Анджела Стент - Putin's World - Russia Against the West and with the Rest

However, even as political relations were strained, economic ties between Central Europe and Russia grew, especially in the energy field. Bilateral intergovernmental commissions for economic cooperation were reestablished between Russia and these countries after their accession to the EU, and trade expanded by a factor of four. Energy supplies continued to dominate Russian exports to Eastern Europe, and these countries developed a trade deficit with Russia. This “economization” of relations led to a slow improvement of ties before the annexation of Crimea. 27

Of course, informal ties between Russia and East-Central Europe had continued after the collapse of communism through networks that outlasted the USSR. Ties between different business groups continued, as did ties between former members of the intelligence services. 28

Even before the annexation of Crimea, there were signs that some governments—particularly that of Hungary’s Victor Orban—were growing more pro-Moscow as they became more authoritarian domestically. Orban, to the dismay of the EU, began to limit press and judicial freedom and to criticize EU “imperialism” when Brussels censured him. Vaclav Klaus, Czech president from 2003 to 2013, called the EU a greater threat to freedom than the Soviet Union had been and praised Vladimir Putin as a strong leader. Sitting next to Putin in 2015, he warned of the dangers of “political correctness” and “multiculturalism” eroding Western freedoms, echoing what Putin himself had said. 29His successor, Milos Zeman, was the only Western leader to attend the 2015 Red Square commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War Two. Indeed, after the poisoning of the Skripals on British soil in 2018, Zeman was the only EU leader to question whether Russia was responsible. But on the other side is another illiberal democracy: Poland. Since the PiS (Law and Justice) government guided by Jaroslaw Kaczynski came to power, Poland remains decidedly anti-Russian and has accused the Kremlin of culpability in the 2010 plane crash over Smolensk that killed former Polish president Lech Kaczynski, Jaroslaw’s twin brother. PiS’s domestic crackdown—including limiting judicial independence, seeking to muzzle the press, and criminalizing the interpretation of history that would suggest any Polish culpability in the Holocaust—has been criticized by fellow EU members.

Why have Central European countries seemingly changed their attitude toward Russia and sought to have Western sanctions lifted? Their behavior can be explained less by their fading memories of the communist period than by their experiences since 1990 and their newly discovered sense of national identity. 30They are much more closely tied economically to Russia than are other EU members, and therefore they have paid far higher costs for the sanctions than has Western Europe. They also believe the EU has not accepted them as fully equal partners, and they resent the loss of sovereignty to Brussels. For instance, Bulgaria’s post-communist experience has been more difficult than that of other countries, and it sees Turkish hegemony and religious fundamentalism among its Turkish population (the largest minority group in Bulgaria) as more of a threat than potential Russian aggression. Bulgarians also share much of Russia’s resentment against the West and feel that the EU has treated them as second-class citizens. Moreover, given what has happened in Ukraine, the newer members of NATO question how committed the West would be to defending them from Russian aggression.

Recently, Russia has begun to pursue a more active and destabilizing policy in the Western Balkans, hoping to preempt these countries from moving closer toward Euro-Atlantic structures. 31There was evidence in 2016 that a group of local nationalists and Russians tied to the GRU attempted a coup in Montenegro as it was poised to join NATO, going as far as to seek to assassinate the prime minister the day before an election. 32The coup failed and Montenegro joined NATO. Russian-Serbian relations have grown closer, and the Serbian leadership believes it should not have to choose between the EU and Russia. And as the fragile federal state of Bosnia-Herzegovina struggles to hold together, Russia is supporting the Republika Srpska—one of its two constituent republics—as it seeks to leave the federation. 33The EU and the US have paid far less attention to the Western Balkans in the past decade, and Russia has moved in to fill the vacuum, citing its historic, cultural, and religious ties with the region. For Southeastern Europe, closer ties to Russia are a useful means of balancing ties with the European Union and the United States, and they bring the added benefit of Russian money and oil and gas.

This complex mosaic means that Rumsfeld’s famous differentiation between good “new” Europe and bad “old” Europe no longer holds, if it indeed ever did. Moscow can count on a divided EU finding it increasingly difficult to agree on how to approach Russia, with Germany now pursuing a far tougher stance than Hungary or Slovakia. This reinforces the Kremlin’s belief in the importance of pursuing bilateral ties with key European states, seeking to benefit from intra-EU tensions.

France

Although Germany has become Russia’s most important European partner in the post-Soviet era, Franco-Russian ties also play an important role for Moscow. Unlike the complex German-Russian history of both cooperation and enmity, France’s relations with Russia have, since the signing of the 1892 Franco-Russian Alliance, been more cooperative, with the exception of the early Bolshevik period. And the mutual cultural attraction has been enduring. Franco-Russian relations have always had a pragmatic, instrumental, and sometimes cynical quality to them. After all, the last time France invaded Russia was in 1812, and since Napoleon’s defeat, France and Russia have been on the same side in most European wars, with the exception of the 1853–1856 Crimean War. Moscow’s modern courtship of France goes back to the days of General Charles de Gaulle. He called for Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals,” signaling that he believed the Western part of Russia was indeed part of Europe. He sought improved ties with Moscow as he distanced France from the United States, withdrew from the integrated military part of NATO, and offered the Kremlin “détente, entente, and cooperation.” His 1966 visit to the USSR was the first official trip by a Western head of state to the USSR, and it marked the end of Western isolation of the Soviet Union, increasing its international prestige. 34The Kremlin’s relations with his successors fluctuated, but France’s fundamental commitment to Gaullist principles—irrespective of which party was in power—sustained close ties.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has continued to cultivate relations with France to play Berlin against Paris as well as Paris against Washington. In 2003, both French president Jacques Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder wooed Putin to join their “coalition of the unwilling” against George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Chirac literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin when he arrived in Paris just before the war began and went to the airport to meet him. This was the high point of Franco-Russian cooperation, but the trio of opponents was unwilling or unable to parlay their anti-US stance into a more permanent partnership once the war was over, and their cooperation soon fell apart.

When Nicolas Sarkozy became president in 2007, he waxed enthusiastic about the United States—in contrast to his predecessor—and was known as “Sarko, l’Americain ” (Sarko, the American). But as his presidency wore on, he developed a relationship and fascination with Vladimir Putin. During the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, it fell to him as the head of the EU’s rotating presidency to negotiate an end to the hostilities. When he arrived in Moscow, his interlocutor was the new Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, but it soon became clear that there was only one negotiator: the then prime minister Putin. Sarkozy’s negotiations have been criticized, including assertions that the French team arrived in Moscow without an appropriate map of the area whose future they were negotiating. However, as a result of these talks, a cease-fire was put in place and the war ended. 35