Russia’s Enhanced role in Eurasia: the ‘near abroad’ three decades on*

ABSTRACT

Russian policy has become much more hostile to the West in the last decade. Did the West, much as President Putin has charged, attempt to constrain or contain Russian influence in its ‘near abroad,' and, if so, were they successful in their efforts? It was Moscow’s decision to pursue its own path, by not integrating into the West, that put it at odds with the West.

Besides its military intervention in Georgia, by fall 2008 Russia had successfully warded off most Western attempts to tie several post-Soviet states more closely to the West. With the collapse of the pro-Russian Yanukovych government in Ukraine six years later and the Russian military intervention in Crimea and its incorporation into the Russian Federation, and the establishment of Russian protectorates in the secessionist regions of eastern Ukraine and has led to its current invasion of Ukraine.

It is extremely important to recognize the role of Moscow's view of Russia in relationship to the rest of the world since this almost messianic perception lies at the heart of foreign relations. Russians' current nationalism and self-image as a great power is built on centuries of such a view and implies Russia's dominant role, at least in its own neighborhood.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia and the West
• Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Russia and Collective Security Treaty
• Russia and Eurasian Economic Union
• Russia and the ‘Near Abroad’

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Stephen F. Cohen (2000) presents a similar argument, when he notes that throughout the 1900s the United States pursued a confrontational approach toward Russia aimed at taking advantage of its weakness. The result – in his view, and mine – was counterproductive. The policy contributed to Russia’s growing hostility toward and current confrontation with the West – although, no doubt, it did not cause that hostility. Cohen continues to voice his concern about Russia-bashing in the U.S. media and its impact on U.S.-Russian relations, but more recently has almost gone to the point of excusing Mr. Putin for his many heinous acts (Cohen, 2014). For a similar assessment based on a different set of theoretical assumptions see Mearsheimer (2014) who asserts that the West, more than Russia, is the cause of the Ukraine crisis (Mearsheimer, 2014). In my view, Mearsheimer goes much further than the evidence warrants, however, in virtually whitewashing the policies of Russian president Putin. For a similar position see Chatham House (2021).

2 This article is based partially on and responds to the author’s ‘The Failed Western Challenge to Russia’s Revival in Eurasia,’ published in 2015 (Kanet, 2015) which drew upon a paper presented at the Workshop ‘Actors, Processes and Architecture in the Contemporary Eurasian Order: Political, Economic and Security Challenges,’ at the annual conference of the International Studies Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 25 March 2014. The author wishes to express his sincere appreciation for critical comments provided by Andrei Tsygankov and by Bertil Nygren, as well as by the other participants in the workshop. This article also relates to other recent publications of the author (Kanet, 2018a, 2018b; Loftus & Kanet, 2017, 2019).

3 For an assessment of negative analyses of Russian foreign policy by U.S.-based writers who come across as anti-Russian see Tsygankov et al. (2021). See Tsygankov (2020), also, for an assessment of Russia’s policy as, to a substantial degree, a reaction to the weakening of the U.S. role in world affairs.

4 In contrast to other countries in Central Asia, America lacks leverage over Uzbekistan’s civil society and media space since NGOs sponsored by the country are not active there. ‘In other words, US influence there is limited to contacts at the official level, with well-known American non-governmental organisations unable to open up affiliates in Uzbekistan.’ (Izimov, n.d.). For an assessment of the U.S. position in Central Asia as U.S. military withdrawal from Asia neared, see Going, going . . . (2013).

5 Until recently Moscow prevented a strong, competitive oil pipeline supported by Washington and Ankara and the EU from beginning since the 1990s, the Trans-Caspian Pipeline (TCP), intended to deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan. The Kremlin has used both spurious environmental and legal arguments and brutal intimidation of Turkmenistan’s leaders to oppose TPC (Hajiyev & Cutler, 2021).

6 For discussions of the influence of ethnic and national identities in Soviet successor states see Kanet (2007) and Marsh (2007).

7 See Kirillova (2020) for a more detailed discussion of Russian influence in Central Asia; for U.S. policy see Kanet (2015). We shall discuss later the place of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in Russia’s relations with neighboring states.

8 Some analysts suggest that individual EAUE governments ‘were not consulted’ on the BRI’s and EAEU’s coordination (Peyrouse, 2016, p. 99). ‘Although the project implied the involvement of six countries, that is China and the EAEU states, it was Russia’s president and not the Eurasian Economic Commission’s chairman who signed the document on behalf of the EAEU and presented it to the public, pointing to the strongly Russian-dominated character of the EAEU’ (Shakhanova & Garlick, 2020). Note China’s ‘total support for Russia in the latter;s confrontation with the West over Ukraine.

9 See the discussion of Russian policy in the Greater Caucasus region by Kanet (2010).

10 East Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia (Enlargement of NATO, n.d.).

11 Relevant to, but also quite different in detail from what we find in our examination of Russian relations with former partner republics in the USSR is the relationship of Russia with former Soviet-dominated Central European communist countries, some of which have formally joined NATO and/or the EU, despite their backsliding into renewed authoritarianism as is true of both Poland and Hungary. The rapid movement by both the European Union and NATO to admit a number of these states has been seen in Moscow as a major challenge to Russia’s interests and they have become a target of Russia’s intelligence operations (Nattrass, 2021; Walcott & Strobel, 2016). Overall, Russia’s relations with these countries parallel those with other former Soviet states in Eastern-Central Europe – with less implied direct military pressure.