This piece is a reaction to the series of articles on the state of IR discipline published in the previous issues of this journal. The authors emphasise the problems of IR theory in Russia (insufficient attention to the current IR trends, ideologization of theories and methods, which leads to numerous difficulties of integration of the Russian academic community into the world academic discussion). Particular attention is paid to the specificity of the formation of new theoretical approaches where interdisciplinary character is the key underlying principle. Ignoring it would seriously limit the capabilities and depth of Russian analytics. To illustrate these points, the article addresses the analysis of the EU Global Strategy – 2016 with ‘resilience’ as the key category. The article demonstrates inevitability of addressing theory for the sake of analysis of this document as well as for the study of EU-Russian relations at large. The first part of the article examines the specificity of how IR theory is addressed by the Russian academic community. The second part is devoted to the main problems of the contemporary discussion on the essence of IR. The third part gives an illustration of how theoretical approaches can be used to analyse one specific document, which is important for EU-Russian relations.