The Russian Challenge

The Russian Challenge
Russia’s Changed Outlook on the West: From Convergence to Confrontation
from democracy which drew criticism from US President
George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
At the centre of the widening rift between Russia and the
West, as Carl Bildt had perceived, lay both a direct conflict
of interests over what the EU termed its ‘new neighbours’
and Russia its ‘near abroad’, and value systems which
were becoming impossible to reconcile. The flaws and
contradictions in Putin’s approach to integration were
coming to the surface.
Conflicting interests in the ‘post-Soviet space’
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been
a latent conflict of interests between the West and
Russia over the status of the other 14 post-Soviet newly
independent states. In the Western view, the sovereignty
of these states is paramount, and they must be free
to determine their own affiliations without threat or
coercion. In the UN Charter, the 1990 Charter of Paris,
the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and numerous other
agreements, Russia pledged to respect their independence,
sovereignty and territorial integrity. In the Russian view,
these states are to a greater or lesser extent historically
part of Russia, acquired independence accidentally rather
than through a formal settlement of the post-Cold War
order, are intimately linked to Russia through myriad
personal and economic connections, and form Russia’s
security perimeter. They must therefore be recognized as
within Russia’s ‘sphere of strategic interests’, and must not
be permitted to act in ways or form affiliations that are
deemed to be contrary to Russia’s strategic interests.
The two views cannot be reconciled.
The attitude of the Putin administration is not a new
departure. When Yeltsin formed the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) in December 1991 with the
presidents of Ukraine and Belarus, the Russian leadership
intended it to be a vehicle to maintain common defence
arrangements and a common economic space across most
of the former Soviet Union. Fearful of the consequences of
the sudden fragmentation of a nuclear-armed superpower,
Western governments supported the formation, under
Russian leadership, of the CIS as an instrument of
stabilization. Senior Russians made clear in private that
they still expected to exercise a dominant influence. 23
Russia acknowledged the independent status of the new
members of the United Nations de jure but found it hard
to accept de facto. Even Yeltsin’s foreign minister, Andrei
Kozyrev, who favoured closer relations with the West,
insisted that ‘the states of the CIS and the Baltics constitute
the area of concentration of Russia’s vital interests’ and
warned (in April 1995) that ‘there may be cases when the
use of direct military force may be needed to protect our
compatriots abroad’. 24
The conflict of interests remained latent until late 2003. The
focus of East–West relations up to that point was on healing
the division of Europe and building bridges between Russia
and Western organizations and states. Putin, as noted, had
set parallel objectives of further integration in the CIS and
integration with Europe.
In November 2003, the Kremlin suffered two reverses
in neighbouring states. In divided Moldova, a plan for
a settlement on Russian terms brokered by Putin’s aide
Dmitry Kozak was rejected by President Vladimir Voronin
after the EU and the United States had lobbied against the
deal. More ominously for Moscow, in Georgia Russia was
unable (despite last-minute diplomatic efforts) to prevent
the pro-American Mikheil Saakashvili from supplanting
President Eduard Shevardnadze in the Rose Revolution.
In March 2004 (a fortnight after Putin’s re-election as
president) Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became members
of NATO. While Putin had accepted in 2002 that this would
happen, and the decision did not involve the installation
of new NATO bases in the Baltic states, the intrusion – to
Russian eyes – of NATO into territory formerly part of
the Soviet Union was another negative step at a time of
worsening relations with the West.
The year ended with the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
The presidential election of 21 November 2004 was perceived
to have been rigged in favour of Viktor Yanukovych. After
popular protests, the Supreme Court ruled that a second
election should be held. This produced a clear victory on
26 December for Viktor Yushchenko.
The Orange Revolution, especially, led to a clear and
lasting change in Putin’s outlook. He had intervened
directly on behalf of Yanukovych in the election campaign.
The result was seen in Moscow as a personal humiliation
for him and damaged his authority. Many saw the
Orange Revolution as an existential threat to Putin’s
administration: the spectacle of successful popular revolts
in neighbouring countries overturning corrupt and
autocratic regimes was an alarming precedent which the
Kremlin did not wish to see repeated in Russia. Worst of
all, liberal Western-oriented leaders had been elected in
23
Sir Rodric Braithwaite, then British Ambassador to the USSR, has recorded that in 1991 President Gorbachev’s (liberally inclined) diplomatic adviser told him that:
‘In a decade or two decades, Russia will reassert itself as the dominant force in this huge geographical area. Meanwhile Yeltsin will have no choice but to assert Russia’s
position if it is challenged: his entourage will see to that. So if the Ukrainians are too provocative – over the Crimea, for instance – he will have to weigh in with force of
necessary. That is in no one’s interest.’ Rodric Braithwaite, ‘Russia, Ukraine and the West’, The RUSI Journal, 159:2, May 2014, p. 1.
24
Quoted by Robert Blackwill in ‘Russia and the West’ in Robert Blackwill, Rodric Braithwaite and Akihiko Tanaka: Engaging Russia: A Report to the Trilateral
Commission: 46, The Triangle Papers Series (New York: The Trilateral Commission, 1995), pp. 7–8.
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