Page 73 - bneMag bne_December 2020_20201201

bne December 2020
Opinion 73
was called. The political crisis that engulfed Belarus following the August 2020 presidential election has allowed Moscow to try its hand at helping Minsk to carry out constitutional reform, political transition and economic liberalisation while integrating it closer with Russia. It is not clear how successful Moscow will be. As for the union state as such, it will probably remain an empty shell.
Vanishing space
The dynamic of separation within the former Soviet/imperial space runs very deep. With changing generations, Ukraine is increasingly seen as a big, if presently troubled, neighbour full of virulently anti-Russian elements. In the Russian public mind, particularly among younger people, it is fast becoming a foreign country. For those who care about traditional symbols, the birthplace of the Russian state has been conveniently transferred in the official history narrative from “Kiev, the mother of Russian cities,” to Novgorod in Russia, the Vikings’ first stronghold and operations base. Even the “official” place of Russia’s baptism has been moved from Kyiv (as it is now transcribed), where Prince Vladimir ordered the townsfolk to be baptised in the River Dnieper, to Khersones on the outskirts of Sevastopol in Crimea, where Prince Vladimir himself was baptised in the Black Sea.
Georgia may still attract Russian tourists and its wines are back on the Russian market after being banned for several years, but in both categories, it is far behind its competitors. Russians today get most of their knowledge of the other former Soviet republics, from Armenia and Azerbaijan to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, from those who come to seek work in Russia. There is virtually no desire to go back themselves and try to reassemble the empire. The reason is simple: the Russian empire, and particularly the Soviet Union, used to buy the loyalty of the borderland regions using the resources of the ethnically Russian core. Today, Russia’s per capita GDP is 2.5 times that in Ukraine and 50 percent higher than in Belarus. Thus the idea of the former Soviet Union is following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union itself is disappearing.
Lessons learned
The three crises that have almost simultaneously broken out in Belarus, the Nagorno-Karabakh region disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan, where popular protests recently toppled the ruling regime, have demonstrated Russia’s maturing approach to its neighbourhood. Some of Moscow’s new rules include:
Russia first: Russia’s principal interest in the world is Russia itself. As Putin mentioned in connection with a different subject: we are not interested in a world without Russia. Faced with the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia preferred to maintain stability at home, given the existence of large Armenian and Azeri diasporas in Russia (2mn strong each); to keep an important relationship with Azerbaijan intact; and to avoid a collision with regional power Turkey. By involving itself in the war on the side of its nominal ally Armenia, it would have lost all of the above. Russia did send forces to Karabakh, but as peacekeepers between the two sides.
The former Soviet Union doesn’t exist: As far as Moscow is concerned, all the countries that emerged from the ex-Soviet republics are on their own. To Russia, thirty years after the break-up of the USSR, they are all foreign states; emotions are kept apart from politics: there are no special attachments, and no free discounts. Each bilateral relationship will be judged on its own merits.
Bilateral relations with allies are becoming less dependent
on personalities: In the context of recent elections in allied nations, Moscow has indicated that it is not tied to any particular leader, be it Belarus’ Lukashenko or Kyrgyzstan’s toppled Sooronbay Jeenbekov. This was already evident from the two previous Kyrgyz revolutions (2005 and 2010) and the 2018 street protests in Yerevan that overthrew the leadership in Armenia, and had long been the attitude regarding tumultuous local practices in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia primarily cares about its own interests in the countries concerned and focuses on protecting those.
Commitments are not open-ended and are always reciprocal: As Moscow has demonstrated in the crisis in Nagorno- Karabakh, Russia will do what it is formally obligated to do, but no more. Russia sent similar messages during the acute phase of the Belarus crisis. It will also insist on its allies being more loyal in order to deserve Moscow’s support. If an ally engages in a “multi-vector” foreign policy, they should expect a similar attitude from Russia.
Third powers cannot be excluded from the neighbourhood; they must be dealt with. Russia has no way of barring third players from what used to be the territory of the Soviet Union. Rather, it must deal with them to minimise threats to core Russian interests. With regard to the West, Russia has used unresolved conflicts in Donbas, Abkhazia and South Ossetia to stop Ukraine and Georgia from securing NATO membership; with regard to China, it has managed to divide up economic/ security responsibilities in Central Asia; with regard to Turkey, it is competing in a hard-nosed way for a favourable balance of interests in the Caucasus and the Middle East. Conditional support for Lukashenko is being used to shut out Poland
and Lithuania from interfering directly in Belarus, while the self-proclaimed Transnistrian republic supported by a small Russian garrison and economic subsidies should prevent at least that region of Moldova from folding into Romania.
These new rules have not just suddenly appeared in Moscow; they are the product of at least a decades-long process that has seen many Kremlin ambitions severely curtailed and many plans nixed. The Russian Federation is learning to mind its limitations and to match its ends to means; to repel and repress residual nostalgia; and to think straight, putting issues before personalities and staying focused on its own interests. This doesn’t suggest that Russia is withdrawing into itself or is ready to make concessions to others. It simply means that its modus operandi in the neighbourhood is changing, and its posture across Eurasia is being reconfigured, leaving the empire farther and farther behind.
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