A Cold Peace? West-Russia Relations in Light of the Ukraine Crisis

The seventh edition of the Transatlantic Security Symposium took place on 20 October 2014 in Rome. The conference focused on "A Cold Peace? Western-Russian Relations in Light of the Ukraine Crisis" and was organized in cooperation with the Center on the US and Europe (CUSE) at the Brookings Institution of Washington.

As West-Russia relations have dramatically deteriorated following the Ukraine crisis, the Symposium provided experts and officials with a platform to discuss ways by which Russia and the West can contain tensions, manage competition, and keep cooperating on issues of mutual concern.

Forty senior experts from think tanks and other institutions from a number of EU member states (France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Poland and Bulgaria), the US, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey and Russia took part.

The debate was well-informed, lively and frank. Participants exchanged their ideas about four main topics, namely the nature of Russia's leadership, the West-Russia competition in Eastern Europe, NATO's role and Russia's worldviews and position in the wider international context.