----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: crl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2001 9:51 AM Subject: [CrashList] Russia: Good neighbour or great power? Charles Clover assesses an increasingly assertive Russia's intentions towards its putative 'zone of influence' Published: January 22 2001 20:39GMT | Last Updated: January 22 2001 20:57GMT A marked change in Russia's relations with other former Soviet states over the past few months has left diplomats, analysts, and above all, Russia's neighbours wondering how far President Vladimir Putin plans to take an increasingly assertive foreign policy. This month Russian companies temporarily cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine and Georgia to force payment of debts, signs of an increasingly harder Russian line on this chronic issue. And last week, Russia and Ukraine signed a defence co-operation agreement drastically increasing the integration of their respective militaries, and putting Ukraine's previously close co-operation with Nato into question. That comes on the heels of a year in which Russia halted plans to withdraw its military from Moldova and Georgia, imposed a visa regime on Georgia and speeded up the process of unifying with Belarus. It also created a collective security organisation known as "Eurasian Nato" with several central Asian states, and declared the Caspian Sea and its oil resources "of strategic interest". For some analysts - including former high-ranking Russian diplomats - this amounts to a declaration of a new sphere of influence, which goes back to 19th century great power politics. Others say Moscow is only practising an updated version of Washington's "Good Neighbour" policy which promoted US corporate expansion into Latin America in the 1930s. Mr Putin was characteristically vague about Russia's intentions in a statement on foreign policy made just before the new year. He said: "We must get rid of imperial ambitions on the one hand, but on the other clearly understand where our national interests are, to spell them out and fight for them." Stephen Sestanovich, the US state department's special representative to the Newly Independent States, said: "I think any American administration would welcome the first part of (Mr Putin's) statement, and ask what the second part means. "I think it's fair to say that over the past year there has been a strong concern about whether a new definition of Russian national interests and new approach to defending them is taking hold," he said. Perhaps the clearest expression of Moscow's new line in the former Soviet Union came at a meeting in November of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Yevgeny Gusarov, Russian deputy foreign minister, made it clear that Russia was now opposed to western interference in the affairs of the former Soviet republics. "We have been warning our western partners that we oppose the use of the OSCE for interference in the internal affairs of the countries situated to the east of Vienna. This time we are sending a clear signal: we won't allow this to happen," said Mr Gusarov. His remarks were part of a broader message that the OSCE should not confine itself to focusing on the post-Soviet region but should instead have a broader mandate. Observers of the meeting said though, that Mr Gusarov made clear Russia was rethinking plans to withdraw its military from Georgia, though it closed two bases there on schedule at the end of last year. Western defence analysts say Russia is also in breach of commitments to withdraw its military from Moldova by 2002, though Russian officials dispute this. Andrei Federov, former first deputy foreign minister and now director of political projects at the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, an influential Moscow think-tank, said: "Today we are speaking more or less openly now about our zone of interests. In one way or another we are confirming that the post-Soviet territory is such a zone. "In Yeltsin's time we were trying to wrap this in a nice paper. Now we are saying it more directly: this is our territory, our sphere of interest," he said. Officials in Ukraine, the largest and most powerful of the post-Soviet states after Russia, have noticed a decisive change in the Kremlin's attitude, though senior Ukrainian officials are reluctant to discuss their private impressions of the new Russian line on the record. Recently, Russia has been taking an unprecedented hard line on the issue of Ukraine's chronic energy debts, trying to turn it into leverage in Ukraine's privatisation programme. For instance, Viktor Sorokin, head of the Ukraine department at Russia's ministry of foreign affairs, said that Russia was seeking to convert a $2.2bn gas debt into bonds which could convert into shares in Ukrainian state enterprises. Russia is especially interested in gaining control of Ukraine's gas pipeline system, which transports Russian gas exports to Europe. On the defence front, the agreement Ukraine signed last week with Russia, which appears to give Russia a hand in planning any foreign military exercises on Ukrainian soil, undercuts Ukrainian military co-operation agreements with Nato signed in 1997 and 1998. Ukraine and Russia will also form a joint naval unit, and expand weapons production. With Ukraine shut out of membership of the European Union in the foreseeable future, many local analysts are saying that turning towards Russia is the only rational choice, as Ukraine's economy remains deeply dependent on trade. Last October, Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine's president, sought to allay any fears that a Ukraine-Russia partnership would be the basis for a rebuilding of the Soviet Union: "We should not be afraid of Russia, that they are trying to recreate their empire." FT.com _______________________________________________ Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
