Putin's Wars (16 page)
The second argument, used by Putin in his
Izvestia
article to justify the Eurasian Union, was that the new Union would be built on shared
values. He mentioned as such democracy, freedom, and the principles of the market
economy. The reader will probably rub his or her eyes: whatever positive things one
may say about Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan, one can certainly not say that these
three countries are shining examples of freedom and democracy. All three have “lifelong”
leaders kept in place by organizing fake elections. All three have repressive regimes
that suppress opposition voices and violate fundamental human rights. All three also
lack an important condition of a functioning market economy: impartial courts.
The most amazing argument, however, is Putin’s third argument: a choice to join the
Eurasian Union does not exclude integration with the EU, but, on the contrary, “will
leave each of its members in much stronger positions to integrate more quickly into
Europe.” Putin is playing here a game of words with the concept “Europe.” As members
of the Eurasian Union these countries do not integrate into the EU, but in “Greater
Europe,” a name he gives to the Eurasian Union and the EU
together.
In fact Putin is referring here to trade negotiations between the EU and the Eurasian
Union and the eventual benefits for the member states of the Eurasian Union if they
negotiate with the EU
as a bloc
. However, this has nothing to do with integration into “Europe” or the EU. It is
a formulation intended
to conceal
that membership of the Eurasian Union implies an unequivocal geopolitical choice
that
excludes
membership of the EU.
[21]
Putin’s article is a textbook case of active disinformation. What is at stake for
the Kremlin in the project for a Eurasian Union remains carefully hidden. However,
one week after the signing ceremony by the three presidents in Moscow it was possible
to get a clearer idea of the way of thinking of the Russian political elite. On November
24, 2011, they came together to discuss the new project in the building of the Federation
Council, the Russian Upper House. The
title
the organizers had chosen for this roundtable was in itself interesting. It was called
“Big Country: Perspectives of the Integrative Processes in the Post-Soviet Space in
the Framework of the ‘Eurasian Union.’”
[22]
Big country! The first catchword used to describe the new Union was not “economic
modernization” or “economic cooperation,” but “big country.” One cannot but think
of the centuries-old Russian fixation on territorial expansion. Had not Putin already
said in 2009 in a speech before the Russian Geographical Society: “When we say great,
a great country, a great state—certainly size matters. . . . When there is no size,
there is no influence, no meaning.”
[23]
In the same vein, on the occasion of the signing of the treaty, Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev said: “Yes, we are all different but we have common values and a desire
to live in a single big state.”
[24]
“A single big state”? It is not sure that the CIS countries, after having been
reassured by Putin that their autonomy would not be jeopardized in the Eurasian Union,
would welcome the prospect of living in “a big state.” And certainly they would appreciate
even less the prospect of living in “a
single
big state.”
However, for some Russian analysts Moscow’s integrationist fervor should not stop
at the frontiers of the former empire. Dmitry Orlov, a political scientist, wrote
that the Eurasian Union should not only bring together the countries of the former
Soviet Union, but should equally include “Finland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Mongolia,
Vietnam and Bulgaria, as well as two countries not in either Europe or Asia, Cuba
and Venezuela.”
[25]
For Orlov, the Kremlin should not satisfy itself with reuniting the parts of the
former Soviet Union, but it should aim higher, trying to restore the whole former
communist bloc—and even beyond (Finland). Dmitry Rogozin, deputy prime minister and
former ambassador to NATO, was quoted as saying that the project was designed “to
unite not so much lands, but rather peoples and citizens in the name of a common state
body.”
[26]
Rogozin, a Russian ultranationalist, who always wanted to activate the Russian
diaspora abroad and even
create
new Russian diaspora (he was, for instance, in favor of responding positively to the
request of the estimated twenty thousand Serbs in Kosovo, applying for Russian citizenship),
went even further than Orlov. He wanted not only to assemble a maximum number of
countries
into the Eurasian Union, but also the Russian diaspora “in the name of a common state
body.” It led Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to declare that the project represented
“the most savage idea of Russian nationalists,” adding that when Russia announces
such ideas, “as a rule, they try to implement them.”
[27]
During the “Big Country” conference former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov was more
prudent. According to him the Eurasian Union should start with building a Belarusian-Russian-Kazakh
Union. “For the time being one should not go beyond this framework,” he said, [notwithstanding
the fact that] Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are knocking on the door.”
[28]
According to him one should not repeat the mistakes of the EU, which was in crisis
because of its too rapid enlargement process. In the same vein a Chinese expert warned
that building a Eurasian Union “is an uphill road. . . . Former Soviet republics are
unlikely to go for integration with Russia gratis. . . . The accession of former Soviet
republics to the Eurasian Union will hardly be a boon for Russia. The Belarusian economy
is highly unstable and if such poor countries as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan join the
Eurasian Union, Moscow may face even bigger problems than the EU does over Greece.”
[29]
Integration Effort
Despite these warnings and despite the fact that “the Eurasian Union has only little
integration potential and has few attractions to offer the newly independent states,”
[30]
the Kremlin does not shy away from spending money—a lot of money—on this project.
While in 2009–2010 Russia still refused to transfer loans to Belarus when that country
failed to privatize and sell industrial companies to Russian companies, in late 2011
the situation had changed fundamentally. Russia began to provide billions of dollars
in oil and gas subsidies and allocated $10 billion for loans for a nuclear plant in
Belarus. It also paid $2.5 billion for the second half of Beltransgas shares. In addition,
it also signed on November 21, 2011, an agreement in Moscow on a loan for $1 billion.
[31]
The willingness of the Kremlin to subsidize Lukashenko’s rickety economy was a
clear sign of the
political
importance it attached to the Eurasian project.
[32]
In fact, the Eurasian Union is for Moscow the
ultimate
integration effort, crowning and superseding all earlier integration efforts. The
Eurasian Union is not just some new integration project
alongside
the other existing integration projects created by Russia in recent years. The Eurasian
Union is something different. This new structure is like the crowning synthesis in
a Hegelian dialectic: it is not only the most complete realization of earlier Russian
attempts at integration, but—while keeping these other structures in place—it
absorbs
them over time. (Hegel calls this process
aufheben
, which means both “to preserve” as well as “to bring to a higher level.”) We can,
therefore, expect that the Eurasian Union will gradually take over functions from
other existing structures, such as the Russia-Belarus Union State, EurAsEc, the Customs
Union, and the CSTO. Belarusian President Lukashenko hinted at this when he declared
that the Russia-Belarus Union State may disappear if the project of the Eurasian Union
were to develop further.
[33]
This hidden function of the Eurasian Union, to replace and absorb already existing
integration structures, is also recognized by Uwe Halbach, a German expert who wrote
on the Eurasian Union that “a piece of integration theatre is being played out on
multiple stages and levels, which ultimately calls for an ‘integration of the integrations.’”
[34]
The centerpiece of this intended “integration of the integrations” is, undoubtedly,
military
integration. Putin did not mention this in his
Izvestia
article, but Ruslan Grinberg, director of the economic institute RAN, hinted at this
at the “Big Country” conference. Grinberg mentioned “the necessity to build supranational
structures, [also] partly, military.”
[35]
“The Eurasian Union is primarily an economic project accompanied by Russian efforts
toward integration within security policy areas,” wrote Uwe Halbach. “The main recipient
here is the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an ‘alliance’ of seven
[now six, MHVH] CIS states.”
[36]
Halbach is right. This hidden ambition of the Kremlin, however, is not trumpeted
too loudly in order not to frighten away potential candidate members of the Eurasian
Union.
The Eurasian Union, this ultimate integration project of Russia and pet project of
Vladimir Putin, has to be taken seriously. It is the last product of the Kremlin’s
funnel strategy
in which countries are invited to participate in an integration project on the basis
of a manifest agenda that is different from the Kremlin’s hidden agenda. The hidden
agenda behind the Eurasian Union is twofold. In the first place it is the creation—over
time—of a military arm of the Union, similar to the defunct Warsaw Pact. This military
arm (the CSTO) will reserve for itself the exclusive right to intervene militarily
in the post-Soviet space. Such an exclusive right of military intervention that excludes
the intervention of external powers (the United States, NATO, but also China) has
found its theoretical elaboration in the
Grossraum
(big space) theory of Carl Schmitt, which was already at the core of Medvedev’s proposal
for a pan-European security pact.
[37]
A Russian
droit de regard
over the post-Soviet space would further imply that Russia wants to introduce qualified
majority decision to replace the consensus rule of the CSTO (Article 12 of the CSTO
Charter) for substantive decisions on peacekeeping operations or interventions.
The second and most important point of the Kremlin’s hidden agenda is the incorporation
of Ukraine into the Eurasian Union. For the Kremlin the Eurasian Union is a new instrument
to bring Ukraine back into its orbit.
[38]
This is also the reason that the Kremlin has a great interest in attracting Moldova,
which, in March 2012, was promised lower consumer prices (of up to 30 percent) for
gas and oil, and a “big market (comparable with the EU) for Moldovan products.” It
was also offered more beneficial conditions for Moldavan workers in countries of the
Customs Union if it would adhere to the Customs Union, which functions as the entrance
to the Eurasian Union.
[39]
Moldova’s membership of the Eurasian Union would, in fact, see Ukraine encircled
by three member states of the Eurasian Union: Russia, Belarus, and Moldova, thereby
making Ukraine’s membership of this organization more logical and an eventual future
membership of Ukraine of the EU more problematic. The Kremlin’s Moldova policy is,
therefore, an integral part of its Eurasian Union project. There seems to exist a
clear will in the Kremlin—in case the Moldovan leadership cannot be convinced to join
the Eurasian Union and is opting instead for EU membership—to split the country and
make the breakaway province of Transnistria independent along the lines of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia. On July 31, 2012, speaking in the Nashi Seliger camp, Putin said that
Transnistria is entitled to self-determination. This “reference to self-determination
is a novel one in Moscow’s rhetoric about the Transnistria conflict,” warned Vladimir
Socor.
[40]
Putin’s declaration was followed by the reappointment on August 2, 2012, of deputy
prime minister Dmitry Rogozin to the additional post of special representative of
the Russian President for Transnistria (Rogozin had already been appointed in March
2012 to this post by Putin’s predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev). On the same day, Rogozin
received Transnistria’s leader Yevgeny Shevchuk in Moscow. When Rogozin and Shevchuk
made a declaration after the meeting, Russia’s flag and Transnistria’s “state flag”
were displayed on an equal footing—a clear sign of Russian support for Transnistrian
separatism. “Moscow’s July 31 and August 2 statements,” wrote Vladimir Socor, “add
further elements of de-recognition [of Moldova’s territorial integrity], firming up
suggestions for Transnistria’s ‘self-determination’ and acknowledging its ‘state’
attributes (territory, flag).”
[41]
Moscow’s support for Transnistrian separatism is directly linked with the Kremlin’s
Eurasian project. “Moscow declared its intention to build a ‘Eurasian economic region’
in Transnistria aiming to prevent the weakening of Moscow’s control over Tiraspol,
in a direct response to EU and Moldova’s efforts to attract Transnistria through economic
cooperation.”
[42]
Vladimir Putin, “Novyy integratsionnyy proekt dlya Evrazii: budushchee, kotoroe rozhdaetsya
segodnya,”
Izvestia
(October 8, 2011).
“Professor Igor Panarin: Gosudarem postsovetskogo prostranstva stanet Vladimir Putin,”
Izvestia
(April 1, 2009).
On Panarin’s grandiose visions see also Marcel H. Van Herpen,
Putinism: The Slow Rise of a Radical Right Regime in Russia
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 82–83.
Igor Panarin, “The Information War against Russia: Operation Putin. Part 1. Eurasian
Integration: A Pathway Out of the World Crisis.” Lecture in the International Conference
Securing Mankind’s Future (February 25–26, 2012), organized in Berlin by the Schiller-Institut.
http://www.schiller-institut.de/seiten/201202-berlin/panarin-english.html
(accessed June 28, 2013).
Panarin, “The Information War against Russia: Operation Putin.”
New Zealand has expressed an interest in creating a free trade zone with the Eurasian
Union, but this is, of course, nowhere near becoming a full member. (Cf. Letter of
Dmitry Shtodin, Minister Counsellor at the Russian Embassy in Rome, published as an
appendix to Mauro De Bonis, “Urss? No grazie, Putin sogna l’Unione Euroasiatica,”
Limes
(September 3, 2012). Shtodin corrects the statement of De Bonis that New Zealand would
become a member.) More viable candidates—mentioned by Panarin in another article—are
Cuba and Venezuela. This “might sound like something out of a novel today,” he rejoiced,
“far more than my own idea about Serbia joining, but we are living in very dynamic
times” (Cf. Igor Panarin, “Eurasian Union: Stage 1,”
RT
(November 18, 2011)). In another article even war-torn Syria is mentioned as “seeking
a free trade zone” with the new emerging Union. (Cf. Svetlana Kalmykova, “Eurasian
Union Idea Takes Shape,”
The Voice of Russia
(October 20, 2011).)
Dugin quoted by Marlène Laruelle,
Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 117.
Dugin,
Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya
, 1994.
http://anticompromat.ru/dugin/3put.html
.
Cf. “Evraziyskie komissary poluchat status federalnykh ministrov,”
Tut.by
(November 17, 2011).
“Vstrecha prezidentov Rossii, Respubliki Belarus i Kazakhstana,”
Official Website of the President of Russia
(November 18, 2011).
“Vstrecha prezidentov Rossii, Respubliki Belarus i Kazakhstana.”
“Vstrecha prezidentov Rossii, Respubliki Belarus i Kazakhstana.”
Marlène Laruelle, “When the ‘Near Abroad’ Looks at Russia: The Eurasian Union Project
as Seen from the Southern Republics,”
Russian Analytical Digest
no. 112 (April 20, 2012), 9.
“Evraziyskiy tamozhennyy soyuz i ego vliyanie na Tsentralnuyu Aziyu,”
Analiticheskiy Forum Tsentralnoy Azii
no. 4 (February 2013), 2.
“Evraziyskiy tamozhennyy soyuz i ego vliyanie na Tsentralnuyu Aziyu.”
“Evraziyskiy tamozhennyy soyuz i ego vliyanie na Tsentralnuyu Aziyu.” Putin, in his
speech, said: “The combined GDP measured in purchasing power parity of countries such
as India and China is already greater than that of the United States. And a similar
calculation with the GDP of the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—surpasses
the cumulative GDP of the EU. And according to experts this gap will only increase
in the future.” (Cf. “Putin’s Prepared Remarks at 43d Munich Conference on Security
Policy,”
The Washington Post
(February 12, 2007).)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555.html
.
Putin, “Novyy integratsionnyy proekt dlya Evrazii: budushchee, kotoroe rozhdaetsya
segodnya.”
Andreas Umland, “The Stillborn Project of a Eurasian Union: Why Post-Soviet Integration
Has Little Prospects,”
Valdai Discussion Club
(December 7, 2011)
.
Umland, “The Stillborn Project of a Eurasian Union.”
Tatyana Valovaya, minister responsible for the main areas of integration and macroeconomics
of the Eurasian Economic Commission, reacting to the remark that “the idea of unifying
the countries of the CIS is often called the realization of the imperial ambitions
of our country’s leadership,” said: “In this space some ‘unity’ has always existed.”
She added: “The original six countries of the EEC were, in fact—precisely the empire
of Charlemagne.” Valovaya saw no problem in comparing the empire of Charlemagne, which
ended in 814—this is 1,200 years ago!—with the Russian Empire, which ended only twenty
years ago. (Cf. “Integratsiya obedinyaet vsekh: ot kommunistov do ‘Edinoy Rossii’
i pravykh,”
Izvestia
(July 20, 2012).)
Putin’s argument is repeated by Yevgeny Vinokurov, who wrote that “one should not
consider European and post-Soviet integration to be mutually exclusive. On the contrary,
the regionalism of the CIS is a step along the way toward integration with the European
Union.” (Y. Yu. Vinokurov, “Pragmaticheskoe evraziystvo,”
Rossiya v Globalnoy Politike
(April 30, 2013).)
Tropkina, Olga. “Yevgeny Primakov nazval usloviya dlya uspekha Evraziyskogo soyuza,”
Izvestia
(November 24, 2011).
Putin quoted by Maria Antonova, “State Lays Claim to Geography Society,”
The St. Petersburg Times
(November 20, 2009). The speech was held on November 18, 2009, when Putin became head
of the Society’s Board of Trustees. Putin’s sudden interest in Russia’s oldest organization
seemed less motivated by scientific than by geopolitical reasons. According to Antonova,
“Tsar Nicholas I created the Russian Geographical Society in 1845 as part of the imperial
drive for geographical expansion and exploration of the country’s natural resources.”
Gleb Bryanski, “Putin, Medvedev Praise Values of Soviet Union,”
Reuters
(November 17, 2011).
“Moscow Fleshes Out ‘Eurasian Union’ Plans,”
EurActiv
(November 17, 2011).
“Moscow Fleshes Out ‘Eurasian Union’ Plans.”
“Eurasian Union Proposal Key Aspect of Putin’s Expected Presidency,”
EurasiaNet.org
(October 7, 2011).
Tropkina, “Yevgeny Primakov nazval usloviya dlya uspekha Evraziyskogo soyuza.”
Prof. Sheng Shiliang, “Putin’s Eurasian Chess Match,”
Valdai Discussion Club
(October 31, 2011).
Katharina Hoffmann, “Eurasian Union: A New Name for an Old Integration Idea,”
Russian Analytical Digest
no. 112 (April 20, 2011).
Andrei Liakhovich, “The Reasons behind Putin’s Unprecedented Generosity Towards Lukashenka,”
Belarus Digest
(January 5, 2012).
Andrew Wilson wrote that Lukashenko “might find a new role with Putin by selling Belarus
as an exemplar in Russia-supported integration schemes such as the Eurasian Union.
Russia cannot allow Belarus as a member of the Eurasian Union to go bust because that
would seriously undermine the whole idea of Russian-sponsored integration projects.”
(Cf. “Andrew Wilson on His Belarus Book and Lukashenka’s Survival,”
Belarus Digest
(December 4, 2011).)
“Russia-Belarus Union State May Take Backseat if Eurasian Union Project Pans Out:
Lukashenko,”
RIA Novosti
(November 18, 2011).
Halbach, “Vladimir Putin’s Eurasian Union: A New Integration Project for the CIS Region?”
Tropkina, “Yevgeny Primakov nazval usloviya dlya uspekha Evraziyskogo soyuza.”
Halbach, “Vladimir Putin’s Eurasian Union: A New Integration Project for the CIS Region?”
On the influence of Carl Schmitt’s geopolitical
Grossraum
theory on Medvedev’s proposal, see my paper “Medvedev’s Proposal for a Pan-European
Security Pact: Its Six Hidden Objectives and How the West Should Respond.”
http://www.cicerofoundation.org/lectures/Marcel_H_Van_Herpen_Medvedevs_Proposal_for_a_Pan-European_Security_Pact.pdf
.
This part of the Kremlin’s hidden agenda is also emphasized by Marlène Laruelle, who
wrote: “Putin’s Eurasian Union project is aimed mainly at Central Asia, less at the
South Caucasus,
with the ultimate aim and supreme reward being the potential reintegration of Ukraine
into the Russian bosom
” (emphasis mine). (Cf. Marlène Laruelle, “When the ‘Near Abroad’ Looks at Russia:
the Eurasian Union Project as Seen from the Southern Republics,” 9.)
“Posol RF: Moldaviya i Tamozhennyy soyuz: vozvrat v proshloe ili proryv v budushchee?”
Regnum
(February 7, 2012).
Vladimir Socor, “Putin Suggests Transnistria Self-Determination, Rogozin Displays
Transnistria Flag,”
Eurasian Daily Monitor
9, no. 149 (August 16, 2012).
Socor, “Putin Suggests Transnistria Self-Determination.”
George Niculescu, “The Myths and Realities of Vladimir Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union,”
The European Geopolitical Forum
(January 8, 2013).