Russia and its backyard / 2: Ukrainian obsession and the undeclared annexation of Belarus
The first episode: Russia and its courtyard / 1: the encirclement syndrome and four areas of crisis
In the first decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia went through a phase of disengagement , especially due to internal problems linked to the post-communist transition. Gradually she returned to the international scene, first with caution, seeking good relations with the West, then in an increasingly assertive manner, according to some experts, feeling betrayed in her initial expectations. Even without embracing this thesis at all costs, we can still identify some fundamental steps in this transformation: the Security Conference held in Munich in 2007 (with Putin's famous speech on the no longer unipolar world), the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 (where the membership aspirations of Georgia and Ukraine were clearly revealed), the failed reset with the United States of Obama in 2009 and the Ukrainian crisis of 2014, which definitively broke the bridges with the western shore. To put it graphically, the encirclement syndrome has progressively blown up Russia's geopolitics.
Leaving aside the historical and sentimental reasons (Russia of Kiev, baptism of Vladimir), we can certainly say that the importance of Ukraine for Russia lies in the fact that it constitutes the main defensive barrier that separates it from the West. Putin, the great architect of the Russian redemption, paradoxically risks going down in history as the president who lost Ukraine, that is, the first line of defense of his country. Putin had a clear strategy, to keep Ukraine in his sphere of influence, but he did not connect the dots badly, in fact pushing much of the neighboring nation towards the " enemy ", even more than it was already naturally attracted to it. The original sin of this immense (for Russia) political problem was the insistence on keeping Yanukovych in power at all costs in the days of the Euromaidan : a mistake that turned out to be catastrophic. Starting from that decision it was a succession of missteps with which Putin substantially confirmed to the non-pro-Russian Ukrainians, those of the Maidan but not only, those of the urban nuclei of the center and the west of the country, the middle class that looks to the European Union, the ruling class that needs the driving force of economic development and institutional stability, which Russia cannot be trusted, today as in the past.
Of course, Russia will be left with Crimea, but it is an annexation that is likely to cost really dearly, and the Donbass is not enough to compensate for the substantial loss of a key neighboring country. The reconquest of Crimea supposes a much greater backlash in terms of legitimacy and global respect and Russia has been paying a very high cost since 2014. The same can be said about the pro-Russian enclaves in Georgia and Moldova, where the insistence on preserving similar territorial appendages has in fact contributed to alienating the rest of the population of the respective republics.
But the essential fact from Moscow's point of view is that, without Ukraine, Russia as a sovereign nation as we know it today cannot exist, considering the possibility of a NATO and therefore American military presence at the doorstep. While Europe and the United States are wondering whether and to what extent it is worth defending Ukraine's independence and security, Russia has no doubts about the relevance of what it has historically always considered a mere available territory, an extension of its own. living space, even devoid of an autonomous state personality. The idea, cherished by some sectors of American politics, that Ukraine can be sacrificed in the name of disengagement or even appeasement with Moscow represents not only, in my opinion, a moral bankruptcy (from a realist point of view this this aspect could appear to be of secondary importance), but above all it opens the way to a sensational strategic failure, capable of compromising the very stability of the European space that we intend to achieve.
First of all, consider that the annexation of Crimea by Russia means not losing an outpost on the Black Sea, and above all on the very coveted north coast of the same basin. The Black Sea has become a leading strategic point in their respective containment tactics, as also demonstrated by a recent exercise under Romanian command in which an American cruiser and destroyer participated, as well as US warships that were approaching the area. in recent days, before turning back after the Biden-Putin phone call.
The growing importance of that basin is also linked to the ambivalent Western (read American) attitude towards Turkey, a NATO member whose assertiveness worries Washington but which at the same time can be used in an anti-Russian function. Also because, according to recent reports , Russia is turning Crimea into a huge military base, with the deployment of missile warheads and tactical nuclear weapons. Hence the renewed American interest in the Black Sea which could be further strengthened by the creation of the Istanbul Kanal , an alternative to the Bosphorus, whose existence would mean the possibility for NATO military ships to stay longer than the twenty-one days provided for by the Montreux Convention ( 1936), which first gave the Soviet Union and then Russia the de facto monopoly of that maritime space.
That Moscow feels pressure from both the west and the south (Ankara reiterated its support for Kiev a few days ago) is demonstrated by the closure of the Kerch Strait, between the Black and Azov seas, which isolates the last part of coastline still controlled by Ukraine. One of the naval bases that Zelensky is planning to build should overlook that stretch of coast (Mariupol).
The strategic advantage that the incorporation of Crimea guarantees to Russia is also fundamental to ensure the link with the Russian contingent in Syria. From this perspective, Ukraine is not only a key country for stability in Europe but above all for Middle Eastern security, where Russia is taking on a leading role thanks to the possibility of extending its influence on the southern side, beyond the Black Sea. , towards the eastern Mediterranean and, in fact, the Middle East (see Jakub Grygiel, already treated in Atlantico Quotidiano ).
Here then is that Ukraine, from the front line of defense, would instead become a springboard for something else. But what in concrete? According to the most critical school of thought towards Russian politics, the annexation of Crimea and the political and military support for the separatist groups in the Donbass would be only preliminary steps to get to Kiev and place itself at the center of Western geopolitics. A Trojan horse without which Russia would remain an Asian power in the shadow of Beijing, squeezed between democracy and authoritarianism and without an internationally defined role. This offensive vision of Russian foreign policy is instead radically contested by Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center , who believes that Russian incursions into neighboring countries were dictated only by exceptional circumstances and do not respond to a long-term strategy, prepared to table, nor to an expansionist plan. Finally, there are those who consider that at this moment relations between Russia and Ukraine are in a certain sense normalizing, two neighboring countries with an open conflict but no longer an existential question for Moscow. Given also the recent events on the Russian-Ukrainian border, personally it seems more realistic to think of a situation in which defensive intentions (the perception of the encirclement I mentioned earlier) are combined with offensive tactics (the incursions into near abroad) : a mixture that is difficult for non-Russians to interpret and which certainly does not favor the rapprochement with the West.
Donbass is becoming a thorn in Putin's side. What was supposed to be a proxy blitzkrieg has turned into a military and diplomatic quagmire that is difficult to solve for both sides. Russia does not have the resources to end the war in its favor, but it certainly has the resources to keep the conflict alive for a long time, and perhaps this is precisely the objective of the recent spike in tension. Zelensky was elected to put an end to the war and his initial moves indicated a clear predisposition to do so: he was the first to order the withdrawal of troops from strategic positions on the front and to lower the tone of war rhetoric. After two years, his attitude has also changed, partly due to internal nationalist pressures but above all due to the impossibility of opening a constructive dialogue with Moscow, which has responded to its initial openings by securing the Minsk agreements and distributing Russian passports to the population of the rebel republics, effectively making them a protectorate.
Against the background of this certainly intricate scenario, in which the respective responsibilities are confused and overlapped according to the point of observation, the mutual accusations of mobilization of troops, the Crimean water crisis and the strange war of spies and expulsions stand out. diplomats in progress in Europe (between Italy, the Czech Republic, Russia and Belarus), as well as the implications still to be deciphered of the Navalny affair, whose geopolitical projection is undeniable. But above all there is the unsolved trauma of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which is still today the engine of the Kremlin's foreign policy: Russia, it could be concluded, is today a power (some would say regional) with the ambitions of a superpower and means. unsuitable for the purpose. And, at the bottom of the well, the Ukrainians and their aspirations.
The undeclared annexation of Belarus – While not of the same strategic importance (although it participates in both Moscow-sponsored international organizations, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union ), Belarus is a case for certain analogous verses even if not completely assimilable, starting from the premise that the cultural ties between Belarusians and Russians are much closer than in the Ukrainian case. So much so that the demonstrators who have been suffering from Lukashenko's repression for months have been very careful not to directly challenge Moscow, which in fact ensures political protection, funding and logistical support to the Minsk regime. Putin seemed at first overcome by events, surprised, yet the signs of a rise in tension were all there and Lukashenko has never proved himself the most reliable ally: let's think of Pompeo's trip to Minsk in February 2020, when Lukashenko seemed so sure of himself that he could almost play on a double front, Moscow and Washington, even if he was dependent on Russian energy supplies.
Then, in truth, Putin showed that he had learned at least part of the lesson, avoiding the Ukrainian solution, that is, sending troops, and relying instead on a more subtle but in fact even deeper form of influence. Although there is a lot of talk about a possible formal union between the two states, which is not destined to come true, we would do better to shift attention to a sort of undeclared annexation that Russia has been carrying out for months towards its neighbor, with the consent tacit of the latter. First of all, we have the recent founding of the pro-Russian Soyuz party , perhaps only the first of a series of political formations destined to constitute a pro-Moscow front in the elections that will sooner or later take place over Lukashenko's political corpse. But not only. The two economies are in a phase of ever closer integration, as evidenced by the acquisition campaign of some important Belarusian companies in the chemical and manufacturing sector by industrial groups close to the Kremlin. And, above all, the fact that Minsk eventually succumbed to the Russian request to export products derived from oil refining and an important share of fertilizers through the port of Ust-Luga, in the St. Petersburg oblast , instead of via Latvia and Lithuania.
On the military level, joint exercises are increasingly frequent (a macro one is planned in September, with a focus on " hybrid warfare "), also to put pressure on Kiev, as emerged in recent weeks, when the Minsk army carried out a series of tactical movements within its territory in conjunction with the movements of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine. But there is also a strategic partnership signed at the beginning of March by the respective defense ministries, which allows Moscow to install air bases on the Belarusian territory and facilitates the dispatch of contingents.
It should be borne in mind that Belarus is not only a buffer state but also a key territory for the connection between Russia and the Kaliningrad enclave . If Minsk entered western orbit, Kaliningrad would remain politically isolated and the military threat to the Baltic countries would be drastically reduced. Even if the geopolitical weight of Belarus and Ukraine is nowhere near comparable, it is evident that Moscow is trying to make the Lukashenko regime acceptable inside, so as not to lose control of the country during the transition period towards the new order. institutional. For now, these are announced reforms, more cosmetic than anything else ( primarily the constitutional one, with still undefined outlines), but it is clear to everyone that the Kremlin is preparing the succession to the current strongman, who this week denounced a international plot to assassinate him hatched by the CIA and the FBI.
The post Russia and its courtyard / 2: Ukraine obsession and the undeclared annexation of Belarus appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/la-russia-e-il-suo-cortile-2-lossessione-ucraina-e-lannessione-non-dichiarata-della-bielorussia/ on Fri, 23 Apr 2021 03:53:00 +0000.