Читать онлайн "Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism" - Herpen Marcel H. Van - RuLit

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.