To keep the conflict with the West – Putin’s most important task – Analysis

The Kremlin will not end its confrontation with the West because it sees no reason to do so. And it is tightening the ranks for new “feats” in its hybrid war, writes Konstantin Egert in his comment.

In the last seven years since it started the war with Ukraine, Vladimir Putin always sounds militant and irritated when he talks about the United States, the European Union – and, of course, Ukraine.

The president of a nuclear state that is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and against which hardly anyone would carry out a military attack has ordered his foreign minister to demand Western “long-term guarantees to ensure Russia’s security and safety.” According to Putin, Russia cannot continue to live with the eternal anxiety that “something could happen there.” By “there” he means Central Europe and Ukraine.

Putin like Stalin?

Putin clearly has a fascination with Stalin’s foreign and defense policies from the late 1930s and early 1940s. He increasingly sounds like Stalin, who gave an ultimatum to Helsinki shortly before the Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939, or dictated his will to the Romanian king before the annexation of Bessarabia in the 1940s.

I was personally struck by the following words of Putin: “It is necessary for this state of tension to continue with them (NATO) for as long as possible, so that it does not even occur to them. to organize on our western borders some unnecessary conflict for us “It turns out that Lukashenko is taking thousands of migrants from the Middle East to the border, but in fact Poland and Lithuania are to blame. Crimea was annexed by Russia, but the aggressor is the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which do not recognize the annexation.

In other words, the Kremlin is currently declaring as a key element of its foreign policy not just ideological and political opposition to the collective “West”, but active maintenance of the conflict with it. The Fortress Russia garrison has been ordered to prepare for a new phase of the hybrid war, which is in fact the meaning of the Putin regime, no matter how long history has allotted it. Even the Covid-19 pandemicdid not force the Putin regime to pay more attention to what was happening inside the country. At first glance, Putin has a much simpler solution: to spend a lot of money on ever-growing gas and oil revenues to modernize health care in at least 10-15 million cities, and to secure a triumphant “re-election” in 2024. But no: he relies on the continuation of the new Cold War.

What guarantees does the Kremlin want from the West?

What forms can it take? With Moscow’s support, Lukashenko has artificially created a migration crisis along the borders with Poland and Lithuania, which will convince the Russian leadership that similar actions are worth pursuing in the future. In addition, she gave Putin a reason to ask Lukashenko to agree to the deployment of Russian troops in Belarus. And I am sure that the “experiments” on the borders of NATO and the EU will continue. After the migrants in the Polish forests, “lost members of the orienteering club” may appear, armed with weapons from the state military arsenals.

Third and most important: the Kremlin is clearly preparing either for “voluntary accession” or for the “necessary taking under protection” of the so-called “DPR” and “LPR” in Donbass. The decision has not yet been made, but it will not be difficult to find the right reason. There is no serious improvement in the economic situation in Russia, so another propaganda trick is needed to extend the presidential term. And what could be better than a triumphant “rescue of the Russians in Donbass”?

Now Sergei Lavrov will try to carry out Putin’s order and receive “serious and long-term security guarantees” from the West. Judging by what is being said at the Foreign Ministry, there are several positions: the cessation of the deployment of US missile defense systems in Poland and Romania, the suspension of NATO naval exercises near the shores of Crimea in the Black Sea, and also official withdrawal of the agreement announced in 2008 for the accession of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO.

New Cold War

And here the main question arises: Putin is an experienced enough politician to realize that these demands will not be met. It’s just that he may still be hoping that the West will back down at least on one point. Or he fears that any lightening of relations with the same West could lead to a loss of control over the situation inside Russia.

Let us not forget that the views of Putin and his inner circle are in many respects shaped by the experience of the last years of the Soviet Union. This experience can be summarized as follows: “Gorbachev believed that if he stopped fighting with the West, he would save the USSR from the already impossible arms race. As a result, the West is taking advantage and ruining our great country. “They fear that they may lose not only their power, but also the resulting control over the economy, which has turned the Russian elite into a club of multibillionaires. Konstantin Egert

Personally, Putin and the old secret service rifles around him may indeed think that they are defending some unique “Russian civilization code” and creating a new Russian identity. But thousands of cynics around them are only trying not to lose their accumulated wealth if there is any new relief. They are also plagued by fears of compromising files, which could suddenly end up in the Kremlin’s most important office if Putin doubts their loyalty for even a moment. And as long as these fears exist, they simply will not take a step back from the front of the new Cold War.

There are two options for the West: either to leave the Putin regime alone and wait until it leaves the stage for some internal reason, or to accept the challenge and try to win the rematch initiated by Putin.

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The column “Analyzes” presents different points of view, the opinions expressed do not necessarily coincide with the editorial position of “Dnevnik”.