Putin's Wars (12 page)
Many Russians consider Putin a providential man. In July 2011 the Kremlin’s political
strategist Vladislav Surkov, with no hesitation, said that Putin was sent to Russia
by God to save his country in turbulent times. “I honestly believe that Putin is a
person who was sent to Russia by fate and by the Lord at a difficult time for Russia,”
Vladislav Surkov was quoted.
[1]
Putin himself, probably, would agree, because Putin—a former KGB Chekist—is a man
with a mission. “The Chekists consider themselves completely above the law,” wrote
Yevgenia Albats. “Worse, they tend to believe they are their homeland’s salvation,
the only voice of authority amidst the political and economic chaos that has engulfed
the country.”
[2]
Putin came to power almost exactly eight years after what he considered to have
been the “greatest geopolitical catastrophy of the twentieth century”: the demise
of the Soviet Union. This catastrophy was followed by the chaotic, weak, and erratic
rule of Boris Yeltsin and his kleptocratic “Family” (of which, we should not forget,
Putin himself was a prominent member). When, in December 1999, Vladimir Putin was
appointed acting president by Yeltsin it became immediately clear that his priority
was not so much to put an end to kleptocracy and lawlessness, because his first move
as president was to grant Yeltsin amnesty and immunity from prosecution. His real
priorities lay elsewhere. These were to put an end to Russia’s “humiliation” and to
restore the lost empire. This
reconquista
could not, of course, be a simple reconstitution of the former Soviet Union of which
the ideological glue that held it together, communism, was no longer available. The
neoimperialism of the new Russia had to be based on new foundations. These new foundations
were Russian ultranationalism and economic imperialism, a policy that was, in itself,
not totally new. It had already been initiated during Yeltsin’s presidency, but could
not at that time be fully implemented due to the chaotic economic and political situation.
Putin’s policy had two main goals:
To reestablish at least a Union of the Slav core countries of the former Soviet Union.
To reestablish a close economic and political-military cooperation with the non-Slav
former countries of the Soviet Union under exclusive Russian leadership.
When the Soviet Union was dissolved by the presidents of the Russian Federation, Belarus,
and Ukraine on December 8, 1991, they immediately created a successor organization,
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This organization—called in Russian
Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv
(SNG)—functioned more or less as a receptacle for the broken pieces of the former
empire. It was, in reality, not even a faint shadow of the former Soviet Union. The
participating countries—including Russia—stressed the fact that it was a commonwealth
of
independent
states. In addition, not all former republics were represented. The three Baltic states
preferred to remain outside, Ukraine was not a formal member, Turkmenistan only an
associate member, and Georgia left the organization in August 2009. Although the CIS
managed to play a certain role in the post-Soviet space, especially in the field of
collective security, it remained a loosely structured organization that did not satisfy
the Russian ambition to strengthen its grip on the former Soviet republics.
[3]
Also the economic clout of the CIS was restricted: only 17 percent of Russia’s
foreign trade took place within this bloc.
[4]
A much more serious and far-reaching initiative was, therefore, the creation of the
Union State of Russia and Belarus. The initiative for this Union State was taken on
April 2, 1996, by the two presidents, Boris Yeltsin and Aleksandr Lukashenko, and
a treaty was signed one year later. Apart from the economic benefits the Union was
supposed to bring to both countries the two leaders had their own, hidden motives:
“Lukashenko hoped to become president of a large Union State and . . . Yeltsin felt
guilty for presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet Union. . . . He wanted to
be remembered as the leader who started the reunification of the former Soviet republics
by signing the Union State agreement with Belarus.”
[5]
The Union of the two countries was an ambitious project, organized in grand style.
It included the creation of a series of common institutions, including a Supreme State
Council, a Council of Ministers, a Court, a House of Audit, and a bicameral parliament
consisting of a directly elected House of Representatives and an indirectly elected
House of the Union. Neither the House of Representatives, nor the Court, however,
ever came into existence. The reason for this was that the objectives of both sides
diverged too much. Belarus sought a rapprochement for economic and financial reasons;
Russia’s motivation was almost exclusively geopolitical. This did not prevent the
two countries signing, on December 8, 1999, an even more far-reaching “Treaty on the
Creation of a Union State of Russia and Belarus” that resembled the resurrection of
a mini-Soviet Union. The Union would have a common president, a flag, an anthem, a
constitution, a common currency, common citizenship, and a common army. It was a last
attempt of Lukashenko to realize his ambition to become president of the Union State
and—in this indirect way—to become the ruler of Russia. This ambition had to be taken
seriously, so seriously, indeed, that Anatoly Chubais, who was the chief of Yeltsin’s
presidential administration between July 15, 1996, and March 7, 1997, later said:
“It was total madness . . . . It was a constitutional coup d’état, a change of power,
not because of a political conflict, but quite simply because we had seen nothing
coming.”
[6]
According to the treaty the supreme power in the Union State of Russia and Belarus
would be shared by the two presidents and the presidents of the respective parliaments.
With an ailing Boris Yeltsin and the communist Gennady Seleznev as Russian Duma president,
Lukashenko would have had a real chance to become the
de facto
president of the Union State. The Russian press wrote at that time, therefore, that
“Lukashenko intends to realize his integrationist plans not with Boris Yeltsin, but
through his allies in the Duma.”
[7]
However, with the nomination by Yeltsin, on December 31, 1999, of Vladimir Putin as
acting president of the Russian Federation, Lukashenko knew that his ambitions were
definitively blocked. Reluctant to become the local satrap of the new Kremlin boss
Lukashenko resisted any infringements on Belarusian sovereignty, even after Russia
continued to support the economy of his country with generous subsidies. The Russian
energy subsidy equalled 14 percent of Belarusian GDP and Belarus was able to buy Russian
oil dutyfree, to refine it, and to sell the products on the international market.
[8]
Putin’s generosity was not without a price. In 2003 he revealed his annexationist
agenda when he proposed a fully fledged merger of both states. The proposed model,
wrote Dmitri Trenin, was “essentially,
Anschluss
on the model of West Germany in 1990 absorbing the six East German
Laender
. Thus, Belarus received an offer to join the Russian Federation as
six oblasts
.”
[9]
The offer was flatly rejected by Lukashenko. Thereafter the project for the Union
State stalled. Soon conflicts emerged over price rises for imported natural gas from
Russia. When Moscow declared its intention to quadruple the price in 2007, Lukashenko
threatened to quit the bilateral project and form instead a Union State with Ukraine,
which, under President Viktor Yushchenko, was pursuing a pro-Western course.
[10]
Although the proposal was not realistic, the Kremlin did not hide its irritation.
Another irritant was the fact that Putin, when he left the Russian presidency in 2008,
expected to be appointed president of the Russia-Belarus Union State. Lukashenko,
who did not want Putin as his formal superior, only agreed to appoint him prime minister
of the Union State.
[11]
The sensitivities in Belarus were such that in November 2009 President Medvedev
felt himself obliged to reassure his Belarusian neighbor that “Moscow wants to build
a closer union with Belarus, but has not invited the country to become part of Russia,”
[12]
contradicting Putin’s merger proposal of 2003. Belarus, Medvedev continued, “is
an independent, sovereign state . . . . All political life in the country follows
its own scenario, and we have nothing to do with this scenario.”
[13]
However, these words did not reassure Lukashenko, nor did they bring more dynamism
to the project. In the fall of 2010 Putin declared that the future of the Union State
of Russia and Belarus “is increasingly becoming problematic.”
[14]
Despite the reassurances given by Dmitry Medvedev the fears of Belarus of being absorbed
by its big eastern neighbor were well founded. This became clear not only from Putin’s
annexation proposal of 2003, but also from declarations by Russian politicians and
political experts. Pavel Borodin, the state secretary of the Union State and a former
member of Yeltsin’s presidential administration, for instance, said that “it would
be counterproductive to scrap the Union State due to the recent political disputes
between Moscow and Minsk,” adding, “we are the same people. We have lived together
and will continue to live together. We are one country.”
[15]
Also President Medvedev continued to express himself ambiguously in his personal
blog. He not only called Belarus “the closest of its neighbors,” united with Russia
“by a long shared history, culture, common joys and grief,” but added: “We will always
remember that our people—I am tempted to say ‘our one people’—endured great losses
during the Great Patriotic War.”
[16]
It could, indeed, be questioned why the “same people” or “our one people,” constituting
“one country,” would need to have two separate national governments. Yuri Krupnov,
a Russian political analyst nostalgic of the Soviet past, openly pleaded that the
Union State should, ultimately, encompass the
whole
former USSR. Far from criticizing Belarus for its lack of economic and political
reforms, he hailed “Belarus’ experience of preserving USSR ‘achievements,’ the best
things that existed during the Soviet period.”
[17]
Zbigniew Brzezinski has warned that “Russia’s absorption of Belarus, without too
much cost or pain, would jeopardize the future of Ukraine as a genuinely sovereign
state.”
[18]
The Kremlin’s policy is one of wait and see, and, in the meantime, to increase its
economic and political pressure. The objective of the Union State is firmly maintained
by the Kremlin, which is hoping to extend the existing
dance à deux
to more partners. Overtures have been made in the direction of Ukraine that under
President Yanukovych pursued a pro-Russian course. The pressure exercised by Russia
on Ukraine was such that Volodymyr Lytvyn, the parliamentary speaker of the
Rada
, the Ukrainian parliament, felt himself obliged to declare that “Ukraine’s entry
into the Union State of Belarus and Russia is impossible.”
[19]
“I think that this is utopia,” he said, adding that “Ukraine and Russia should
stop ritual dancing and give direct answers to direct questions.”
[20]
The Kremlin will certainly continue to put more pressure on Ukraine. A sign of
this is an article by the German political scientist Klaus von Beyme that has been
given a prominent place on the official portal of the Union State (
www.soyuz.by
). Von Beyme declared himself to be against EU or NATO membership for Ukraine. “From
my point of view,” he wrote, “the optimal solution to the issue would be [a] Slavic
Federation of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. It would be a natural partner for the EU
and NATO, there is potential for widespread co-operation.”
[21]
Why such a “Slavic Federation,” a neoimperialist Russian project that under the
Kremlin’s leadership would be directed
against
the EU and NATO, would be “a natural partner” for the EU and NATO is not explained.
Von Beyme has excellent relations with the Kremlin. The portal of the Union State
mentions that Von Beyme is “the first Western politician awarded the title of Honorary
Professor of Moscow State University.” On his Wikipedia curriculum vitae one can read
that he was the “first West German university student in Moscow after World War II.”
There are reasons not to underestimate the role of the Union State in the Kremlin’s
neoimperialist strategy. The Kremlin’s objectives could be more ambitious than creating
only a Slavic Federation. Kazakhstan could also be a candidate that is on Moscow’s
wish list. The government of South Ossetia, a halfway annexed part of dismembered
Georgia, has already expressed its interest in being incorporated into the Union.
“South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity has said that the republic may join the Union
State of Russia and Belarus if Minsk recognizes the independence of South Ossetia.”
[22]
Another candidate is possibly the Moldovan breakaway region Transnistria. Already
in 2003, Pavel Borodin, the secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union, indicated that
Russia wanted to expand the Union into
all
the countries of the CIS. “Mr Borodin said that Russia would first join with Belarus,
then Ukraine and Kazakhstan,” wrote the
Financial Times
. “Two, four, then 12 [countries], he said, in a reference to the CIS.”
[23]
The Union State may not be a
Soviet Union-bis
, but it will be a Union in which Russian hegemony is assured and in which the formally
preserved national sovereignties of the member states are made subservient to Russian
geopolitical interests.