Putin Recognizes Borders and Political Systems of Post-Soviet States Only If They Don’t Allow Outsiders to Influence Them, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 7 – Despite the fact that the Russian Federation recognized as legitimate the state borders of the former Soviet republics in 1991, Vladimir Putin now says that Russia does so only if these countries do not allow third countries to have significant influence in them at Russia’s expense. In that case, their borders are illegitimate, Vadim Sidorov says.

            This updated version of the Brezhnev doctrine which claimed Moscow’s right to intervene in Soviet bloc countries if they threatened communism there became clear during Putin’s meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the eve of his launch of the latest wave of aggression against Ukraine, the Prague-based Russian analyst says.

            At that meeting, the Kremlin leader said “Russia supports the sovereignty of the former Soviet republics” but that Ukraine is “an exception because of the foreign influence on this country.” Thus, he is claiming for Moscow the right to intervene in any of them and to change their borders and political systems at its discretion (trtrussian.com/mnenie/istoricheskaya-rossiya-chto-eto-takoe-dlya-sosedej-rf-i-dlya-nee-samoj-8165640).

            This expansive reading of Putin’s ultimatum to the West in which he demanded international recognition of a Russian sphere of influence around its borders underlines why it is so important for all these countries and the West to defeat his moves in Ukraine. Clearly, if they are not defeated, the Kremlin leader will try to do the same thing elsewhere in the future.