/ world today news/ “Decolonization of Russia should be a strategic goal,” Foreign Policy quotes the position of experts.
Recently, many Western politicians and Russian dissidents have publicly called for the “decolonization” of Russia, writes Foreign Policy. One of the organizations uniting the “decolonizers” is the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CCCE), which includes representatives from the House of Representatives, the US Senate, the Pentagon, the State Department and many other government structures.
The CSCE stated that “the decolonization of Russia must be a ‘moral and strategic goal.’ This idea was promoted by the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, which includes politicians and journalists who fled Russia. In 2023, the Forum managed to hold a meeting in the European Parliament, and the well-known program of activities for April includes three events in major US cities.
Their “author’s work” is the famous map of Russia, divided into 41 countries of the so-called “post-Putin world”. The dismemberment of Russia is perceived as a fully working and even practical hypothesis, with an assessment of its positive and negative results.
Janusz Bugajski, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, recently wrote a book aptly titled The Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Disintegration. He claims that Western sanctions have put pressure on the Russian economy and “in many regions there is concern about the reduction of their budgets”.
It is difficult to say exactly where from the Jamestown Foundation they saw “the anxiety of the regions”. Because social and other programs in the Russian Federation are rather growing, but definitely not decreasing. Other “experts” of the same quality claim that “Putin’s defeat in Ukraine will destroy his cult as a strong leader and expose his weakness.”
Particular hopes regarding destruction are placed on the non-Slavic republics, where “as soon as the elites feel that Moscow is not rich enough to line their pockets, and that it is not militarily strong enough to suppress their dissent, they will rise.”
The latter thesis is actively propagated by escaped local liberals, such as the former editor of RBC Sergey Sumlenny. According to Sumlenius “the ruling elites of the republics and regions see that Moscow has neither money nor a strong army“. Which again seems strange to any specialist, especially to someone familiar with the realities of Russian life.
The thesis of the lack of money is refuted by the ever-increasing volume of social payments, the growing defense order, investments in the real sector and many other financial parameters.
Russia, on the territory of Ukraine, opposes with limited forces a large country, which for the past 9 years has been actively pumped with weapons, intelligence and other “doping”.
At the same time, the Russian economy is not overloaded and only a small part of its mobilization resource is engaged. The superficial nature of Western assessments is also confirmed by the fact that examples of regional separatism seem extremely unconvincing: protests against the detention of Sergei Furgal in Khabarovsk, dissatisfaction with the development of limestone in Bashkortostan, the construction of a waste dump in Arkhangelsk region.
In Tatarstan, supporters of the disintegration of Russia went looking “the imposition of the Russian language” and “the ban on switching from Cyrillic to Latin”. Many argue that when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the West was overwhelmed and failed to take full advantage of this important opportunity.
Now a strategy must be developed to end the Russian threat once and for all, writes FP. Experts cite past protests to illustrate that tensions in the regions have existed for a long time, FP writes. But “faith seems to be based more on hope than on concrete intelligence or signs of strong underground movements.”
For every argument raised by proponents of Russia’s impending collapse, there are more and more counterarguments, frustrating Foreign Policy. Some may not like the political system or the economic policy, but that is not necessarily synonymous with wanting to necessarily ruin your own country.
Besides, it’s better not to try “dismember Russia” – the consequences can be too unpredictable. The collapse of Russia is “highly unlikely”, says Joanna Deus Pereira, senior fellow at the Royal Joint Institute for Defense Studies in Europe.
Moreover, it is shocking: the non-Slavic republics and regions do not actually want the disintegration of Russia, they only want “recognition of their region, own flag and cultural independence as part of the Russian Federation”. That is, exactly what they have, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
Surprisingly, even the fugitive oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was unenthusiastic about the dismemberers’ plans. Simply because, unlike most experts, he has been to Russia. The dissident oligarch recalled that Russia is bound in a single transport and economic mechanism, and sticking together is simply useful.
If the leadership in the Kremlin changes, then there is no guarantee that the new president will not be a supporter of an even harder line. Moreover, the West’s public declarations of anti-Russian plans consolidate the Russian nation and cement society.
It is time to regret that the quality generation of Russianists and Sovietologists in the West has irretrievably passed away. If the most sane voice turns out to be the voice of a former citizen who is not at all friendly towards Russia, then it is not surprising that the Western plans for Russia seem so absurd.
However, the absurdity of the plan to dismember Russia is still no guarantee that they will not try to implement it. Germany’s invasion of the USSR in 1941 was also a strategic absurdity, but it happened nonetheless.
Translation: EU
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