PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
Contacts
Address 1957 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052 adminponars@gwu.edu 202.994.5915
NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • COVID-19 in Eurasia: PONARS Eurasia Policy Perspectives

    View
  • Preparing for the Parliamentary Elections of 2021: Russian Politics and Society (Gel’man, Lankina, Semenov, Smyth, and more)

    View
  • Russians supported Putin’s moves in Crimea in 2014. Here’s what’s different in 2021

    View
  • Putin’s Rules of the Game: The Pitfalls of Russia’s New Constitution

    View
  • In the Caucasus, There Is a Peace Agreement but Not Peace

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • Music and Politics in Contemporary Russia [Lipman Series 2021] April 12, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Gorbachev about the dynamic music scene in contemporary Russia, and how free Russian musicians are to make political statements.
  • How is the Russian Government Coping with Rising Food Prices? [Lipman Series 2021] March 15, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Anton Tabakh about rising food prices in Russia, and what they might mean for Russia's current and future stability.
  • The Communist Party of the Russian Federation: More Than Just Systemic Opposition? [Lipman Series 2021] March 5, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Felix Light and Nikolay Petrov about the contemporary Communist Party of the Russian Federation, including the divisions between its leadership and membership, its attitude toward Alexei Navalny, and why it might be more than just "systemic" opposition after all.
  • Internet Resources: Civic Communication and State Surveillance [Lipman Series 2021] February 16, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Andrei Soldatov and Tanya Lokot about the role of the internet in contemporary Russian politics, including both as a tool of the Russian opposition and as an instrument of the increasingly repressive Russian regime.
  • The Rise of Alexei Navalny's Political Stature and Mass Protest in Russia [Lipman Series 2021] February 1, 2021
    In the first PONARS Eurasia Podcast of 2021, Maria Lipman chats with Greg Yudin about the current protests taking place in Russia, and what Alexei Navalny's growing popular support means for the Putin regime.
  • Russian Social Policy in the COVID-19 Era [Lipman Series 2020] December 21, 2020
    In 2020’s final episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sarah Wilson Sokhey and Ella Paneyakh to discuss Russian social policy in the COVID-19 era, and public perception of Russia’s overall pandemic response.
  • Conscious Parenting Practices in Contemporary Russia [Lipman Series 2020] December 10, 2020
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Julia Yuzbasheva and Maria Danilova to learn more about the proliferation of "conscious parenting" practices in contemporary Russian society.
  • The Transformation of Belarussian Society [Lipman Series 2020] November 11, 2020
    In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Masha Lipman chats with Grigory Ioffe about the long-term and short-term factors that led up to the current protests in Belarus, and the ongoing transformation of Belarussian society.
  • Russian Lawmakers Adjust National Legislation to the Revised Constitutional Framework [Lipman Series 2020] October 26, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about ongoing changes to Russia’s national legislation based on the recently revised constitutional framework, and what these changes portend for the 2021 Duma election.
  • Russia's Regional Elections [Lipman Series 2020] September 25, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Graeme Robertson and Konstantin Gaaze about Russia’s September 13 regional elections and whether or not the Kremlin should be worried about upcoming Duma elections.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Russia Ready to Give the Falling Ukraine a Push—and Might Follow Suit

  • February 26, 2014
  • Pavel Baev

The long telephone conversation between United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the earliest hours of last Saturday was remarkable in its surrealistic detachment from the real events in Ukraine, which were the main topic of the exchange. Obama sought to ensure Russia’s involvement in the “quick implementation” of the agreement reached in Kyiv last Friday between then-president Viktor Yanukovych and the leaders of the opposition under the mediation of foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland (http://ria.ru/world/20140222/996361904.html). Putin emphasized the importance of working with the radical opposition, which in his opinion had driven the confrontation in Ukraine to a dangerous stage (http://president.kremlin.ru/news/20308). Both leaders probably knew that the agreement could not be implemented, because Yanukovych had to flee from mutinous Kyiv as they spoke and could not possibly deliver on his part of the deal, while the victorious Maidan protest movement would not accept any diplomatic compromises.

Obama and Putin may publicly agree that the key task is to prevent Ukraine’s break-up, but they cannot fail to see that it has stopped functioning as a state in any meaningful sense except through having internationally recognized borders. Obama may blame himself—and even more the European Union member states and bureaucracy—for not paying sufficient attention to this crisis as it turned into a catastrophe (http://slon.ru/world/evropa_po_doroge_v_novyy_belfast-1060101.xhtml). Putin is more inclined to blame the malicious West for sponsoring a rebellion against legitimate authorities, while in fact, he carries the main responsibility for delivering Ukraine beyond the brink of state failure (http://polit.ru/article/2014/02/21/neutrality/). Indeed, it was his resolute decision to prevent Yanukovych from signing an association agreement with the EU—a far from fateful document—that triggered the first wave of protests in Kyiv last November. It was also his attempt—influenced by fears stirred by those protests—to resolve the issue by granting Yanukovych far more financial aid than anybody thought possible that propelled the escalation. Even when dozens of people died in shootouts in Maidan last Thursday (February 20), Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev encouraged Yanukovych to show more vigor in asserting his legitimacy (http://ej.ru/?a=note&id=24502).

This policy, based on the assumption that Ukraine was for sale, is now in shambles, and the triumphalism underpinned by the confidence that the EU would never contemplate a bid matching Putin’s $15 billion has evaporated leaving the chronic fear of mass uprisings. The anxiety in the Kremlin is mixed with irritation over the spoiled show of the Sochi Olympics—the Games were supposed to demonstrate Russia’s affluence and dynamism. Instead, the poor performance of the hockey “dream team” left millions of fans bitterly disappointed, and the ugly attack of pseudo-Cossacks on the female punk rock band Pussy Riot’s daring performance revealed the aggressiveness of the officially cultivated “patriotism” (http://slon.ru/world/kak_sochi_nakrylos_pussi-1059926.xhtml). The long-planned political dividend from investing astronomical sums into converting the dilapidated Sochi into a glitzy one-off capital of winter sports has failed to materialize, and the Games are set to be forever associated with the bloodshed in Kyiv.

From this unpromising point of departure, the Kremlin now has to move fast with policymaking in two crucial directions. The first one goes toward the Ukraine in distress, and the spectacular return of Yulia Tymoshenko onto the political arena, which gives Putin a peer he respects and can do business with (http://lenta.ru/articles/2014/02/22/free/). This stance, however, inadvertently implies that he acknowledges not only the blunder of supporting Yanukovych but also the fiasco of the attempt to prevent Ukraine from moving closer to Europe. Admitting mistakes is a bane for any politician, and Putin absolutely loathes allowing for such a possibility.

As for Tymoshenko, in order to take firm control over the unruly Maidan she has to do more than just secure tangible support from the disconcerted EU. She needs to make a clean break with the pattern of clan-based and deeply corrupt policy-cooking she used to be very much a part of (http://echo.msk.ru/programs/code/1263672-echo/). Putin would not want that pattern to be swept away by the revolution and he might instead prefer to work with risky options of breaking Ukraine apart. In the Russian elites, ideas on appropriating bits and pieces of collapsing Ukraine, focusing particularly on Crimea, have been entertained since the explosion of the crisis last November (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 20; www.gazeta.ru/politics/2014/02/19_a_5917225.shtml). The official line still remains for preserving Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but the ground is well prepared for a swift turn of this course. It is only the timely disbursement of credits from Russia that postpones the sovereign default in Ukraine, and Putin has few reasons to continue with this generosity (RBC Daily, February 21).

The second avenue of decision-making goes through Russia, and the impact of the Ukrainian revolution on the domestic situation is difficult to evaluate. Still, Putin is inclined to believe in the worst possible spill-over (http://echo.msk.ru/blog/nemtsov_boris/1264336-echo/). In order to minimize this “contamination,” he might find it necessary to demonstrate that nothing good comes out of the riot executed by Western-sponsored extremists against legitimate authorities—and that bodes ill for the stabilization of tumultuous Ukraine. His nervous courtiers might also try to unleash a new round of repressions against the liberal opposition—particularly now that the order for Russia to be on its best behavior for the Sochi Olympics has expired (Novaya Gazeta, February 22). In the last week, Putin has quietly executed a series of purges among the security services personnel (siloviki), seeking to reinvigorate their loyalty (Moskovsky Komsomolets, February 22).

The failure to stop Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” in late 2004 was one of the gravest and personally painful mistakes of Putin’s leadership, he believes, and now it is reproduced with much greater emphasis and destructive power. A decade ago, Putin was still able to learn from mistakes and chart a careful course of damage minimization. But the probability of inadequate reactions is significantly higher now that Putin has developed such a tall opinion of himself while presiding over a stagnating economy (see EDM, October 7, 2013), disconcerted elites, and a society in which only 10 percent believe that the country is on track for stable development (http://www.levada.ru/18-02-2014/situatsiya-v-rossii-otsenki-i-ozhidaniya). The temptation to bring down revolution-infected Ukraine is no longer checked by worries about responses coming from the incapacitated West; and partaking in a counter-revolutionary dismemberment of the closest of neighbors will deny Russia a chance for a peaceful post-Putin transition. […]

See the original post © The Jamestown Foundation

Pavel Baev
Website | + posts
Research Professor

Affiliation

Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)

Links

Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) (Bio)

Expertise

Russia, Military Reform, Caucasus, Central Asia, Energy, NATO
  • Pavel Baev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/pavel-baev/
    Two Words That Shook Putin’s Regime
  • Pavel Baev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/pavel-baev/
    West’s Renewed Focus on Solidarity and Coordination Perturbs Kremlin
  • Pavel Baev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/pavel-baev/
    Navalny Has Set a Damning Dilemma for Putin’s Regime
  • Pavel Baev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/pavel-baev/
    Year 2020 in Review: The Maturation of Russia’s Autocracy
Related Topics
  • Baev
  • Russia
  • Ukraine
Previous Article
  • In the News | Hовости

Путин и креативный класс: кто любит Путина, кто ненавидит Путина, а кому все равно?

  • February 25, 2014
  • Samuel Greene
View
Next Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Why Ukraine’s Yanukovych Fell… Though Many Predicted He Wouldn’t

  • February 26, 2014
  • Lucan Way
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отравление оппозиционеров в России превратилось в регулярную практику

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 22, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Авторитарные режимы не вечны: О ситуации в Белоруссии

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 14, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

В Беларуси пока что все идет по российскому сценарию

  • Olexiy Haran
  • August 12, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Опасная игра Лукашенко

  • Pavel Baev
  • August 11, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Власть справилась

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 10, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Непереломный момент: Смена Конституции

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 6, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Кейс Фургала и три мифа режима

  • Kirill Rogov
  • August 5, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.