Even if West were to End All Sanctions, Russia Would Not Turn Back to It, Titov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 8 – Even if the West were to end all sanctions and declare a new desire to cooperate with Russia, Moscow would “never” turn back to the West, Boris Titov says. That route has already been found wanting, and Moscow has no reason to tread the same path once again.

            According to the Presidential ombudsman for the defense of entrepreneurial rights, since the beginning of the expanded invasion of Ukraine, “Russia’s economy has quickly reformed itself and been able to carry out import substitution on a whole range of the most important directions (ria.ru/20240108/titov-1918812948.html).

            Titov says that the West has ceased to be the guide for the rest of the world and in fact has become part of the past. The future, he suggests, lies in the East “or in the so-called ‘global South,’” areas that are developing dynamically and among which Russia occupies a leading place.

            His words cast doubt on the assumption of many both inside the Russian Federation and the West that ultimately Moscow will return to something like the place it was before February 2022 and once again cooperate closely with the developed West. And they thus suggest that the invasion of Ukraine marked a far more radical turning point than many now think.

            And most importantly, they mean that those in the West who think Moscow can be brought back to where it was if the West stops helping Ukraine and instead ends sanctions against the aggressor state are deceiving themselves. Moscow would pocket any concessions but not change its preferred direction.