If a year ago someone told you that Iran was going to be almost the only ally of Russia, except for Belarus,
you would find it ridiculous.
But we are at the end of 2022 now, in reality when Iran supplies to Russia kamikaze drones and missiles intended
for TTPs in Ukraine.
In return, Russia would pay Iran not only with money and nuclear technologies but (surprise!) with restaurants
“Vkusno I tochka”.
It has always been important for the Russian power to feel respected and important.
Now, we’ve come to the point that if some country isn’t criticizing Russia publicly,
it’s considered to be a great diplomatic victory.
Let’s have a look at what has become of the external policy of Russia and if it could have been different.
THE PATH OF FREEDOM
Young viewers of our channel might think that isolationism, and the tales about a special path, rotten West
and bloody Anglo-Saxons have always been in Russian policy.
This is how long ago this rhetoric became natural for any official speaker.
It might look like that this rhetoric moved to the 21st century right from the Soviet propaganda leaflets and news.
Yes, it’s quite difficult to believe in it, but the country met the new century and the new President
with very good expectations in the diplomatic area.
The 90s showed us that the whole world is ready to communicate with the democratic Russia.
Boris Yeltsin had a lot of meetings with international leaders, and international leaders visited Russia,
and not just the capitals.
For example, Margaret Thatcher visited Boris Nemtsov in Nizhny Novgorod when he was a governor there.
In 1997 Russia was accepted to G7 and then it became G8. And 2 years later it became G20 with Russia’s help.
Trade turnover with Western countries kept increasing, and Russia managed to overcome the crisis of 1998
thanks to oil and gas prices, mostly.
It was expected that the new younger President would make the relations even better.
And at first, it was like this. In 2000 Putin had 27 international visits to foreign partners.
They told us about strong friendships with George Bush Jr., Silvio Berlusconi and Gerhard Schröder.
In 2001 the future protector of Russian language made a speech in the German Parliament in German
and said that Russia has chosen the path of freedom.
However, inside the country the path of freedom wasn’t the easiest one even then.
But still, in the external policy the emerging problems were solved in a diplomatic way.
There were serious plans on having a united economic space with the EU – from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
The Council NATO-Russia was created where military cooperation was discussed.
New gas pipes to Europe were built, and new offices of Western corporate giants emerged in Russia.
In 2006 there was a G20 forum in St. Petersburg – a huge diplomatic success of the Russian government.
The Americans and the Europeans were called “our Western partners” without irony.
And no one thought that the European laws promoting inclusiveness and the minorities rights were weird.
Although same-sex marriages were legalized in the Netherlands in 2001 and in the first US state Massachusetts in 2004.
But still they worked together, everything was just fine.
And at those times everyone in Russia wanted to be friends with anyone – with the closest neighbors – former Soviet republics,
with Asian countries, Arab states, the US and Latin America. We had no opponents, there were just friends
EXPECTATIONS VS. REALITY
What if it went on like this even further? The plans were grand, one better than another.
The most memorable example – no visas with the EU.
Just the idea of visa-free entry to the EU made travelers’ hearts beat faster. But tourism was just a bonus.
What’s more important, new visa arrangements would have created better conditions for business,
learning and knowledge exchange.
For more than 20 years we’ve supplied raw materials, fuel and grain to Europe,
and in return we’ve bought equipment, technologies, transport and medicines.
But if a united economic space with the EU happened, product turnover would increase by tens of percent,
developing all the European economies including Russia.
On the domestic level it would mean not just affordable trips, but more offices of global companies, more high-income jobs,
more Western technologies in production and in cities and, as a result, higher life levels.
Long story short, it was a promising opportunity and not a surreal one – the same thing happened
in many countries and not a long time ago – from South Korea to Israel.
And here we come to the point where we should understand what had gone wrong.
How could it happen that from open external policy Russia came to isolationism and the state of “besieged fortress”.
But first, a non-commercial announcement. We’ll proceed soon.
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Let’s continue. What has gone wrong?
Since the early 2000s there has been a dangerous trend – the Russian government decided that all the post-Soviet countries
must be in the Russian sphere of influence.
In practice it meant that Moscow tried to forbid its neighbors to make decisions without looking back at the Kremlin.
And God forbid, if the neighbor tried to develop rapidly and wanted integration with the EU.
That’s why Russia didn’t want Baltic states to enter the North Atlantic Alliance.
This is the reason why it meddled in the internal affairs of Georgia and Ukraine
actively supporting pro-Russian politicians.
People of these countries didn’t like such interventions and as a result, there was a Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003,
and a year later – an Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
In both countries pro-Western politicians came to power and started making their relations with the US and EU better.
Those events had several consequences.
First, the Kremlin failed to believe that the Ukrainian and Georgian people decided to change power
on their own for objective reasons.
The Russian government decided that all that was arranged by the American political experts!
And the name “Orange Revolution” became a propagandist cliché describing any political changes
which the Russian government didn’t like.
Second, Moscow’s intervention into the affairs of its neighbors wasn’t unnoticed by the West,
so Russia became less trustworthy.
Don’t also forget the increasing level of corruption in Russia, NTV destruction (Russian TV-channel),
autocratic power strengthening, Khodorkovsky case, journalists’ killings.
All that made “our Western colleagues” cautious – they continued having business with Russia,
but they were reluctant making it their main ally.
In 2007 the President of Russia severely criticized Europe and the US during the Munich Security Conference.
Now, his speech would look like a modest reproach.
But in 2007 the speech that the US is creating a one-polar world and paying no attention to international law looked
like the start of the new Cold War.
When in 2008 Ukraine and Georgia announced that they wanted to join NATO, it became even worse.
And a year after the Munich speech, the Russian government forgot about the international law
either and de-facto annexed Southern Ossetia when its troops entered Georgia.
It resulted in the first direct confrontation with the West, but they managed to mitigate the damage.
Less than a year after the war in Georgia, Hilary Clinton and Sergey Lavrov pressed the reset button for
the Russian-American relations with a fateful typo meaning “Overload”.
But there were things in the external policy which could be called a success.
Product turnover with Europe increased. BRICS was created – the biggest unity of the biggest developing economies –
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Eurasian Customs Union together with Kazakhstan and Belarus was created.
Armenia and Kyrgyzstan joined it later.
Although the Customs Union was a political project to make the influence of Russia stronger,
the cancellation of customs restrictions made people’s life easier and made the trade better.
And the Ukrainians didn’t like that they were urged to join it because even then they preferred
the EU rather than Customs Union. No new start happened in the relations with Europe and the US.
In 2011 during the Arab Spring Vladimir Putin criticized Western policy towards these countries.
And since then Russia started supporting Bashar al-Asad’s regime in Syria although all the Western countries
took the side of the Syrian opposition.
But of course, the real turning point was the annexation of the Crimea and the unannounced proxy-war in Donbas.
Russia was excluded from G8, and any talks about the EU integration stopped as well as the relationship
in the format of NATO-Russia Council. Of course, the Western countries kept communicating with Russia.
In order to investigate the Malaysian Boeing catastrophe, to somehow resolve the war in Donbas,
to coordinate combat actions against ISIS in Syria. They had to communicate and they did. But nothing more.
After 2014 the rhetoric of the Russian government became harsher.
Speakers of the state TV and diplomats in their fine offices competed in their contempt for their former partners.
And the ideas about opposition to a one-polar world became the official position of Russia on the international level.
What did Russian diplomats do all those years? Looked for new allies. For example, they communicated with China.
Russia became one of the biggest oil suppliers to China though they had to give huge discounts and sometimes
even worked at a loss.
They tried to make friends with Turkey.
Though Turkey is a NATO member, Erdogan's autocracy is more understandable
for Putin’s elites than European liberalism. It was unstable – they quarreled with Turkey and made peace
during the end of the 2010s.
The Ministry of External Affairs focused on finding allies who shared the values of the Russian government.
This is how Venezuela became among our “trustworthy partners” where investments of Rosneft went,
and the Central African Republic too where the soldiers of the military company “Wagner” went to.
For the TV audience the main external policy news, except for “what’s going on in Ukraine”,
was about “our achievements in the Syrian war” where the Russian army helped the government of al-Asad.
The Syrian autocrat kept his power but the civil war against him hasn’t finished yet, so Syria isn’t an active partner.
Sometimes it looked like that new military actions in Syria or Ukraine were needed just to make leaders
in the US and Europe start another round of negotiations.
If you remember, the drawing up of troops and machinery to the Ukrainian borders at first in spring and then
in autumn of 2021 was interpreted this way – well, it’s clear, the Russian President wants to talk to the American President,
so he needs the reason.
But 10 months ago, the talks about vicious Anglo-Saxons stopped being fantasies of the former agents.
Now, this parallel world gives orders on seizing the cities or shootings at civilians of the neighboring country.
WHY DO PEOPLE NEED DIPLOMACY
Let's try to understand what successful external policy is, why people need it and how it should work.
For example, there are 2 pieces of news – the Israeli Parliament couldn’t fulfill the terms for visa-free regime with the US.
And Russia is successfully discussing visa-free entry with Iran.
There are two pieces of news and it’s obvious who is doing great and who is not.
The difference is in what the citizens of those countries need.
The Israelis want visa-free entry to the US – many people have relatives there, business, many people just travel.
Though the Israelis are doing well even now – the US gives them visas for 10 years.
But they want to eliminate this formality too. And the Russians don’t go to Iran. Most of them don’t travel abroad at all.
And even if they do, they don’t go to Iran.
And if visa-free entry to Iran happens, the Russians will forget about it right after the news program.
The government should be busy with its citizens’ interests, internal policy, and external policy should serve their interests.
If there are promising markets for your products, you should make a deal with these countries.
Everyone is happy – they get your goods, your economy gets money and workplaces.
If your people have a lot of relatives in some countries, you should support good relationships and make the entry easier.
Do you have a huge income from the partnership with another country?
You should avoid risks in this partnership and get closer in other areas.
Citizens and businesses of any country have enough needs to be addressed on the international level
which is profitable to solve both from a political and economic point of view. Russia did the opposite.
Did the Russians have the demand for visa-free entry to Europe?
Of course, they did. It’s extremely convenient for travel and for business.
Product turnover with the EU is much more significant than with any other partners. And did the Russians want new territories?
How many people said, “We want Southern Ossetia so badly”?
Or even the Crimea. Before it has started, were there any polls? I don't even say anything about a referendum.
Every third Russian has a relative or a friend in Ukraine.
But did they want to take a huge piece of Ukraine together with their relatives? It’s unlikely.
By the way, if the government wants to solve territorial questions so badly, no problem, there is a huge space for work.
For example, to sign a peace agreement with Japan which has not been signed since 1945!
We can try to solve the question of the Kuril Islands.
It's realy difficult, but we can try. Because it's possible to have economic cooperation with Japan. It has a huge potential.
We might have participated more actively in peacemaking efforts in the former Soviet republics
Before this war they still had some respect for Russia and they considered it as their ally.
For example, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Tadzhikistan.
There were a lot of tasks for talented diplomats.
And if those tasks were solved, the neighbors and the citizens would say thank you.
The demands of the Russians were quite obvious too.
When in 2017 they were asked what should become a priority in the external policy,
the most frequent response was peaceful life of the country.
And the less popular – making the influence area of Russia bigger.
The problem of Russian external policy and diplomacy is not that it’s not effective,
but that it’s geopolitics for the sake of geopolitics.
They think, if we force our policy on other countries, it’s cool, everyone will respect us,
we’ll rule over the whole world, and look, America is doing the same after all.
So, instead of addressing the real needs of the country, the government decided to create them from scratch.
Did the Russians know that Russian-speaking people are being discriminated in Ukraine?
No, until they were told about it on TV. And when the TV showed Syria or the World’s Cup – they forgot about it.
Did the Russians know that NATO countries dream about destroying Russia?
Those countries which give us 35% of our GDP and where Russian people were so happy to travel to?
No, propaganda told the Russians about that.
The Russian external policy doesn’t solve any problems or address challenges our country faces.
But it creates plenty of new ones.
Each sanction, each restriction Russia is suffering from now should be canceled in the future.
Each agreement is to be restored. And the damage should be compensated for.
All the relationships should be restored. Those will be years of heavy diplomatic work.
Good news is that having a democratic government and independent media Russia will figure out
the international situation easily and choose real priorities in the external policy.
It won’t earn more enemies, but will look for friends.
Of course, it will be difficult considering what has been done, but while the world wants to communicate with Russia
and the Russians, but not with the current government, it will be difficult to change the situation, but it will be necessary.
This is it for today. Also, today in 9 pm Moscow time there will be a stream on the Objective channel.
We’ll collect money for the work of our editorial team. I’ll be there and answer your questions.
Turn on a reminder in order not to miss it. The link is in the description
Till tomorrow!