Russia's strategic thinking is one of the most significant problems facing the EU. If we do not understand how Russia thinks about itself in the world, we shall not make sense of what the Kremlin says and does. There is, in fact, a logic to Russia's actions, but this are not the same as ours. While the EU has made the peaceful resolution of conflicts the centre of its thinking, Russia  has no compunction about using force, as we saw in Georgia last year. If the EU looks outwards, Russia prefers to minimise its contact with the rest of the world. But the real key is how  Russia sees power. In the European tradition, power should be supervised by democratic institutions. In Russia, power is to be concentrated, in the belief that through such concentration, power will be more effective.

This is very dangerous for states that Russia sees as weak, they automatically become targets for the expansion of Russian power. The recent secretive purchase of a large shareholding in the Hungarian energy company, MOL, by a Russian enterprise is more than a mere commercial transaction - it illustrates how Russia moves into an unoccupied space.

From the perspective of power, the EU and European integration are inexplicable, meaningless processes for Russia. In Russian eyes, the transfer of sovereignty is an abomination, not a way of securing peace. Hence, and it is vital that we recognise this, for Russia the EU is the problem, its success is a puzzle and, above all, it is an obstacle to the maximisation  of Russia's power. The EU's future success, therefore, depends on recognising how Russia thinks about power, very differently from Europe.

You can watch Prof. Schöpflin's speech here.