A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR!
I am pleased to introduce the new British business magazine Russian Focus which will debut in June this year circulating to a general business audience. The 100+ page magazine will further the aims of the 5-year old Westminster Russia Forum (WRF) which has become the most dynamic promoter of greater political, commercial and cultural understanding between the UK and Russia.
I am proud to be the WRF’s partner in this publishing project, as a former correspondent with The Sunday Times, BBC and Financial Times in emerging markets my coverage of Russia dates from 1969 when from the corner office of the charge d’affaires in the UK embassy in Tripoli I watched with David Gore-Booth, the first shipment of Soviet armour to Gaddafi’s Libya unloading onto the quayside. More recently I have over 20 years’ experience of working with Russia. During my years in Russia I was the UK representative on the Board of National Representatives of the Association of European Businesses in Russia and was a visiting lecturer on international business at the Moscow Humanities University. I visit Russia regularly while maintaining a special interest in the emerging markets of APEC and ASEAN. My wide network of British and American businessmen in Moscow and St Petersburg remain remarkably untouched by the new Cold War drumbeats and are concentrating on their businesses.
Despite the crescendo of Cold War style rhetoric and the unprecedented low in official UK-Russian relations I am optimistic that a reflex is mounting as ever more Britons, especially businessmen are seeking to find out for themselves what the facts are.
With Brexit, the UK will no longer be automatically part of the EU sanctions regime against Russia and over the next two years the magazine will wage a campaign to expose the historical inaccuracies of the EU accusations against Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea on which the sanctions were based.
We welcome the independent view promulgated by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Russia chaired by Sir Edward Leigh, MP and ably assisted by the Deputy Chairman Daniel Kawczynski MP, who is also a member of the influential Foreign Affairs Select Committee. As NATO troops and equipment pour into Poland and the Baltic states we support the call by Jeremy Corbyn, MP, leader of the Labour Party to demilitarize the NATO borders with Russia.
We will be printing 15,000 copies of the full-colour edition and distributing it free of charge to targeted points to ensure we reach the corporate decision makers whose companies stand to benefit from an end to sanctions and will also be delivering individual copies to all Members of Parliament, and members of the House of Lords.
There will also be a state-of-the-art digital version available on the WRF web site making the magazine available to an international audience.
In each issue of the magazine we will include a special section on a Russian Region. In the launch issue this will focus on Primorsky Krai and Vladivostok, home port of the Russian Pacific Fleet, terminus of the Trans Siberian Railroad, home to the Far East Federal University and the host of the Eastern Economic Forum which this year will be attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe along with some 3,000 international delegates.
JOHN BONAR – EDITOR – RUSSIA FOCUS
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