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In late May, the Kremlin set up a special coordinating body, led by presidential chief of staff Sergei Naryshkin, to improve Russia's image abroad. The new body will play a more proactive role in policy coordination than the Foreign Ministry commission that it replaced.
The Kremlin has finally understood that it makes more sense to predict the reaction of the international community at an early stage and incorporate that into major policy decisions as opposed to putting out public-relations fires afterward. The emphasis on careful policy planning, strict interagency coordination and effective policy implementation is a welcome change in the Kremlin's approach to public relations.
But this comprehensive approach has been lamentably lacking in Moscow's decision to ban imports of milk from Belarus 10 days ago.
The official explanation for the ban -- the violation of an obscure regulation on dairy product labeling -- has done little to conceal the political nature of the move, which is rooted in retaliation for President Lukashenko's statements against Russia after Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin publicly questioned the wisdom of Lukashenko's economic policies to use Russian loans to print Belarussian money.
Now, it was high time that Moscow taught Lukashenko a lesson. But the way the affair was handled did more harm than good to Russia's image. The milk ban was introduced two days after Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed an agreement on a customs union that is very important to Russia. This raised doubts over Moscow's seriousness about the customs union, discrediting a major policy initiative.
It was also easy to anticipate that Lukashenko might retaliate for the milk ban by disrupting the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Taking this into account might have spared President Dmitry Medvedev a major embarrassment when Lukashenko did not show up at the meeting he was supposed to chair and then questioned the legitimacy of the summit's decisions.
The Kremlin needs to learn that meticulous policy planning and execution is a much more cost-effective way to boost Russia's image than throwing money at Western PR consultants or TV channels that broadcast into nowhere.
Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government-relations and PR company.
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