In an interview with VNA, Doctor of Political Science Valeria Vershinina - Deputy Director of the ASEAN Center of the Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Russia and Vietnam share deeply similar views on firmly protecting ASEAN's central role in the regional security structure, towards building a comprehensive and sustainable security system in Asia - Pacific.
The Russian side highly appreciated Vietnam's contribution to the development of the ASEAN Community and its active role in promoting Russia-ASEAN cooperation; committed to consistently supporting Vietnam's constructive initiatives to strengthen solidarity, internal unity and improve the association's flexible response capacity to contemporary geopolitical challenges.
A clear proof of this emphasis is the welcome message from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the 3rd ASEAN Future Forum held in Hanoi, affirming that this is a prestigious multilateral mechanism and meets the requirements for all parties to exchange and make in-depth assessments on a range of key regional development issues.
Looking back at the 35-year journey of establishing partnership between Russia and ASEAN (1991-2026), the Deputy Director of the ASEAN Center assessed that the core and most important achievement is continuous development, inheritance and solid progress. Even in the context of increasing challenges in foreign policy and global competition, Russia and ASEAN are both strongly interested in maintaining dialogue.
The valuable lesson learned is that the two sides deeply understand the practical needs and complementarity of each other, opening up broad visions and a completely new development space for the bilateral strategic partnership.
Faced with the profound geopolitical upheavals in the world, Dr. Valeria Vershinina emphasized that Russia always firmly supports ASEAN's central position and role in maintaining peace and sustainable stability in the Asia-Pacific.
The Russian side believes that the basic principles that have been formed in ASEAN's decades of existence, such as the principle of consensus, non-interference in internal affairs, respect for national sovereignty and peaceful resolution of disputes, will be maintained as core systemic values.
Regarding the direction of macro-level bilateral cooperation, experts from MGIMO said that ASEAN's prospects for integration into the Greater Eurasian Partnership and contribution to the Eurasian security structure have long been on the agenda. However, this is a long-term process, accompanied by a number of objective complexities.
If approached from practice, accessing new export markets seems to bring important economic benefits to the Southeast Asian business community.
The significant potential of bilateral cooperation lies in expanding investment cooperation between member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and ASEAN, as well as developing new transport and logistics corridors serving the interests of both sides.
In addition, ASEAN can absorb practical integration experiences from the EAEU in the fields of customs regulation, operation of electronic declaration systems and development of a unified certification database.
