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

Putin’s initial goal was to have all post-Soviet states join the EEU. Ukraine was the most important prospective member, given its size and economic interdependence with Russia. Hence the pressure put on Yanukovych not to sign the agreement with the EU. Both the EEU and EU demand a single external tariff, so it was impossible to belong to both. But Poroshenko signed the EU agreement, as did Georgia and Moldova. Armenia also planned to sign the EU agreement, but after considerable pressure from Moscow in 2013, culminating in a “heart-to-heart” conversation with Putin, the Armenian president changed his mind and Armenia agreed to join the EEU. Given its security dependence on Russia because of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, it had no choice. But this is hardly an organization of equals, since Russia represents 86 percent of the GDP of the EEU, with Kazakhstan coming next at 10 percent, Belarus at 3.5 percent, and Armenia and Kyrgyzstan at less than 1 percent together. This means the other members are heavily dependent on the health of the Russian economy. 61Moreover, the EEU countries make up only 6.6 percent of Russia’s international trade (the figure for the EU is 49 percent).

Each member has its own agenda in the EEU. Belarus’s energy dependence on Russia is its paramount concern, as are its agricultural exports to Russia. Lukashenko has ceded elements of Belarusian sovereignty to Russia in exchange for favorable energy prices, arguing, “sovereignty is not an icon one needs to pray before.” 62For Kyrgyzstan, migration is the paramount issue. The country has one of the highest rates of reliance on labor migration and remittances in the world. As much as 30 percent of its GDP has come from remittances sent by its citizens working in Russia. The EEU guarantees preferential visa treatment for migrants from member states, which Kyrgyzstan needs. For Kazakhstan, the agenda is different. It sees the EEU as a way to contain Russia within a rules-based organization. 63

For all its ambitious aspirations, the EEU has struggled from the beginning. It came into existence in January 2015, an inauspicious time for the Russian economy, following the Ukraine crisis, Western sanctions, a precipitous drop in oil prices, and the devaluation of the ruble after a December currency crisis. The Russian economy was hit hard, and since all the EEU members are dependent on the health of the Russian economy, the contagion effect was immediate. Kazakhstan found that cheap Russian goods were flooding its market, and it had to devalue its currency. In Kyrgyzstan, there was a 45 percent drop in remittances from Russia. Trade inside the EEU fell by 26 percent in 2015. Russia’s economic recovery in 2017 and 2018 and rising oil prices may eventually create more favorable conditions for the other EEU members, but so far Putin’s goal of creating a vibrant economic bloc that will serve as a separate pole of the new world order seems some way off.

The creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1991 was intended as a “civilized divorce,” a way for Russia and the former Soviet republics to go their separate ways and avoid the turmoil and bloodshed engulfing a disintegrating Yugoslavia. With the exception of the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan and within Georgia, the USSR’s breakup was nonviolent. But the Soviet divorce remains a work in progress. Nor has it been entirely civilized. With the exception of the Baltic states, it has proven very difficult for the post-Soviet countries to emerge from centuries of Russian imperial rule and seventy years of Soviet control with full independence and sovereignty. Russia continues to dominate its near abroad and retains considerable economic, military, and political leverage over most of its neighbors, in part because none of them has succeeded in constructing the institutions of modern governance and political resilience that would make them less vulnerable to Russian pressure. Twenty-five years is a short time span in the history of centuries of Russian dominance and the divorce will take much longer to be finalized. Meanwhile, most of Russia’s neighbors, including those with whom Russia has alliances, continue to regard it warily, understanding their ongoing dependence on Moscow but determined to limit its ability to interfere in their internal politics or to dictate their external relationships. Nevertheless, the prevalence and sophistication of Russian-language electronic media in the post-Soviet space ensures that the Kremlin’s version of reality will continue to influence the ruling elites.

Putin has accepted that the USSR cannot be resurrected, but he is determined to create Eurasian integrative structures that will bind the post-Soviet states and form the nucleus of a post-West order. These organizations will also support the larger objective of restoring Russia as a great power with a seat at the table on all important international decisions. Ukraine and Georgia may at present be lost causes, but their internal weaknesses may yet provide opportunities for Russian influence. Russian soft power—particularly through language, culture, and media—continues to bind the citizens of the post-Soviet space.

In June 2017, Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition politician who constantly criticizes Putin but also appeals to Russian nationalists, remarked on a TV show, “Yes, it goes without saying that nobody in Uzbekistan knows who Pushkin is.” The response on Facebook was instantaneous. Uzbek adults explained that Tashkent has a monument to the Russian poet, has streets named after him, and Uzbeks study all of Russia’s great poets. Young Uzbek children posted endearing videos of themselves reciting Pushkin verses. One man chided Navalny, telling him he really does not know anything about Uzbekistan and should visit the country. 64In short, the power and attraction of Russian culture should not be minimized.

Russia’s influence is greatest in Central Asia, with the exception of Turkmenistan, which exists largely in its own orbit. Faced with China’s ever-expanding economic presence, Central Asian countries look to Moscow to balance Beijing. But, as the Kazakh case shows, they also assiduously guard their domestic autonomy, seeking to limit Russia’s ability to interfere in their succession processes. The next test will come in Kazakhstan, when Nazarbayev departs the political stage, but as in most post-Soviet countries, the succession process is opaque. Russia’s relations with Belarus are close but sometimes adversarial, and Putin has at times indicated his exasperation with the mercurial Lukashenko. Moreover, the Kremlin’s preference for grand framework agreements, such as the EEU, should not be confused with sustainable and effective integration mechanisms in a time of economic stringency in the post-Soviet space. But the ongoing frozen conflicts will continue to provide Russia with opportunities to influence Eurasian outcomes until the Kremlin decides it is in its interest to have them resolved.

After 1991, the mantra in the West was that it was crucial to support the independence of the post-Soviet states and disabuse Russia of the notion that it had a sphere of interest there. More than twenty-five years later, there are serious questions about how realistic this is. Neither the United States nor Europe is prepared to become involved in this part of the world to an extent that would seriously challenge Russia’s predominant role as has been clear in Ukraine. Eurasia represents an intermittent, as opposed to a core, interest for the West. Indeed, as the war in Afghanistan winds down, the US is withdrawing from Central Asia and leaving it to China and Russia to work out their modus vivendi. The EU has grown weary of its attempts to promote reform in Belarus. It will continue to engage Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine and encourage them to implement their Association Agreements, but it will not offer them a membership perspective. And while the EU and NATO will continue to rebuff Russian attempts to secure formal agreements with the EEU and CSTO, they will periodically rethink how to engage these organizations in a more limited way. The West is not ready to recognize a Russian sphere of influence in the near abroad, but there are limits to which it will go to challenge Russia’s interests in the region.