Putin Seeking Not Just to Pressure Ukraine but to Revise Results of Cold War, Shevtsova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 14 – Vladimir Putin’s aggressive behavior towards Ukraine has led many analysts in Russia and the West to think about that crisis as a one-time thing that once addressed can allow relations to go back to what they were; but that is a mistake, Liliya Shevtsova says. Putin’s conflict with the West is far deeper and broader than just about Ukraine.

            “For the Kremlin, Ukraine is the occasion for the carrying out of a more ambitious agenda,” the Russian analyst says. What it seeks is the overturning of the European system of security and giving Russia its own basis for self-defense. “This is a revision of the results of the Cold War” (echo.msk.ru/blog/shevtsova/2951416-echo/).

            “Transforming Russia into ‘a fortress’ requires that neighboring states surround Russia with ‘a cordon sanitaire,’” an arrangement that “for Moscow means their demilitarization.” But in revising this part of the results of the Cold War, Putin wants to retain another, the ability of Russia. although shut off from the West, to continue to rely on Western economic assistance.

            Even if some comprise is found on Ukraine, Shevtsova says, that will “not resolve the issue of our incompatibility,” and new centers of tension will continue to arise, with Moscow forced to raise the stakes still further because any lowering of them would be in its eyes and those of others “a signal of weakness.”

            For the time being, what will occur is “a testing of the effectiveness of two forms of force, the threat of war and the threat of sanctions,” she continues. The bigger conflict between Putin and the West, however this round ends, is unlikely to end in Russia’s favor over the longer haul.

            That is because “the history of civilizations says that in the final analysis, victory will go to those who think about the future rather than to those who withdraw into the past.”