… in Europa, secondo George Friedman:

[…] The changes in Europe’s leadership and focus come amid Russia’s adjustments to other new dynamics in Europe. Before the Continent’s financial and political crises, Russia had forged a new strategy for foreign policy regarding Europe in which strategic European partners — especially Germany, France and Italy — would invest heavily in Russia’s economy and financial sector. With Europe nearly broke, however, this strategy has been cut back and could be abandoned altogether. Russia is proceeding with European partners on some projects, but Moscow must financially step up more than it anticipated for these projects to succeed. It is an expensive foreign policy choice.

Russia’s main goal regarding Europe is to keep European powers divided while extracting what Moscow wants financially and technologically. The days have passed when Putin could call a friend in Europe to help with NATO or with technological deficiencies. Russia has to design a new strategy to deal with a very different Europe and adhere to its deeper imperatives rather than rely on personal and political relationships, which are fleeting compared to the forces of geopolitics.