Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 23 – Following the
“tectonic” shifts in the world that Russia’s moves in Ukraine began, the
leaders of the Baltic countries must recognize “the need to have a dialogue
with Russia,” the head of the Moscow Institute for the Russian Abroad says. If
they don’t, others who are ready to do so “will be found.”
In an interview with Rubaltic.ru, a
portal directed at Russian speakers in the Baltic countries, Sergey Panteleyev
says Moscow wasn’t strong enough “at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the
1990s” to hold the Balts in but now that the same thing is happening in
Ukraine, Russia has the power to do so (rubaltic.ru/article/politika-i-obshchestvo/23012014-stabilnost/).
The Baltic actions were “more or
less peaceful,” he continues, “but in Ukraine everything is taking place in a
bloody way. Why? Because Russia has become to be reborn, its civilizational ambitions
have appeared, and they in particular are expressed in the conception of ‘the
Russian world,’ which is oriented toward our compatriots, friend, and partners
living beyond the borders of the present-day Russian state.”
Russia’s newly expressed imperial
ambitions, Panteleyev continues, have frightened many in the Baltic countries
in particular. “One can recall the parallels drawn between Latgale [in
southeastern Latvia] and the Donbas and Crimea [in Ukraine],” parallels that
reflect what he called “the peaceful and beautiful ideas directed at the
solidarity of people, patriotism and unity.”
“I would say,” Panteleyev adds, “that the
ideas of the conception of ‘the Russian world’ are directed at universal
values, which really unite people and do not divide them by race or
nationality. They unite cultures.” But it is certainly true, he says, that “this
idea is horrific for those who consider Waffen SS veterans to be heroes.”
One
thing that the Ukrainian events have demonstrated, Panteleyev says, is that
knowledge of the Russian language is not enough to make one part of the Russian
world. Many who speak Russian in Ukraine are fighting pro-Moscow groups, and
many Baltic leaders speak good Russian but are nonetheless hostile to Russia
and the Russian world.
But
that does not mean that the Russian world is not something real or that Moscow
will not continue to struggle for its unity, he suggests. And those who “by
struggling with Russians and with Russians” insist on “an alternative point of
view” are “laying a serious mine in their own foundations.”
“In
the course of the last year,” Panteleyev says, “we became convinced that the world
which was created after the disintegration of the USSR … has begun to collapse.”
That world
was predicated on Russia being a raw material supplier which would never insist
on the advancement of its own interests.
But “in fact, a miracle occurred,”
Panteleyev says. And the world “took note that Russia is being reborn and is
reminding everyone about its own legitimate interests. We have seen serious
geopolitical changes, noted how Russia has changed its behavior, and how it is
ready to revive good relations with old allies and establish new unions
including BRIKS.”
“I am certain,” the Moscow official
says, “that we are at the very beginning of a tectonic process of contemporary
world construction.” This process will take time given that it involved “changes
in world leadership.” And the Baltic
countries and specifically their elites “who continue to take extreme
anti-Russian and pro-Western positions in that way cut themselves off from the chance
of dialogue with the current Russian state.”
But “in the context of such global changes,”
Panteleyev says, “all the same, other people who will recognize the need for
conducting a dialogue with Russia will be found. They will recognize that there
are demographic, cultural and historical ties from which there is nowhere to go
and which must be restored.”
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