The message in Moscow is that Ukraine has been taken over by “Fascists” and neo-Nazis: if the enemies are Fascists, then all means for combatting them are acceptable.
It is not clear whether “protection of compatriots” is a new foreign-policy goal Putin intends to apply elsewhere—or whether he is just using any weapon he can to undermine the new authorities in Kyiv. In any case, playing the “compatriot card” is a dangerous game.
Ukraine became the place where the open crisis of the post-Soviet model occurred. This means that the country may become only the first stage in the chain of future collapses. Also, with Russian invasion in Ukraine the entire international system that came into being after 1991 is starting to crumble.
The collapse of the Yanukovych regime in Ukraine became another posthumous chapter in the breakup of the Soviet Union. It will severely curtail Russia’s leadership ambitions in the post-Soviet space.
Today, many countries have to fight against terrorist organizations, which have roots in the Soviet war in Afghanistan. However, this lesson is still unlearned: in Syria, fighters under Islamic flags have gained support of several countries, but this support will recoil upon the supporters’ own heads.
Twenty-five years after the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan, the Russians watch the U.S.-led coalition withdraws from this country and worry about regional stability, security, and drugs production and trade. To deal effectively with these concerns, Russia should focus not so much on Afghanistan as on its Central Asian neighbors.
To mention the Soviet Union on most of its former territory evokes pleasant nostalgia, not revulsion. However, no one, beginning with President Putin, is planning its second coming.
