Issue Managing Korea-Russia ties under sanctions through dialogue channels, safety nets and sanctions-aware planning

Summary

The report calls for a strategic approach that resumes dialogue channels with Russia, managing risks in the short term, for example by reinforcing financial safety nets and building mutual understanding, while securing energy and industrial cooperation and multilateral links over the medium to long term. It stresses the need for a monitoring and analysis group that tracks structural change in Eurasia and the socioeconomic shifts inside Russia and other authoritarian states, together with a strategic focus group that prepares short-term responses and longer-term options. If Western sanctions are lifted, it proposes a two-plus-two dialogue combining diplomacy with economics and industry, and sector-specific channels on innovation and economic security covering AI, space and biotechnology. Before sanctions end, private exchanges should be expanded, for example through a track 1.5 Korea-Russia strategic dialogue led by the two countries' leading national think tanks with sector experts. The authors argue that improving and fundamentally reshaping existing formal dialogue bodies is essential.