By Cecilia Capanna*
Interview to Andrei Grachev, spokesman and advisor to the last Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev
Putin did not get crazy in a sudden, his plan has been clear for years. That’s what Andrei Grachev said, spokesman and advisor to the last Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev. He explained Putin’s plan, the obvious signs that preceded his attack on Ukraine and why he decided to act right now.
It is the second time I have the chance to talk with Mr Grachev. Exactly one year ago I interviewed him on the occasion of the 90th birthday of the last president of the Soviet Union.
In retracing the salient moments of Gorbachev’s historic regency and his transformation of Russian politics and society dictated by a pro-Europe vision, at the end of our stimulating conversation Grachev hinted at Putin and he explained the reasons why such a different character from Gorbachev, actually the opposite, is leading Russia.
Has Putin gone crazy?
What’s the explanation of the out-of-a-sudden radicalization of Russian president that lead to the un-precedent situation involving Russia, Ukraine and also in Europe?
Few months ago, at the end of 2021, nothing actually seemed to announce this geopolitical catastrophe. Apparently, the only thing that could give a clue was a declaration made several years ago by Vladimir Putin, who called Soviet Union’s breakup “The biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”.
However, in this days in Ukraine we can clearly see the origin of the political catastrophe of the 21st. Hopefully there will be no other worse than this one.
22 years after he became the president of Russia, precisely 30 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but also 8 years since the Maidan revolution in Kiev and crisis in Donbass compromised the relationship between Russia and Ukraine (2014), Mr Vladimir Putin apparently decides that his previous challenge to keep the status quo doesn’t correspond anymore to his intentions.
I think, approaching the end of his “reign”, when it’s time to fill the balance sheet about how he ruled Russia, he feels he must think about his legacy in Russian history and also about the shape he has given to the country. He is preparing to leave and he cares about Russia’s place in the current world.
Apparently, he is anxious about that, since he’s approaching 70 years old and that’s also the time when many people start to think about succession and successors.
Well, from my point of view, he had reasons both to feel satisfied and anxious.
I try to explain: he has to consider that during his 20 years of regency he has achieved important results for his country, such as the stabilization after the chaotic years of Yeltsin, the maintenance of Russia’s integrity, the price of wars he did and the bleeding of Russian federation included the real danger of its breakup.
What’s Putin’s Balance Sheet?
1 – From the economic point of view: Vladimir Putin can assert Russia’s stabilization is thanks to him, certainly taking advantage of the prices of oil and gas, a very profitable situation.
2 – Internally: again, internal political situation gave Putin reasons to feel satisfied. Because besides reaching political stability, he also neutralized any possible opposition. He has in a way created and solidified a sort of specific model of governing post-soviet Russia. This model is a unique one, it comes both from the over 70 years of Soviet Union communist experience and also form the new experience. Russian yet made a transition to a new world, it is open to a new economy, it must be competitive in the world.
In one word, from this point of view Putin created a model that I would call “Putinism”. This model has a particular feature: it matches the privileged monopoly of Soviet Union’s political features -the monopoly of “one-party system”- with the domination of the pro-Putin party over the society and with the monopoly by its ownership of most of the country’s wealth. This is an exceptional situation: the monopoly of the political rule, let’s say the “vertical of power”, repose on the dominant position of the same political clubs over the economy and certainly with the development of market economy’s lower level features. So, profiting from the support of the important part of the population, and satisfied with the improvement of economic conditions, Putin could feel quite safe at the top of this pyramid of power.
3 – The third element that has to be mentioned is the improvement of Russian status in the world scene. Putin could claim, and this is another reason why he could count on the important part of the population, that Russia is back on the world scene. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia had to face a very fragile position in the world because of the chaotic relationship with the near abroad and the west. That gave Russia the image of a country that lost the Third World War, I mean the Cold War, in which Russia was defeated by the west and humiliated. Putin has managed to improve this image of the country, he brought it back to the standard of the equal partners with the main players of the world.
The side effect is certainly his Russia cannot be compared with the Soviet Union, it is no more the superpower that Soviet Union used to be, except for nuclear weapons. Certainly, the country has less power from the point of view of the capacity to rule in comparison to the old times, but at the same time it has its own advantages: Putin has a play on different tables of the world scene, both with the west and east, like China and the Muslim world. He could feel he has the power to recover some positions of the Soviet Union, not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world, like in the Middle East, Syria, Africa, even Latin America.
What are Putin’s concerns?
We are speculating about what’s happening in Mr. Putin’s head, but I think because of what we said, he could be satisfied about his balance sheet. His popularity was around 60-70% and he was not risking any kind of challenge from any kind of opposition.
But particularly the very uncertain crisis and the risk in the relationship with Ukraine led him to make a kind of “jump in the Black” – just to quote the Germans say at the beginning of the 1st World War.
He was concerned and he thought invading Ukraine wasn’t such a risk because he felt the whole structure he had built was still fragile, despite all the features of the soviet success.
Russian economy is still very modest, like in countries as Spain or Italy which would like to behave and be treated like a superpower but do not provide enough assurance for it. This happened especially when the world was entering the 21st century with its different quality of relationships, with the domination of the century by the confrontation between the two giants USA and China.
In order to play on the same level of the two giants USA and China, in order to make Russia be treated not as a country of a second league, Putin believed that he had to confirm Russia’s capacity to be one of the poles of the new polar war, on the basis of his country‘s advantages.
What are these particular strategical advantages? First of all, Russia’s geopolitical strategical position between east and west, west and China and the Muslim world. Moreover, making Russia be considered an energy superpower (oil and gas), which is almost as important as nuclear weapons were during the Cold War. A very privileged position that would make Russia the exceptional exclusive part of the new big powers of the 21st century, and profit from it.
Putin blames Gorbachev
In order to be able to play this role, in Putin opinion Russia had to recover. It had to repair the damage it had suffered after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Certainly, the damage would be fixed not to rebuild the Soviet Union that ended 30 years ago. Putin considers Gorbachev responsible for what he calls a “catastrophe”. In particular, in his opinion Gorbachev was naive enough to accept a union letter of policy for opening doors to west, without putting boundaries, without formulating clear conditions for ending the cold war and for dissolving the URSS, for evacuating the eastern Europe, for allowing Germany to get united and Europe to get united as well.
As I said, Putin wanted to rebuild a kind of new Russia’s galaxy not in the form of Soviet Union 2.0, but in a kind of “after all Russian Empire”, even if he doesn’t like the term.
He also dislikes the term “Soviet Union” because he’s believing that even the period of Soviet was a trauma for Russia. He started to consider himself the heir of the Zars, the Russian imperial status, rather than of the Soviet leaders.
So, in order to make Russia play a significant role in the world in this 21st century, he starts from the belief it is going to be the century when western countries, starting from the US, cannot claim to be the dominant, they are not able anymore to impose the rules of behaviour on the rest of the world. Putin wants to announce to the west that it’s not going to follow its rules, that means the rules of international structures and organizations, and international norms that he considers to be also the legacy of the end of the cold war. Besides, He believes that while West is trying to impose its rules it respects international laws and UN’s decisions just as long as that corresponds to their own interests. The examples are Yugoslavia, Iraq war, Afghanistan, Libya, where West wouldn’t hesitate to behave as the only master of the world.
This kind of situation from Putin’s point of view was reducing Russia’s role just to a role of subordinate country that has to follow the rules of western world.
How does Putin want to reformulate rules in 21th century?
It was first announced in Munich conference in 2007, then it was confirmed by the definition of Russia’s so called “red lines”, beyond which Putin has announced that Russia would not accept the continuation of western fear influence. First of all in the form of the extension of NATO. While Russia had to accept the entry of former East European members of the Warsaw pact and Baltic Republics in NATO, once it got back its strong new status, it is no more going to accept this kind of “colonization” of the former Russian space by West. And that was the real explanation of the 2008 war in Georgia, when Russia had definitely announced that it was going to oppose, by the use of force included, the perspective of Georgia entering NATO which had been announced in 2008 NATO meeting. That was what brings us to the situation of Ukraine, because during 2008 NATO summit the invitation was formulated for two former republics: Georgia and Ukraine.
Was the War in Georgia a warning?
Georgian war had to be interpreted as the signal of a “red line” also concerning Ukraine. But the signal was neglected and the evolution of Ukraine led to the crisis of 2014, with the sudden change of leadership in Kiev and the announcement of a new orientation of the country. That’s when Ukraine new political leadership was openly challenging its traditional relationship with Russia and it announced its intention to join the European Union and NATO. Putin’s reaction to that was the annexation of Crimea: since he had lost his influence over Kiev, he had to find a compensation. And then, in the same year, the mobilization of separatist forces in the east of Ukraine occurred.
All these considerations necessarily lead us to better understand the origin of the current dramatic situation.
Putinism and NATO are compatible?
The point is Putin felt strong but at the same time he felt Russia’s fragility at an international level. He felt as if he was threatened, he felt to be in danger, internally, not from the point of view of Russia’s security.
It’s not about some danger for Russian security, it’s a problem of Putin’s System fragility inside the country. Because he started to interpret the events that followed in the last years in the Middle East, as before this in other countries like Yugoslavia, as a kind of a quiet aggression as the progressive irradiation of western influence challenging his model, eventually changing his regime.
Actually, he was quite right because American war in Iraq meant a change of regime, policy in Afghanistan the same, Libya was another example for him. It was a signal that in a way NATO, which had no reason to stay alive, had found a new function: the function to be the armed tool for imposing the western model on the rest of the world. And for Putin that was threatening also his own system while internally it was challenged as well.
Where is Putin internal system weak?
Putin internal system was challenged also in the periphery of Russia, in Belarus, in Kazakhstan, as the potential examples of possible evolution of this situation of Russia itself.
He could stabilize the situation in Belarus as a big brother for Belarusians. At the same time, he would do the same for Kazakhstan, not only stabilizing the regime there but also building a protective border against the possible Chinese influence in Central Asia.
He could also act as per building a protective wall in the Caucasus, in Georgia during the war in 2008, but also during the recent Azerbaijan–Armenian conflict. And again, he was on his way to build a protective wall against Turkey. So, in the last at least two-three years Putin’s intention has been to protect his internal world and the model he had built in Russia, against possible challenges from the outside world. Because he believes that he faces challenges not only from the West but also from China, from Turkey, from Muslim world in Afghanistan border.
Ukraine: a stone in Putinism shoe
What remained for him “as a stone in the shoe” was Ukraine, because it was the only hole in this kind of protective wall he was building in order, above all, to protect his system, not the Russian security interest. He saw the possibility of a regime change not only for him personally, but for the whole “Putin family”, politically speaking. In other words, he wants to protect Putinism and Putin’s clan, which is behaving as the private owner of Russia.
For these reasons, he started to practically destroy all the political opponents inside. Navalny is in prison, independent media are declared foreign agents and they cannot act in Russia, different NGOs and opposition figures are either suppressed or neutralized or forced to the emigration. There are no checks and balances, no institutions that can control the “vertical of power”, the parliament has no possibility to challenge the president, it is voting unanimously, even more unanimously than in the soviet times. And there’s no independent jurisdiction, no independent court, the whole system is subordinated to this kind of model.
Why Now?
He apparently considered the moment very profitable, and also, he considered Ukraine to be a very weak element of this chain, instead it was not yet close.
He was then encouraged by the bankruptcy of USA, by Biden’s humiliation in Kabul. He saw that Americans are no more interested in Europe nor in Russia but they are concerned by China. So, he thought there was no danger to be confronted to the Americans in Europe, and Trump was there to show it. Also, sleepy Joe Biden was again giving the image of a weak president that couldn’t be feared.
In Europe, Putin was also thinking that he could count on his gas pipelines, he could count on his privileged relationship with Germany, which is very dependent on Russian gas supply, and with Eastern Europe as well. But also, he could count on the fact that Europe itself presents a very chaotic image. He is much more concerned about the Islamic invasion and Islamic immigration than by the Eastern Europe’s affairs. Especially after Merkel left, the conflict between west and eastern Europe was there, he was counting on his allies in Europe: from Orban in Hungary, from Serbs in the Balcans, from Salvini or those nationalists from radical right-wing in Europe, that wouldn’t allow Europe to behave as a serious opponent to him. That’s why it was a good moment to act.
Besides that, he believed that an operation in Ukraine would be a very simple one, it would be like Crimea 2.0. He thought the weak Ukrainian President is not professional because he is an actor.
Mr Stalin as well in 1930 was affected by this “vertige du succés”, by the excessive optimism about his own power. By one side, Vladimir Putin made this overestimation, on the other side he also had a wrong judgement of several things:
First, for sure, he was wrong about the fact that 21th Century is going to be the “post western” one, where west is on the decline, it has no capacity to resist and to oppose.
Second, he felt he couldn’t lose any more time in Ukraine after he was trying to make an agreement that would have confirmed the special status of Russian speakers in Donbass and others. That would have been a solid condition for preventing Ukraine to enter NATO. But then he figured out that Ukraine would not apply this agreement and that France and Germany weren’t ready to impose Ukrainian government to accept the conditions formulated in the Minsk agreements. He also understood that in the meantime Ukraine was changing: Americans were supplying it with weapons and Ukrainian Army was being modernized. There’s no comparison between Ukrainian Army in 2021 and what it was in 2014 when he could have defeated it.
There was no time to lose to get last piece to be included in the “security belt” he wanted to surround Russia with, aiming to give Russia the image of a kind of imperial status that now on would challenge the 21st Century.
Which are Putin’s mistakes and Putinism limits?
He proved to be wrong in a number of things.
– He was wrong about the meaning of the century. He behaved as if he was, as somebody said, a politician from the XIX century, a kind of Bismarck that was thinking in the terms of relationships between big empires. Instead it turned out he is only and very modestly a man who is far from understanding modern world.
– Perhaps, Covid as well has played a fatal role on him because he chose to be very isolated in the world. He is also politically isolated, because with his vertical power his model turned him into a dictator or into a kind of character from Gabriel Marquez’s novel “The Autumn of the Patriarch”. He is not surrounded by any institutions, nor even by advisors, but only by executioners. His position, his opinion is just the only one and it cannot be contested even by the people that support him. That was shown at the television, where he was surrounded by his advisors.
– He ultimately underestimated Ukraine. He was totally wrong about its intentions and capacity to resist. In a certain way he gambled.
Is Putin defeated?
Vladimir Putin has been defeated in a number of issues: he found himself in a war with a country that is turning united thanks to his attack. He is the creator of a new Ukraine state and even a new nation which will be born in the resistance.
Instead of diminishing Russia’s isolation in the world, he is getting the situation worse. Russia had not been so isolated even since the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979.
He also proved to be wrong about Russian society that is no more the Soviet Union of 1968. The Russian society that had lived the experience of Perestroika and Gorbachev is different from the soviet one. In 1998, you could see only 8 persons in the Red Square of Prague, Czechoslovakia, protesting against the soviet invasion. This time you have several thousands of people across Russia who openly show up protesting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, most of the dissidents and the opposition left Russia and it’s waiting for a better time to be back in order to rebuild the post-Putin Russia.
How will it end?
After all, in my opinion, while he targeted Ukraine’s regime change he is shortening the time he’ll be in power himself, he is cutting off his regime’s life expectancy. He intends to move Russia toward Asia, he wants Russia to become the new Northern Korea. But Russia is a European country.
According to Mr. Gorbachev, Russia was a legitimate part of a Common European Home, and Russian society is not going to be like a Chinese or North Korean society because of its culture and its traditions. That’s another fatal mistake by Putin.
Unfortunately, this tragedy brings us to an important reflection about the power of one person in history. And we have two striking examples: Putin and Gorbachev.
We are living a dramatic situation when the ambition, but also the obsession, the paranoia and the uncontrolled behaviour of one person can produce dramatic conflicts affecting the whole world, especially when we are facing the exceptional situation of this man, Putin, at the top of the power of a very big country, with his finger on the nuclear button.
And he leads a country which is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. That means that he is protected from any possible collective action of international community as it happened for example with Saddam Hussain in Iraq or Gaddafi in Libya. Putin is not afraid of this.
We’re having this kind of exceptional situation when the fate of the world depends on one person in a negative perspective.
And at the same time, on the contrary, we have a positive example in the same country, Russia: Gorbachev by himself too could change the fate of the world profiting from this exceptional position in the Soviet Union. He managed to end the Cold War, he managed to relieve the world from the threat of a nuclear conflict, he managed to open the borders and bring his country to join Europe.
The contrast between the two characters is certainly an unfortunate situation, but at the same time it means that the real mediator, the real judge between the two is going to be Russian society.
Will Russian society ready to follow Putin or the “children of Gorbachev” will resist, adding their resistance to Ukrainians one?
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*Expert in communication, marketing and social media. Ability to manage international projects for the dissemination and strengthening of visibility in the information sector. Former Executive Director, Other News, Rome
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Time to Talk Peace Terms with Russia
Ukrainian neutrality is not only acceptable but prudent if the negotiated peace settlement offers sufficient security guarantees. Neutrality will help to keep NATO and Russia separated – a positive good for all parties, and for the world. Ukraine can thrive as a non-NATO country, just as Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, Finland, and Sweden thrive. Yet some pundits and politicians in Kyiv, Washington, Brussels, Warsaw, and elsewhere are arguing vehemently against any deal along the lines suggested here. They urge Ukraine never to submit to demands for neutrality, regarding it as tantamount to surrender. They believe in victory over Putin, not diplomacy – a belief that US President Joe Biden channeled in his recent speech in Warsaw.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/peace-settlement-for-ukraine-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2022-03