europe’s possible role in shaping the architecture of Eurasian security as long as it remains the epicenter of the conflict with Russia, said President of the Russian International Affairs Council, Dmitry Trenin, during a roundtable discussion dedicated to the Eurasian Charter on Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century.

He noted that while in the early versions of the arguments regarding European security, the idea of freeing Eurasia from the influence of external forces such as the United States was quite clearly evident, now "the situation has unfolded in such a way that the main adversaries of Russia and Belarus have become the countries of Europe. The United States remains, but on the front line we are dealing with Europeans who view us as hostile states and who want to resolve not only the Russian problem but also to completely change the constitutional order of the power system in Belarus," Trenin observed.

"As for Europe, in my view, the conflict between Russia and the West has its main epicenters in Europe today. Therefore, our conflict with Europe will continue for a long time. However, we must bear in mind that wars cannot last forever either, so in our concept of Eurasian security, we must also define the parameters of future possible relations with Europe. But it will only be possible to consider its [countries] as potential participants in the Eurasian security architecture after a very long time, but the process itself is very important."

Thus, according to Trenin, the main goal of building a partnership system in Eurasia should be to maintain and expand the real security space in the region, and "drawing parallels with the European system is completely inappropriate."

The idea of developing a Eurasian Charter on Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st century was first voiced at the First International Conference on Eurasian Security, held in Minsk in October 2023. In June 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward an initiative to create a security architecture in Eurasia, which is intended to overcome existing security challenges and stabilize the military-political situation on the continent.