Valdai: Russia and the West Köppel reports and reflects

Sep 28–Oct 1

Reporting near Moscow at the Valdai annual meeting, Roger Köppel recounts the club's founding by academics close to Putin and interprets its Western invitations as an effort at rapprochement. He says the meeting will close that Thursday with a Putin address, still prospective in this report. He describes an identity crisis and resentment among some Russian interlocutors and unnamed Valdai founders, attributing their criticism of Western treatment and NATO expansion rather than presenting it as a consensus. Recalling his extensive conversation with Anatol Lieven the previous day, he urges rational discussion, warns of heightened world-war risk while explicitly denying certainty, and advocates a European security architecture including Russia. He values the Wadephul–Lavrov encounter despite criticizing its tone. He says he and Lieven concluded that Putin had also checked himself with the war, contrary to his own earlier assessments, and portrays Ukraine, Russia and Europe as losers and Americans as beneficiaries. In a later return prompted by an Iraq-withdrawal headline, he discusses Lieven and the Quincy Institute's opposition to interventionism, criticizes Western democracy-export campaigns and also faults Russia's hegemonic conduct near its borders. He returns to the New York meeting and urges renewed German–Russian communication. These remain attributed observations and judgments, with no diplomatic agreement or completed Putin address reported.

Vremya's September 30 account describes 120 participants from forty countries examining rapid global change. Research director Fyodor Lukyanov says this year's forum focuses on understanding the present rather than predicting a future order. Reporting near Moscow on October 1, Köppel anticipates the meeting's Thursday conclusion and Putin's closing address, which has not yet occurred in his account. He describes resentment and identity tensions among some Russian interlocutors and Valdai founders over the failure of earlier Western outreach. These are the director's explanation and Köppel's attributed observations, not a conference consensus or geopolitical agreement.