Kryachkov 2!indd

strip)
2
of the shell of the Soviet empire, the country’s identity (to be)
3
in flux. The search is at once 
geopolitical, philosophical and profoundly psychological. The quest (to complicate)
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by the fact 
that the world around Russia (to change)
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too. 
In recent years Russia (to experiment)
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with several geostrategic options, most of which (to 
prove)
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either illusory or of limited value. 
One option was a “strategic partnership” with China. The economic complementarities be-
tween the two countries (to seem)
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obvious: Russia has excess natural resources and a labor short-
age, while China has the opposite. But practical cooperation (to limit)
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severely by deep-seated 
mutual mistrust. The Russians and Chinese have mutual superiority complexes that make partner-
ship all but impossible. 
Another tack for Moscow (to be)
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to trumpet its membership in the club of mega-emerging 
markets, the so-called BRICs. But, in terms of sheer economic dynamism, Russia is clearly an outlier, 
if not a total misfit, in the company of Brazil, India and China. Russia has a weak manufacturing 
base, apart from arms. Russia (to be)
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a more natural member of OPEC, which only (to be)
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its 
dependence on hydrocarbon extraction. 

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Английский язык для магистратуры
R
ussia: a Part of The W
orld or...
The most problematic phase of Russia’s identity quest (to culminate)
13
in outright confronta-
tion with the West during the Georgia conflict of August 2008. Russia (to celebrate)
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its victory 
and (to rush)
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to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, despite the fact that Moscow (to coun-