By losing control over Ukraine, Russia would cease being an empire, said the great foreign-political thinker Zbigniew Brzezinski who, in 1977–1981, acted as security adviser for the US president Jimmy Carter (the very idea referred to, in today’s story, by Postimees’ Moscow columnist Jüri Maloverjan).
In his article on Saturday (Ukraina Euroopa projekt PM AK November 23rd – European Project of Ukraine), Eerik-Niiles Kross quoted a similar idea by a certain Russian monarch, penned in 1911 (!) – all other regions are insignificant, but Ukraine shifting towards the West would undermine foundations of Russia as major power.
Authorities at Kremlin fear that, truly, this is the link between Russian Statehood and Ukraine; losing Ukraine would, at best, be followed by Russia’s slow decline. For us, such thinking might seem to border on insanity; even so, in politics, all is determined by current dominance of carriers of certain concepts.
Years ago, ambassador Sulev Kannike wrote pointedly in the journal Diplomaatia (Geograafia ja ideoloogia, Geography and Ideology): «In the Russian perception, Eurasia is not a continent, rather a bowl. In the middle, at the bottom of the bowl, there lies supine the Russian Bear; down the edges of the bowl, throughout history, a never-ending stream of enemies keeps sliding unto its belly. The Bear is waiving its paws, in its attempt to push the enemies back up. Nevertheless, the eternal power of ‘geographical gravity’ breeds fear that at a certain point the Bear may become exhausted. To be explained, geography and fear need no ideologies; these are perceived as facts of nature.»
The price of Kremlin’s geopolitical struggles – as, recently, evidenced by the «shiploads» of money poured into the occupied parts of Georgia – is getting on the nerves of the ordinariest of Muscovites. Far from certain if, should Kremlin even manage to gain complete control over Georgia as a transit corridor, Russia – to say nothing of her people – would gain anything at all economically. The Georgian corridor truly is important; even so, behind it there lies only a tiny share of global commodity trade. Even Ukraine, despite being big, may not be for Russia a place of economic gain – rather the opposite.
We don’t know what bait Mr Putin used, this time around, to get Mr Yanukovich hooked – or what were the threats he added to those that are known. Highly unlikely that, by his decision published on Thursday, Mr Yanukovich exchanged the interests of Ukrainian oligarchs for those of Russia; even so, he does play with the interests of the people of Ukraine.
As expressed by our Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, he is upset at the way European politicians seem to shrug this all off and just let Ukraine go (Postimees AK, November 23rd). We’re all disappointed. But let’s try thinking this: would we be willing to swallow EU diplomats mediating bribes to Ukrainian decision-makers while fully convinced the result-to-be was in the best interests of the people of Ukraine, plus peace and stability for Europe?