Kremlin Playing Down Its Failures across Post-Soviet Space, Chernikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 30 – In recent months, the Kremlin has adopted a new approach to dealing with former Soviet republics which are increasingly distancing themselves from Moscow, Roman Chernikov says. Instead of aggression as in Ukraine, it is ignoring or downplaying these challenges and “signaling that the situation is supposedly under control.”

            According to the Russian political scientist, those around Putin “likely believe that this approach helps to maintain Russia’s influence not only on a tactical level but also on a strategic one.” But he continues, “it’s hard to point to anywhere where this approach has led to success” in these countries and their relations with Moscow (ridl.io/ru/fantomnoe-prisutstvie/).

            Instead, if anything, Moscow’s failure to react as it did in the past, perhaps because it is distracted by is focus on Putin’s war in Ukraine, has led these countries to adopt ever more independent lines, perhaps confident that as long as the war in Ukraine goes one, Moscow will lack the interest or even resources to try to rein them in.

            But there is one place at least where Moscow’s new approach is having major success, although it is not one that Chernikov discusses and that is in Western coverage of the weakening of Russian influence in the former Soviet space. Without a Russian reaction, Westerners who depend on Moscow and on Russian media have nothing to cover.

            And as a result, moves by the non-Russian countries that are putting ever greater distance between them and Moscow are ignored, something that would not be the case if it Moscow responded with its earlier outspokenness.  And it may very well be that the Kremlin views this as a significant victory as it will likely prevent the West from taking advantage of its weakness.