Russia courts old allies, steps up defiance of the West

President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that Russia is 'a nation to be reckoned with.'

from the September 8, 2008 edition

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Ukraine, a nation deeply divided between pro-Western and Russified parts that is currently sliding into a renewed political crisis, could face intense Russian pressure if it presses on with its bid for NATO membership. "In many Western countries there are already protests against this crazy idea of getting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO," says Mr. Klimov. "It's a formula for crisis inside NATO."

Narochnitskaya, like many other Russian experts, insists that Moscow probably wouldn't attempt to break up or annex Ukraine if it declared neutrality and became a kind of buffer state between East and West, akin to Finland's unique status during the cold war. They insist that Moscow's objection is to Ukraine joining a military alliance, and not to its economic or political cooperation with the West in general. "The majority of Ukrainians identify themselves as an independent Slavic nation," Narochnitskaya says. "But they don't need to build their national identity on hostility to Russia."

Moscow has been putting out feelers to former Soviet allies, such as Syria and Cuba, as well as emerging partners like Venezuela. A Russian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin visited Havana in early July to explore rebuilding Soviet-era economic and security ties. Medvedev discussed sophisticated arms sales and the possibility of the Russian Navy using former Soviet port facilities at Tartus, on the Mediterranean, when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Moscow in late August. The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed "deep satisfaction" last week when another old Soviet crony, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, became the first foreign leader to extend diplomatic recognition to South Ossetia and the other breakaway Georgian territory, Abkhazia.

New contacts a warning to the US

But any talk of reviving the USSR's alliance system may be deliberate disinformation intended to remind Washington of its own regional sensitivities. "Russia doesn't have any resources [to match the US around the world], and no desire to do so anymore," says Mikhail Delyagin, director of the independent Institute of Globalization Problems in Moscow.

But even in its own backyard, Moscow is finding its tough new stance a hard sell. On Friday, at a summit of the Moscow-led, seven-member Collective Security Treaty Organization (which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), Medvedev won backing for Russia's crushing military rebuff of Georgia's attempt to retake South Ossetia, but found not one ally willing to follow Moscow's lead in establishing diplomatic ties with the tiny pro-Moscow enclave.

Experts say Medvedev has received an even cooler response from Russia's traditional Asian friends, China and India. Both nations generously supported Moscow's decade-long effort to suppress its own separatist challenge in Chechnya and backed its angry opposition to Western recognition of Kosovo's self-declared independence earlier this year. At a summit of the influential Shanghai Cooperation Organization last week, where China is a leading member and India an observer, participants would only agree to a tepid statement that expressed "support [for] Russia's active role in facilitating peace and cooperation" in the Caucasus region.

But being a neighbor of Russia has just gotten harder, say experts.

"Russia has demonstrated that it's ready to use force outside its own borders, and this means countries of the region are going to have to take note and choose whom they listen to," on big geopolitical issues, says Mr. Lukyanov.

"The space for maneuvering between East and West [for Russia's neighbors] is definitely shrinking," he says.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy travels to Moscow on Monday with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Union foreign-policy chief Javier Solana to encourage Medvedev to comply with a month-old peace plan for Georgia. Meanwhile, Georgia seeks a ruling from The Hague over its claims of human rights abuses against ethnic Georgians in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

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