Russia's Dead End: An Insider's Testimony from Gorbachev to Putin
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The Russian authorities believed—or pretended to believe—that Georgia was actively helping the Chechen fighters. This was a rather doubtful proposition, considering the active role of the Chechens in the Georgian-Abkhazian armed conflict on the side of the Abkhazian separatists. Yet this assertion was extremely useful to Moscow since it facilitated the immediate solution of two problems: it enabled the Kremlin to call terrorism on Russian territory an international issue and to intensify pressure on Georgia.
Moscow nudged Abkhazia and South Ossetia toward separatism in every way possible with the goal of incorporating them into Russia. “We will never leave Abkhazia,” declared Sergei Shoigu, then the minister of emergency situations—that is, de facto head of the coercive apparatus, an alternative to the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Interior—at a meeting of the diplomatic staff when I worked at the Russian Mission to the UN in Geneva in 1992–96. The conflict between Tbilisi and Abkhazia forced Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze to make Georgia a member of the CIS in the hope of somehow neutralizing Russian aggression vis-à-vis Tbilisi.
In December 2000 under the patently concocted pretext of Georgia’s unwillingness to enter into a mutually acceptable agreement on the means of securing the Russian-Georgian border, Russia unilaterally introduced a visa system governing the trips back and forth of Russian and Georgian citizens. One of the main arguments was that Georgia was supposedly supporting Chechen international terrorism. It also maintained that criminal elements, including Chechen extremists, were congregating in the Pankisi Gorge and several other parts of the Akhmetskii District; that training centers for fighters were located there along with hospitals to treat them; and that organizations that hated the special services, and were providing material, technical, and financial assistance to the terrorists, were operating there under the guise of humanitarian missions.
Pro-Russia inhabitants of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, however, were accorded a special status and exempted from the visa regime. The politicians in Moscow knew that an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Abkhazia and South Ossetia lacked Georgian documents and that traveling to Tbilisi, the location of the lone Russian consulate in Georgia, to obtain visas would supposedly pose a real threat to their safety. According to imperial logic, instituting a visa regime on the Abkhazian and South Ossetian portions of the border constituted a de facto “blockade” of these regions of Georgia. No attempt was made to conceal that hindering the earnings and provisioning of the population of these regions that were directly connected with Russia, and depriving them of the opportunity of crossing the Russian border, would certainly turn into a humanitarian catastrophe for the people living there. The Georgian government correctly deemed the maintenance of a visa-free regime along the Abkhazian and South Ossetian portions of the Russian-Georgian border as Russia’s de facto annexation of these regions. Moreover, starting from the early 2000s, Russia began issuing Russian passports to inhabitants of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, thereby transforming the population of these separatist republics into its own citizens, whom they were not only able but also now obligated to defend. Preparations for the division of Georgia entered what was, in principle, a new phase with obvious historical analogies.
The advent to power of pro-Western president Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia as a result of the Rose Revolution of 2003 produced a sharply negative reaction in Moscow. The very fact of a broad popular movement, one that led to a change of government, did not sit well with the architects and builders of the vertical of power. The Russian authorities looked askance on Saakashvili’s policies, which aimed at bringing Georgia closer to the West in all respects and at its entering NATO.
An extremely revealing event, particularly in light of subsequent developments, as well as improbable from a diplomatic perspective, occurred during preparations for Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Tbilisi in February 2005. He refused to visit the memorial in Tbilisi to Georgian soldiers who had died fighting for Georgia’s territorial integrity in the early 1990s.
In March 2006 Russia prohibited the transit through Georgia of agricultural products from third countries, asserting that frequently they came with false certification. Soon Russia banned the importation of Georgian wine and Borzhomi mineral water on the specious grounds that they were of poor quality. Russia refused to evacuate Georgian citizens, including children, from Lebanon during the conflict there in July 2006, prompting indignant responses.
In September 2006 Moscow interpreted the spy scandal involving five Russian servicemen arrested on charges of espionage in Tbilisi as an anti-Russian provocation. Putin also took note of this occasion, characterizing what was happening as an “indication of the reinstatement of the policies of Lavrenty Beriya [Stalin’s secret police chief] both domestically and in the international arena.” This is a case of a thief crying, “Stop thief!” On September 30 the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs distributed videos and transcripts of phone conversations regarding the activity of the Russian servicemen detained on charges of espionage. According to the ministry’s information, in addition to espionage they were engaged in sabotage and terrorist activities. Specifically, according to the Georgian authorities, those arrested were implicated in a terrorist act in Gori in 2005 and in blowing up the Liakhvi and Kartli-2 power lines; the railroad in Kaspi on October 9, 2004; and the oil pipeline in Khashuri on November 17, 2004. Moscow’s whining that the Georgians specially whipped up this scandal is entirely groundless.
Moscow’s response was harsh and unprecedented. In October 2006 Russia cut off air links with Georgia and terminated postal and transportation communications between the two countries. Russia recalled its ambassador and other diplomats from Tbilisi and stopped issuing visas to citizens of Georgia. Georgian restaurants and casinos in Moscow were shut down. Schools compiled lists of ethnic Georgian pupils. An anti-Georgian propaganda campaign was launched, and Georgian businesspersons in Russia began to encounter particular difficulties.
Previously, in June 2006 while responding to Western demands that Russian troops be withdrawn from parts of Moldova and Georgia, the Russian Foreign Ministry officially and publicly declared that the unrecognized post-Soviet republics had the right of self-determination. In other words, Russia announced its readiness to recognize the separatist regimes in Trans-Dniestr, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. This was “punishment” for the actions of Moldova and Georgia in strengthening their ties with the West and asserting their European orientation.
The watchword of the oprichniks was that actions must follow words, and this translated into trade and natural gas wars against Georgia and Moldova. But even that was not enough. Moscow began openly to establish bilateral relations with the authorities in the unrecognized republics. The presidents of Trans-Dniestr, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia were demonstratively received by the Foreign Ministry, which concluded bilateral agreements with them on economic cooperation and financial assistance.
In November 2007 the Russian special services were again implicated in anti-Georgian activities in connection with a days-long antigovernment meeting in Tbilisi. At a special briefing, Givi Targamadze, the chairman of Georgia’s parliamentary committee on defense and security, revealed transcripts of telephone conversations between several leaders of the opposition and officials of the Russian special services. “These people openly coordinated their actions with the plans of Russian intelligence. This cooperation . . . has a long history. We didn’t speak about it earlier, but now we publicly declare that what is currently going on in Tbilisi is nothing other than a direct and massive Russian attack on Georgia,” he declared. For Georgians news that the list of Russian agents included the leader of the Labor Party, Shalva Natelashvili; a member of the leadership of the Republican Party, Levan Berdzenishvili; the former minister of state Georgy Khindrava; and Konstantin Gamsakhurdia, the leader of the Freedom Party and son of the first president of Georgia, was an earthshaking revelation. The transcripts of their phone conversation
s with Russian intelligence officers were broadcast on Georgian television.6
In August 2008 Russia launched a broad-scale war against Georgia, hypocritically cloaking it in its duty to protect Russian “peacemakers” and other Russian citizens. (Recall in this connection that Russia had issued Russian passports to Georgian citizens.) Naturally, Moscow prepared this ideological cover poorly. Also naturally, Russia easily won this war in the pro-Russia parts of Georgia. This was not a war against the people, unlike the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Thus, Russian politicians succeeded in the plans that they had formulated in the early 1990s, saying, “We will never leave Abkhazia.”
Of course, the Russian-Georgian war inevitably produced reverberations in Moldova, which, like Georgia, had become an independent republic following the collapse of the USSR. (Parenthetically, the inhabitants of Trans-Dniestr, the region of Moldova that Russia targeted, were also issued Russian passports.) Meeting at the end of August 2008 with Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s stunt man, drew a direct analogy between what was going on in Georgia and what might happen in Moldova.
Several aspects of this conflict must be highlighted. First, Bessarabia, a part of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, was arbitrarily attached to the Soviet Union in 1940 by the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Thus, it is hardly surprising that many Romanian-speaking Moldavians favor uniting their country with Romania. The Russian-speaking inhabitants of Trans-Dniestr, the separatist left bank of the Dniestr River, categorically oppose it.
The Trans-Dniestr region, which occupies 12 percent of the territory of Moldova, constitutes a vital interest for Russia. It contains 28 percent of Moldova’s industrial production, the foundation of which is heavy industry, and was part of the USSR’s former defense complex. Moreover, 90 percent of the country’s electrical energy is generated on the left bank. A gas pipeline passes through the Trans-Dniestr and carries Russian gas, via Ukraine, to Romania and Bulgaria. Russia’s interest in economic cooperation with the Trans-Dniestr region centers on the area’s developed agro-industrial complex as well as the output of light industry, electronics, radio technology, and the defense industry; machine building; and metallurgy. As its main foreign economic partner, Moscow maintains a policy toward Trans-Dniestr that is very similar to its policy toward Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There, too, the aim is to split up Moldova, again by making use of the Russian-speaking population.
At this point we must step outside the chronological framework to grasp the logic of events. As a historian and international relations specialist, not even in my worst dreams, especially after the end of the Cold War, could I imagine that Russian foreign policy would assume the mantle of Hitler’s foreign policy. Did this happen, like so much else, from ineptitude? I don’t think so. Soon after the breakup of the USSR, the theme of “compatriots” and “Russian-language speakers” emerged and fit in very well with the imperial moods of the majority of the Russian elite, especially those weighed down with epaulets.
I don’t know specifically who planned and began implementing the criminal plan right after Yeltsin became the master of the country. I only know that it existed from the start. (I myself took part in drafting the initial papers on this matter without realizing where it was heading, since I had not the least conception of the authorities’ schemes.) It was probably not Putin, who was then just a small fry, although he knew Germany firsthand. It was probably not any of those who then occupied center stage in Russian politics. Most likely it was someone from among the Soviet “dinosaurs,” if not by age—though that, too, is possible—then by his view of the world. It was obviously someone familiar with the history of international relations. A person (or a group of persons) with imperial and totalitarian convictions. In addition, a consummate manipulator. It seems it was someone from the security services, or siloviki, although I can’t rule out persons working in the Foreign Ministry, where many nasty things were going on.
But that is not the crux of the matter. The main point is that starting in 1992, Moscow’s revanchist, imperial policy became one of the dominant motifs of domestic politics and an important factor in international relations.
The West played an extremely significant role in the revival of the Cold War and Russia’s recoil from democracy, thereby letting slip a historic opportunity to move Russia in the direction of real democracy. The chain of mistakes began in Gorbachev’s time when the leaders, politicians, and diplomats of democratic countries were unable or unwilling to believe in the sincerity of the new Soviet leader’s reformist intentions and of his diplomacy. For good reason one of the key phrases in Gorbachev’s Nobel lecture in Oslo on June 5, 1991, was this appeal: “We wish to be understood.” But in response to the unprecedented openness and readiness to compromise of Gorbachev’s foreign policy, the West continued to pursue its traditional diplomacy of pressure on its longtime potential adversary. Western leaders came around to believing Gorbachev when it was already too late in the game.
Then, in the framework of Realpolitik, the West, particularly the United States, supported Yeltsin, the winner, who was incapable of rising above the level of a provincial party boss. A series of glaring mistakes was made regarding Yeltsin. For example, when the semiliterate leader of this great power declared that the country he headed wanted to join NATO, the West responded immediately but did not invite Russia in. It could have been wiser. The ultrasensitive Yeltsin was deeply offended, and the reactionaries in his retinue were handed a powerful argument against cooperation with the West.
What followed—namely, the 1993 coup pitting Yeltsin against Russia’s parliament—was a nightmare both for Russia and the West. Naturally, the West bet on Yeltsin, but it also conferred its de facto blessings on any actions of the more democratically inclined authorities of the moment. By the time of the 1996 presidential election, the West was so frightened of the quite real possibility that the communists might return to power that it supported Yeltsin unconditionally. Against this background, notwithstanding public concern, Western politicians kept mum about the First Chechen War, giving President Yeltsin a free pass. The West not only facilitated but also guaranteed the massive and flagrant violations of human rights in Russia, the genocide of Russia’s own people in Chechnya, and the appointment of KGB officer Putin to the position of president.
During the era of perestroika under Gorbachev, ideals are what really drove Soviet politics. Unintentionally, the politics of ideals sometimes sounds as if it were divorced from reality. Such an approach, however, is far from the case. To be sure, Gorbachev put forward what may have seemed unrealizable goals as, indeed, not a few of them turned out to be so. Among them were reducing the danger of war; establishing a common European home; creating a nuclear-free, nonviolent world in the realm of foreign policy; building socialism with a human face via democratization in the USSR; and providing its citizens with a full spectrum of human rights at home. Pursuing these goals, he was forced, on the one hand, to maneuver within the upper leadership of the USSR that was then mostly hostile to reforms and, on the other hand, metaphorically to breach the wall of mistrust and misunderstanding of his Western partners who doubted the sincerity of the new Soviet leader.
Gorbachev’s policy of ideals was pursued in the real world, which was largely hostile to such ideals. Skeptics argue that if politics does not reckon with reality and is not the art of the possible, it can hardly be called politics at all. That begs the question of what is possible and what is not. A politics of ideals expands the limits of the possible. Gorbachev’s political experiment clearly illustrates the absence of contradictions between the politics of ideals and that of reality.
Unfortunately, the West was either unable or unwilling to step outside the framework of its traditional approaches. Despite obvious Soviet progress by 1988 to secure human rights and the success of Soviet-American negotiations in this sphere, even someone inclined to stimulate democratic changes in the USSR such as U.S. assistant s
ecretary of state Richard Schifter indirectly acknowledged that he and others like him were not ready to try unconventional, breakthrough approaches. For example, the U.S. State Department demanded certain confirmations of Soviet sincerity in this sphere before agreeing to the final document of the Vienna conference of the CSCE. Members of the outgoing administration of President Ronald Reagan, and Secretary of State George Shultz in particular, were invested in the success of the Vienna conference as they wanted to open the door to negotiations on conventional forces in Europe. For its part, as noted in chapter 1, Soviet diplomacy conditioned its acceptance of the Vienna document on an agreement to convene a conference on human rights in Moscow. The Americans had a hard time making up their minds and insisted upon various conditions before condescending to agree.
During a three-hour conversation with Anatoly Kovalev, then the second-ranking person in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Schifter identified the question of allowing exit visas for refuseniks as the key issue for the Americans, emphasizing that the number of fast-tracked cases had to be significant. He explained his thinking as follows. The Reagan administration had approximately six weeks remaining in its term to explain to the American people whether an agreement in Vienna was possible. Schifter believed it would be risky to name too high a figure, for the Soviet foreign policy establishment might not be able to manage it. However, during a five-day workweek it was possible to review 2 cases before lunch and 2 after lunch; so in Schifter’s opinion, in the course of a week, the Soviet bureaucracy could review 20 cases. On this basis, Schifter came up with a figure of 120 and the following day handed the Soviet side a list with that number of refuseniks. In essence, this signified agreement to the Soviet proposal to host the CSCE human rights meeting in Moscow.7