Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 11 – Most commentary
on the so-called “Crimean incident,” a classically Russian stage-managed provocation,
has focused on the way Vladimir Putin will use it to promote his foreign policy
agenda, with some suggesting it will simply reduce pressure on Moscow to
fulfill the Minsk accords and others saying that it is a prelude to a major
war.
Given the Kremlin leader’s past
performance – and the West’s unwillingness to challenge him in a serious way –
both of these interpretations unfortunately are quite possibly correct. But Valery Solovey, an MGIMO expert on
foreign affairs, says that the most important fallout from this event and thus
quite possibly the reason for it is to be found in Russian domestic politics.
In a comment for the Kasparov.ru
portal, Solovey says that “a full-scale military conflict between Russia and
Ukraine is impossible” now because it is “senseless and counterproductive.” Moscow
didn’t elect “a military solution” in 2014 when conditions were favorable and
so won’t now when “the situation is extremely unfavorable” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=57AB80A94E13D).
It is true, he
continues, that “the unmasking of Ukrainian ‘terror’” is intended by Moscow to “stimulate
the West to put pressure on official Kyiv so that it will accept the Russian
interpretation of Minsk-2.” But given Western distrust of Moscow, it won’t do
so and therefore Kyiv won’t move either, although propaganda will ease pressure
on Moscow to shift its position.
Solovey suggests that the latest intensification
of military activity in the Donbass is less an indication of a strategic choice
than a response to local conditions, including, although the Moscow scholar
doesn’t say so, the rapid decay of pro-Russian forces into a state of
atamashchina and dissolution.
Consequently, he argues, Russia will
use “primarily propagandistic, diplomatic and economic” measures against
Ukraine in the wake of this “event,” something that as Solovey points out, is “nothing
new.” Indeed, although again he does not
say so, this “event” repeats almost all the features of Moscow’s actions in
Ukraine in the past.
And all this means, Solovey
suggests, that “the main consequence of ‘the Crimean incident’ is about
domestic issues rather than foreign policy ones. The Duma elections of
September 18 will now take place in ‘an atmosphere of vigilance.’ And under the
pretext of the struggle of terrorism, the screws will be tightened and any
signs of civic activity suppressed.
In general, he concludes, what the ‘Crimean
incident’ shows is that from the Kremlin’s perspective, it “must be afraid of
Voronezh” and other Russian cities rather than Ukraine.
That the incident in Crimea and the
increasing tensions in the Donbass are affecting Russian opinion is clearly
shown in the results of recent public opinion polls in Russia which show that,
very much as Putin hopes, once again Russians are focusing on foreign affairs
and the possibility of war rather than domestic problems.
On this latest shift away from
domestic concerns to foreign policy ones, a shift that helps Putin both by getting
Russians to forget what his policies have done to them and by re-igniting
patriot support for Moscow as such, see nv.ua/opinion/gudkov/chto-rossijane-dumajut-o-donbasse-192914.html,
svpressa.ru/politic/article/154136/
and
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