Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 20 – Many continue
to assume that the Russian-language media in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is invariably
pro-Russian and pro-Moscow, but Moscow experts say that is no longer the case
and that many Russian-language outlets there are neither reliably “Russian nor
loyal to Moscow.”
At a Moscow roundtable on “Russian
Compatriots in the Baltics: Is There Freedom of Speech?” this week, Sergey
Panteleyev, the director of the Institute for the Russian Abroad, said that
this was the result of the response of these media to what he described as the
dominant ideological construct in these states (baltija.eu/news/read/34631 and rus-obr.ru/ru-web/27783).
Many in these three countries
believe in “a Russian ‘fifth column.’”
Consequently, some independent Russian-language media in trying to dispel
such “Russophobic inventions” often devote themselves to the problems of the
ethnic Russian community and the shortcomings of Russian policy.
As a result, Panteleyev argued that Russians
in the Baltic countries “are deprived of the chance to be active producer of an
information product; they are instead [simply] consumers. And the entire
infrastructure which exists is directed toward that end,” one that serves the
governments of these countries rather than the Russian nation broadly conceived.
According to Panteleyev, the media
scene in the Baltic countries is attracting ever more attention in Moscow
because the three countries are now very much part of a larger geopolitical
competition. Lithuania has the presidency
of the European Union, NATO has conducted exercises in the Baltic, and there
are now new calls to tear down Soviet monuments.
Indeed, he suggested, “Russia cannot
fail to react to the drift of Ukraine because the path to Europe offered to
Ukraine will be in large part the one the Baltic countries have followed,” a
path defined according to Panteleyev not by their national states but imposed
from the outside as a result of their involvement “in more complex systems.”
In many respects, the Russian media
scene in the Baltic countries is not that dissimilar from the Russian media
scene in the former Soviet republics.
There too, just because media exists in Russian, that “does not mean
that it is Russian or loyal in relationship to Russia.” Instead, there is a lot
of Russian-language media but little of Russian media.
Turning again to the Baltic cases,
Panteleyev said that “if there is a Lithuanian community in Russia, then it in
a certain way link its interests to its historical Motherland. The problem with analogous Russian media in
the Baltics I the presmption of guilt: if Russians are linked with Russia, they
are ultimately conceived as a fifth column.”
But the real issue is bigger than
that, he insisted. It is a question of the policies of the three Baltic
governments and their involvement in Western institutions. Moscow failed to respond to this challenge
earlier, because “we were not prepared for the new situation. [But] now the
state recognizes the importance of this work” and progress can be made.
Moscow can help the Russian media in
these states destroy “destructive and confrontational” myths and promote a “dialogue
with these states,” because there is no reason for hostility between the Baltic
peoples and the Russians. That is the product of “specific people” who are “hostages”
of the geopolitics of the West.
Panteleyev’s words are important for
many reasons. Three stand out. First, more than almost anyone in Moscow before,
he has acknowledged that the existence of Russian-language media in the former
Soviet republics and occupied Baltic states does not mean that such outlets are
maintaining Russian identity and links between ethnic Russians there and
Moscow.
This is less a confession about the
failure of Moscow’s policies than evidence of the extent to which two decades
after the end of the USSR, the central government of the Russian Federation is
losing support in what it has continued to view as a natural and inevitable
support for its policies in the region.
Second, the Moscow writer’s comments
underscore why the Kremlin is so worried about a European choice by Ukraine,
Moldova, Georgia or other nearby countries.
If Moscow believes that by joining Europe, these countries will become
like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in their attitudes toward Russia and
Russians, it is clear why Moscow is digging in now.
Such an undifferentiated
understanding of the situation in these various countries is especially
counterproductive from Moscow’s point of view.
It has the potential to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, one that will
leave Russia with even fewer friends around its periphery than it has now and
isolate Russia still further from Europe and the West.
And third, Panteleyev’s remarks
suggest that Moscow may be about to launch a new campaign overtly or covertly
to promote the rise of a Russian media in the Baltic countries and perhaps
elsewhere in the former Soviet space to do what the Russian-language media in
those places has not done.
The possibility of such an effort will
certainly trigger more suspicions among the Baltic countries and more problems
for Moscow because ever more ethnic Russians in these states are choosing to
integrate with these countries and with Europe.
Promoting a radical pro-Moscow press there won’t stop that process: it
will accelerate it.
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