LAUSR

Abstract The aim of the essay is to explain the mixed record of Russian–European interaction in the Balkans and the Black Sea region from the mid-1990s onwards. The essay attempts to modify Iver Neumann’s work on Russia and the idea of Europe in two main ways. First, instead of Neumann’s longue durée approach, the essay focuses on one generation of Russian policymakers to understand the role that the idea of Europe occupies in the mindset of the contemporary Russian elite. Instead of Neumann’s ‘True/False Europe’ dichotomy, the essay does furthermore offer a denser web of Russian Selves and European Others, in order to explain with greater precision the mixed record of Russian–European security interaction.