Outside World Increasingly Views Russia as ‘a Doomed Anachronism’ of Little Interest, Shevtsova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 4 – Moscow is celebrating what it sees as foreign policy triumphs, advances that have made it “’the chief supplier of stability and security in the world;’” but ever more leaders abroad are tired of Russia, viewing it as a doomed anachronism and its claimed achievements as containing the seeds of future defeats, Liliya Shevtsova says.

            Kremlin outlets point to the dividing up of Syria with Turkey’s Erdogan, the forcing of Kyiv to accept Vladimir Putin’s conditions, and gaining the support of French President Macron as evidence of what it considers to be Russia’s new and enhanced status in the world.  But these things don’t mean what Moscow thinks they do (echo.msk.ru/blog/shevtsova/2531261-echo/)..

            On the one hand, the West is clearly tired of dealing with Russia and sees it as increasingly marginal. When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined his vision of the world in the coming years, he did not even mention Russia. Instead, he talked exclusively about China, hardly what one would expect if Russia really were back.

            And on the other, Shevtsova continues, “the Russian victories appear to be warnings of future problems. Even pro-Kremlin observers recognize that Russia, “having seized a number of ‘commanding heights’ in international politics, will encounter problems with holding them” for very long.

            Moscow’s Syria success is by the day becoming less than it was. Kyiv isn’t following Putin’s script because otherwise Vladimir Zelensky would face a new Maidan. And Macron has his own reasons for cozying up to Moscow that have nothing to do with Russia’s supposed growing status in the world.

            Moreover, the Russian commentator says, polls show that people in the West view Russia in extremely negative terms as an alien outsider that one may talk to but can’t expect anything positive from. Indeed, Western Russia experts now have to talk about that country as a threat in order to get any attention.

            It is bad enough that people in the West have ceased to respect and believe us. It is worse that “they consider us hopeless” and that the world is “tired of us. There isn’t even any special desire to engage in a confrontation with us.” Thus, any talks between Moscow and the West now have little chance of leading to any breakthrough.

Russia can influence the West, of course, by exploiting the friendship of this or that leader. But that too has its limits: Few leaders are going to want to have much to do with Moscow if a summit meeting will lead to their “political suicide.”  A Putin-Trump summit, for example, would just provide “a new basis for the impeachment of the latter.”