The master thesis called Security of the Russian Federation: (de)securitization of the U.S. by Russian representatives deals with the security of Russia from the top representatives points of view. The analyzed time is determined by the presidential term of Dmitry Medvedev (2008 - April 2012). The aim of the thesis is to find out, why the U.S. was (de)securitized during the Medvedev's presidential term and confirm or disprove the predefined hypothesis. President, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs create the foreign politics of Russian federation. Their speeches and interviews are the main source of the data. The basic security terms and the theories (de)securitization are discussed in the first part of the thesis. The Russian point of view of security is defined in the following part. There are analyzed oficial documents focusing on definition of the national security, foreign policy and military field. There are also discussed the Russian media discourse since 90s of the 20 century and Russian- American relations. The last empirical part analyzes the interviews and speeches of the president Medvedev, of the prime minister Putin and of the minister of foreign affairs Lavrov in terms of their attitudes to the U.S.

On September 24, 2011, it was announced that Putin would run for president once again in 2012. The reaction in the West was that ―the more things change, the more they stay the same.‖ The Western conception of the post-Cold War Russia is often one of remarkable consistency since the turn of the century. This Western narrative focuses on an autocratic Putin reigning over his resurgent and confrontational Russia. Does this narrative tell the story of Russia today, or does it instead obscure it? To answer this I have elected to analyze Russian identity and how it relates to Russia‘s foreign policy with Belarus, traditionally a close ally of Russia. Analyzing news articles from state-owned Russia Today, I look at changes in reporting and Russian identity over time. I argue that a shift in Russian identity towards a more liberal outlook between 2006 and 2010 motivated a degradation of relations with Belarus. I argue that once the simplified narrative of a resurgent Russia is peeled back, a closer look reveals competing identities and competing interest groups in Russia‘s domestic arena. Finally I conclude that not only does identity play a pivotal role in Russia‘s relations, but also that researching identity is important in that it gives us a window into a fairly closed regime that lies at the center of the global stage. Discovering how Russian identity reacts to and influences foreign policy can offer insight into the domestic framework of contemporary Russia, as well as offer us an understanding of how central ideas are to crafting the world around us