Carnegie Moscow Center
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.
Germany is Europe’s sole emerging power, and potentially a power in Eurasia, and Ukraine is a good place to start working toward its new role. For starters, Germany needs to stop thinking of Ukraine as a U.S.-Russian issue, and assume responsibility there on behalf of the EU as a whole.
Since the 1990s, warnings from Russian liberals that Western pressure would push Russia toward China have failed to materialize. Now, however, faced with U.S.-led geopolitical pressure in Eastern Europe and East Asia, Russia and China are likely to cooperate more closely.
If the Kremlin allies with China too closely, it will not only estrange Russia from most of Asian countries, but also may provoke China’s appetite to gobble the newly-born child of Russia, the Eurasian Union.
Putin looks like he will continue to ride the tide he has set into motion for the time being. But amidst his tactical successes the signs of a looming strategic defeat can be already seen.
Russia may be the only side that can achieve its goals in Ukraine because it actually has a clear objective: federalization of the country.
After the end of the political protests of 2011–2012, Russia has found itself in a troubled break between two eras. This is a time of conservatism, which, in its Russian incarnation, has morphed into a gloomy, almost medieval archaism.
Russia certainly pursues its interests in Ukraine, as does the United States, but the actual forces engaged there are the locals. The victorious Maidan has proven both unwilling and powerless to bridge or stitch together the fault lines which have emerged.
Putin not only seeks to revisit the results of the end of the Cold War, he also wants a final say in establishing the new world order and Western consent to his interpretation of the rules of the game.
Putin’s current conciliatory tone and his support of the Ukrainian “dialogue” should be interpreted not as a change of his doctrine but a change of tactics.