‘Russia has No Allies’ Who Can Help It, Only Those who Use It for Their Own Purposes, Latynina Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 7 – “Russia has no allies, except perhaps for Armenia which of course is not the most influential country in the world,” Yuliya Latynina says. But “we have countries which use us, in particular Iran and North Korea, each of which “without consequences” ignores the interests of Russia.

            On her Access Code program yesterday, the Russian commentator now living abroad points out that “Iran calls us ‘the little Satan,’” and North Korea doesn’t both “to warn us about the launches of its rockets and from time to time even seized some Russian commercial ships” (echo.msk.ru/programs/code/2123728-echo/).

                She says that it should be “a surprising thing that these people use us and we don’t use them.” In the past, their use took the form of having us “block very anti-Korean and anti-Iranian resolutions at the United Nations. Now, it is expressed by our fighting to support Hezbollah in Syria” whether that is in Russia’s interests or not. 

            Latynina is one of the most prominent commentators on the Russian media scene, and her words are a clear sign that ever more Russians are less than impressed by the Kremlin’s bombastic suggestions that it is going from strength to strength in foreign affairs and that Vladimir Putin’s adventure in Syria is raising more questions than support.