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Kremlin Burning Bridges With Every Neighbor

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  • Kremlin Burning Bridges With Every Neighbor

    KREMLIN BURNING BRIDGES WITH EVERY NEIGHBOR
    By Vladimir Ryzhkov

    The Moscow Times
    Aug 4 2009

    Russia's foreign policy failures are snowballing at such a rate
    that they threaten a second geopolitical collapse on a par with the
    disintegration of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.

    What makes this tragedy so comic is that our leaders are essentially
    running backward into the future and calling it progress. At the
    same time, they shake their fists and foam at the mouth as they rant
    about Russia's greatness, claim that it is "getting up from its knees"
    and endlessly repeat myths about its "new successes" and "historical
    initiatives." By running backward, Russia inevitably stumbles and
    falls, while its clumsy foreign policy initiatives become the laughing
    stock of the world.

    The Kremlin was not able to exploit its huge reserves that it
    accumulated after eight years of an oil boom by turning its economic
    power into political clout in the global arena. On the contrary,
    Russia's global standing has worsened across the board.

    Russia's leaders have managed to alienate even its strongest
    allies. The alliance with Belarus is crumbling before our eyes as
    Kremlin leaders attempt to punish Minsk for years of foot-dragging over
    the sale of Belarus' largest enterprises to Russia's inefficient and
    nontransparent monopolies, for delaying plans to introduce a unified
    currency and establish other political and economic institutions
    intended to strengthen ties between the two states. Russia reacted
    with "milk and meat wars," and Minsk responded in kind by refusing to
    attend a Collective Security Treaty Organization summit even while it
    was supposed to hold the rotating chairmanship of the organization
    -- an embarrassing, if not humiliating, snub to President Dmitry
    Medvedev. What's more, Belarus has joined the Eastern Partnership
    offered by the European Union and has actively diversified its
    foreign policy.

    Armenia, which is hemmed in on all sides by closed borders with
    Azerbaijan and Turkey, suffered greatly during the days of the
    Russia-Georgia war last August. This quickly drove Yerevan to
    intensify its dialogue with Turkey over prospects for opening their
    common border that has been closed for decades, and, like Belarus,
    to join the EU's Eastern Partnership.

    Russia has also burned bridges with Turkmenistan. Throughout the
    recent economic boom years, Turkmenistan pumped gas to Russia to
    compensate for its growing deficiency, thereby helping to save the
    reputation of Gazprom -- and thus Russia -- as a reliable supplier of
    gas to Europe. But Moscow's gas war with Kiev forced the EU to cut
    back sharply on purchases of Russian gas. This led to a drop in gas
    prices, and once that happened Moscow unceremoniously reneged on its
    contractual obligations to purchase gas from Turkmenistan. In early
    April, Russia shut the valve on the pipeline that imported Turkmen
    gas. This was the alleged cause of a major explosion in Turkmenistan --
    and a major explosion in Russian-Turkmen relations as well. The result
    is that Turkmenistan is now searching for more reliable commodity
    markets, has offered to join the Nabucco project as a gas supplier,
    is ready to discuss the Trans-Caspian pipeline project and has already
    given the Chinese access to its gas fields. A gas pipeline to China
    is also under construction.

    Moscow was entirely alone in its decision to recognize the independence
    of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Besides Nicaragua, not a single country
    followed Russia's example. Russia has even managed to sever ties with
    Georgia -- a country with a Russian Orthodox population that has always
    enjoyed warm relations with Moscow -- for the highly questionable goal
    of wanting to maintain two microscopic puppet-satellite states in one
    of the most explosive regions of the world. If the Kremlin's goals
    were to achieve international isolation and disdain and to increase the
    threat of a military conflict in the Caucasus, it was very successful.

    Russia's unnecessarily antagonistic actions toward Ukraine have
    turned the otherwise "brotherly relationship" into a hostile one. In
    the 1990s, when Ukraine also had trouble paying for its imports of
    Russian gas, the shortfall was simply added to its external debt, which
    it later paid back. Today, Moscow's actions have helped consolidate
    Ukrainian society around an anti-Russia platform, prompting Kiev to
    seek membership in the EU and NATO. It also pushed Ukraine toward
    formulating a new national idea that is based on a rejection of the
    historical fraternity between our two nations.

    The EU also drew its conclusions about Russia's unreliability after
    the latest battle in January of the endless succession of gas wars,
    which resulted in more than 20 European countries being left without
    heat in bitterly cold temperatures after Russia cut off gas shipments
    that had already been purchased. Consequently, the EU reduced its
    purchases of Russian gas, made headway on developing the Nabucco
    pipeline, including allocating increased funding for the project, and
    stepped up the development of projects to import gas from Africa and
    the Middle East. The EU also invited Ukraine to join an alliance for
    purchasing gas from countries other than Russia. Both South Stream
    and Nord Stream have experienced setbacks that may complicate the
    future development of these pipeline projects. In short, this is the
    lowest point in the 16 years of EU-Russian relations.

    Meanwhile, Russia's relationship with NATO is also becoming
    increasingly adversarial. Azerbaijan is distancing itself from
    Russia and aligning itself more with the West. Moscow gave financial
    aid to Kyrgyzstan to push Bishkek to close the U.S. military base
    at Manas. But in the end, the Americans were allowed to stay after
    they increased the rental payments and renamed the base as a "transit
    center." Despite U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Moscow for the
    July summit, no "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations has taken place. In
    fact, they remain unchanged, as is evidenced by Vice President Joe
    Biden's recent visits to Kiev and Tbilisi and by the sharp comments
    toward Russian that he made in his interview with The Wall Street
    Journal a week ago.

    Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's attempt to restore Russia's influence
    over the former Soviet republics has failed miserably. Moscow's
    standing in the region is weaker now than it was even eight years
    ago, when Putin took over the presidency from Boris Yeltsin. This
    is a direct result of Putin's failed policies during his two terms
    as president -- the inability to modernize the economy, the systemic
    destruction of the country's democracy, the sharp rise in corruption
    and the increase in the monopoly control of key industries under
    his state capitalism model. If you add to all of this a countless
    string of inept foreign policy disasters, it is easy to understand why
    Russia's neighbors have turned their backs on Moscow and are looking
    to Western military, economic and political institutions for support
    and cooperation.

    Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a
    political talk show on Ekho Moskvy.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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