Łukasz Pawłowski: How do you assess the current situation in Ukraine from both the perspective of Russia and the perspective of the West?

Looking from the outside, it appears to be a deadlock, because there are no clever ideas about how to settle this crisis beyond the so-called Minsk process. We see it’s almost impossible to agree what should be done in practice. Very soon, we will need a new round of very intense diplomatic work to specify and clarify Minsk commitments and to sign a new treaty.

What’s difficult about resolving this conflict? Russian soldiers should pull out of Ukraine and Russian authorities should stop supporting the rebels. That’s it. Why is it so difficult to achieve any lasting agreement?

Because so-called rebels and so-called Republics are a political reality and for Russia abandoning them would mean a political failure and actual defeat. Ukrainian leaders and European leaders understand that countries like Russia – even if it is in a pretty bad economic situation – wouldn’t agree terms, which will be interpreted by everybody as a defeat.

Do I understand correctly that supporting the rebels in eastern Ukraine was a mistake made by the Kremlin?

I try not to be a journalist to decide whether it was good or bad decision. I see it as a chain of moves which partly or even mostly were not pre-planned. The situation developed step by step, from one reaction to the next. The consequence we see is not satisfactory at all, of course. We can’t say that Russia has achieved any sort of major success. But it happened. Now, should we withdraw support for separatist leaders and say “Sorry, that was a mistake”? Big powers don’t do such things, if they wish to remain big powers.

What would be an ideal solution of the current situation from the Kremlin perspective?

Ideally, it would a transformed Ukrainian statehood which would allow more autonomy at least for Donbas and some kind of a deal – maybe with Ukrainians, but rather with Americans – which would say that NATO membership for Ukraine is not on the agenda.

Why do you think that West should accept such solution? You said that withdrawing from Ukraine would be humiliating to Russia, but agreeing to a partitioning of Ukraine would be humiliating to the West. The United States and Great Britain guaranteed its territorial integrity in Budapest Memorandum back in 1990’s.

Of course, the situation when Crimea is de facto Russian is a challenge to the reputation of the West, but unfortunately the only way to change it is war. If NATO would be ready to fight for Crimea and Ukrainian integrity, then of course the situation would be completely different. But it’s not the case. This means that in one form or another it should be settled. I don’t think that Crimea issue can be settled soon, because for the West morally and politically it would be impossible to just accept this change of borders. On the other hand, the incorporation of the Baltic states was never formally accepted by United States, but it didn’t bar them from having diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Crimea is a long lasting problem, which might be settled one beautiful day, but certainly not soon.

Are you saying that Russian authorities would be ready to start a war over Crimea? Is its prestige so important for Russia?

As long as Western pressure does not involve military force, I don’t think that Russia will start a war. If, however, Ukraine with NATO or some other power tried to take Crimea by force, then of course Russia would fight for it. No doubt about it.

What motivation then does Moscow have to settle this crisis? Why would they do it if maybe – as some commentators in the West say – destabilizing Ukraine in a long run was the main goal behind starting this conflict?

Russia is not interested in taking this part of Ukraine. It’s pretty obvious – if Russia wanted to continue the fragmentation of Ukraine, it had many chances to do it last year. Secondly, the situation in Donbas is very bad and Russia is ready to support these territories, but not indefinitely. And, due to its economic problems, it would be better for Moscow to find a solution, to at least share the burden and to reintegrate Donbas into Ukraine, but on different conditions. Thirdly, the economic sanctions are having an impact and Moscow would like to stop them, but not at any cost.

From what you are saying it seems that the war in Donbas is some kind of accident, whereas in the West the major narrative says that this was deliberately started by Mr. Putin to create a land corridor from Russia to the Crimea.

I’m afraid this interpretation is based on an overestimated assessment of Russian strategic thinking. Being here, my feeling is that a clear aim for policy vis-a-vis eastern Ukraine never existed. There were different ideas starting from non-intervention and ending with a full-scale military invasion back in the spring 2014. You can see the difference: in case of Crimea – whatever you think of it – a clear decision was made and rapidly executed. As a result, Crimea is de facto a part of Russia. In eastern Ukraine no clear decision was made, no clear strategy developed and implemented. And we can see the result – no-one knows what will happen next.

Are you saying that a crisis that may destabilize the whole Europe was not a deliberate decision, but a result of a chain of events nobody actually controls?

A chain of events which no-one is in full control of. It started even before the Maidan protests during the struggle between Russia and the EU as to which camp Ukraine should belong to.

When commenting on Vladimir Putin’s annual public press conference, you wrote that “Putin repeated all of his standard phrases and ideas, but without the passion and tension seen in many of his public appearances in recent years. His comments revealed no desire for an escalation of the current conflict”. On the other hand, some recent decisions taken by the Kremlin – such as sentencing Oleg Sentsov to 20 years of imprisonment or the proposition to build an air base in Belarus – seem to prove exactly the opposite. Would you still say that president Putin is not interested in escalating the conflict?

We should make a distinction – there is a very particular conflict in eastern Ukraine and this is what I meant it when I wrote about the lack of will to escalate it. I believe Russian elites are tired of it and would like to at least freeze it, or find a solution, but not at any cost.  

As for what you say, you need to remember that this is a bilateral process of mutual provocations. Russia has the right to built an air-base in Belarus, as the two countries are allies. NATO is constantly discussing strengthening its capacity in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe. This is a typical quasi-cold war type of exchange, yet during the cold war it was much more regulated, because everybody knew rules of confrontation.

You say that Russia will not benefit from escalating the conflict, but it might be beneficial personally to Mr. Putin as a way of distracting public attention from Russia’s domestic troubles.

It’s not beneficial for Russia or for others. I think Hans Morgenthau once said that the driving force behind international relations is various states’ fight for power and prestige. These notions might be understood differently in different cases, but it’s the key for all international relations. After all that has happened in Ukraine, we need a solution which would allow both sides to compromise mutually.

But is it a fight for Russian prestige or personal prestige of Mr. Putin in order to allow him to remain in power?

I think the role of Putin is seriously overestimated in the West. 

What do you mean?

Putin is demonized as a genius or a devil. But if you look at the Russian opinion polls now you’ll see that the public believe Russia should be a strong and proud power. You can obviously blame Russian propaganda for this, but Soviet propaganda in the 1970’s and 1980’s was much more widespread than the current one and still did not work. Now, people believe, which means the propaganda touches sentiments which are there even without it.

 One of the leitmotifs when discussing Russian politics in Western media is the position of Vladimir Putin. Only recently there was an article by Paul Gregory published in “Forbes” in which the author claimed there is a “slow putsch” going on against the president. We hear such predictions quite often, but so far none of them proved to be true. Is there any way we can assess Putin’s current position in the Kremlin and if he’s really in danger of losing power?

I’m sure we have no methodology to do it. And all those articles are interesting to read, but nothing more.

How then would you reply to a question – is Vladimir Putin going to lose his power soon?

No way. I see no reasons why you would expect things to develop this way in the foreseeable future. But the crisis of the Russian model of development is obvious. It was obvious even before the Ukrainian collision. Already, when Putin returned to power in 2012, he was aware that something needs to be done to reinvigorate development of Russian society, economy and political system. He tried to find something, but unfortunately he failed. In this regard, the Ukrainian crisis served as an escape, because it changed the situation completely and boosted patriotic feelings. Yet it did not solve the initial problem – what is the basis for Russian development in the future. Now, we see a lot of signs that this question is becoming more and more acute, though it has no direct link to the personal position of the president.

Even if the economic situation deteriorates further this will not have any political consequences for the Russian authorities?

At least I cannot see it now. 

Due to the difficulties in relations between the West and Russia, is there any plan in Moscow to approach other allies? Do the BRICS countries offer an alternative for Russia or are they too diverse to create a lasting union?

BRICS is not an alternative way of economic development. It is not a consolidated and unified entity. It is an interesting framework of developing non-western approaches to international problems. It is not anti-western – in fact Russia is the most anti-western of all of the countries, others are not interested in confrontation with the West.

As for the alternatives for Russia, the inevitable direction is Asia, although I don’t think it will be a replacement for the relations with Europe. But even without the Ukrainian crisis that would be an inevitable part of Russian development, because Asia is playing a more and more important role in international relations and economic development. And, let me remind you, the figure even we in Russia tend to forget – ¾ of Russian territory lies in Asia. In these circumstances, it would be strange not to have active Asian policy, which in fact Russian never had before.

 But there are at least two problems with Russian relations with the biggest Asian country, China. Firstly, in relations with China Russia is now a junior partner, and secondly there’s a danger the eastern part of Russian territory may be annexed by the overflowing Chinese population.

We have been hearing about Chinese annexing eastern parts of Russia since 1990’s. But they are not coming and that’s a problem. And I mean it is a problem, because for a more or less balanced economic development we really need Chinese investment, Chinese technologies and its people. Yet they don’t seem to be interested to come.

As for being a junior partner, economically there’s no comparison between the two countries, with China way ahead. Politically, however, it is slightly different. We still see that China has difficulty in behaving like a great power. Unlike Europe and Russia, they don’t know how to behave in a situation when they play a really big role at the international stage. The Chinese body, so to say, is much bigger than Chinese brain. That is one of the advantages Russia has over China.

The other is that China now seems to be under a lot of pressure from the United States. Frankly, I do not understand American foreign policy when they simultaneously put pressure on Russia and China, pushing them closer together. Kissinger and Nixon knew very well that first of one needs to separate China and Soviet Union. But now Obama’s administration seems to be doing the exact opposite. China is concerned about relations with the U.S. and thus wants to have Russia as a loyal and reliable partner. I’m not saying this relation is unproblematic, but it is absolutely inevitable Russia and China will be closer to each other. Russia will need to make a pivot to Asia just as the U.S. is trying to do.

 Recently, an international poll was published by the Pew Research Center. In the summary we read that “outside its borders, neither Russia nor its president Vladimir Putin receive much support or respect. A median of only 30 percent see Russia favorably in the nations outside Russia”. Does this deteriorating image have any influence on Russian politics? Is it even noticed?

It does not have much impact, because the psychology of the Russian people and their political establishment unfortunately leads them to look at the outside world as hostile. This is very much rooted in historical experience. And if you have such a view of the outside world, you don’t expect the outside world to have any warm feelings towards you. Hostility is then seen as normal.

Łukasz Pawłowski: Is Russia so strong or is the West so weak?

Anne Applebaum: Our weakness and strengths are mismatched. Certainly Russia is strong in one area in which we are weak: the West has lost interest in using its military, and they are just getting a taste for using theirs.

It has invested a lot of money in it.

Yes, though in other senses Russia’s “strength” is questionable. The country is so corrupt it puts the legitimacy of the system continuously in question. The major reason behind Putin’s policy in Ukraine is his will to remain in power. It may seem absurd but he’s afraid of social unrest. He would not allow Boris Nemtsov to be killed and would not be jailing dissidents if he was not afraid. He runs a system, which cannot sustain itself without constantly resorting to violence. It’s a sign of weakness.

Illustration by: Magdalena Walkowiak

This is a paradox which I cannot figure out. How is it possible that we see Russia as an extremely weak state – with a lagging economy, omnipresent corruption and broken infrastructure – but at the same time present it as a global superpower, with an almost almighty leader who can easily exploit his opponents’ weaknesses?

There are two huge advantages Russia has on a global stage. The first lies in the fact that Putin and the people around him possess political tools we cannot even imagine in the West. It’s as if Barack Obama was not only the president of the US but also the chairman of Exxon, owner of the “New York Times” and all the major television networks, as if he ran FBI and CIA, and on top of that controlled Congress. That’s the kind of power Putin and his entourage have. They own the country.

The second thing they have – and this factor is strangely underrated at the moment – is a nuclear arsenal. If Russia was Albania and it had invaded Ukraine, we would immediately help Kiev. The main reason we are not doing so now is not because we are too weak, but because people are afraid of Putin’s nuclear weapons, which he is in fact constantly threatening to use.

That’s the same type of situation we had during the Cold War.

Exactly, we were afraid then too. The West didn’t help Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 or Poland in 1981, did we?

When Russia attacked Ukraine and annexed the Crimea, former British foreign secretary, Malcom Rifkind, said we are facing “probably the most serious geopolitical crisis since the end of Cold War.” That means it was a more serious than 9/11 or the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the Western response has been a lot weaker. Why?

I think he meant the most serious European crisis. I can’t imagine he would say it was more serious than 9/11.

Still the response has been weak. What are the reasons? Fear of nuclear weapons?

First of all the West is not united. And secondly, until last year Russia has not been seen as a serious problem, at least not in the United States. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, China, the state of the economy and many other issues were much higher on the American priority list.

In 2012 during the presidential campaign Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, said that Russia was American enemy number one…

He said that unthinkingly and he was immediately laughed out.

How do you know he didn’t really mean it?

At one point somebody I know tried to convince him to defend it and justify his positions. Romney declined. He apparently decided it was a mistake and did not repeat it again. By the way, that brief conversation was the only one about Russia during the whole 2012 campaign.

Putin and his people want to break-up Europe, destroy the EU and delegitimize NATO, thus getting the Americans out of Europe. They’ve been working on these projects for a long time.

Anne Applebaum

What’s the major long-term goal of Russian foreign policy?

To roll back the changes of 1991 and 1989. They want to achieve it by breaking up Europe, destroying the EU and delegitimizng NATO, thus getting the Americans out of Europe. They’ve been working on these projects for a long time.

But that’s impossible!

Just because something is impossible doesn’t mean that it can’t be tried, and it doesn’t mean that the effort won’t cause a lot of damage along the way. International communism was also impossible – it never worked and never would. And yet they tried.

For the last 20 years Russia invested huge sums of money in business across Europe – they bought companies, agents of influence, football clubs, etc. The purchase of the former German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder did not happen after Crimea. It happened many years ago. They also set up an expensive propaganda apparatus, which now has branches in every country, and have been funding radical parties in most European countries – National Front in France, Jobbik in Hungary, Syriza in Greece. Now and again they have some successes.

For example?

The Greek parliamentary elections were a big success for Russia. Both the far left and the far right party which now run Greece in coalition have two things in common: they hate austerity and they are pro-Russian. Leaders of both parties have close links to Alexander Dugin, the propagandist of Russian fascism.

The place where Russians invested the most is London, and still the British government is very critical of Putin.

The Russians have not been as successful at buying senior British politicians as they have elsewhere in Europe, and don’t control any important British companies. When compared to the total value of assets that flow through the City of London from all over the world, the amount of Russian money invested in the UK is not that significant. The British economy, like the German and American economies, is simply too big to be bought. The countries where Russian influence works better are usually weaker, smaller and with a corrupt political class.

You might say it’s not so much a Russian success, but a failure of the EU…

Russians benefit from the situation which was already in place and which they have been monitoring closely. Putin doesn’t have to invent the European far right or far left – they already exist. We don’t need him to put the EU under pressure either, it’s happening already. There are many people who are anti-European, anti-NATO, anti-American. All the Russians need to do is throw them a little money.

Illustration by: Magdalena Walkowiak

Almost exactly a year ago you wrote that the West must counter the Russian propaganda and you reminded that it “used to be quite good at this: simply by being credible truth-tellers, Radio Free Europe and the BBC language services provided our most effective tools in the struggle against communism”. Now Frederica Mogherini is tasked to present a plan for such counteraction by June.

I don’t believe she’ll succeed.

Why?

Because it would require a level of commitment that the EU bureaucracy, and particularly its external affairs service, does not have. I have some hopes for smaller NGOs like the European Endowment for Democracy, and some individual European states may help, but I’m not expecting much from the EU itself.

What about NATO – is it a viable structure today? Only recently president Obama refused to meet with its chairman, Jens Soltenberg, even though he applied for such meeting well in advance. Great Britain has announced it might significantly reduce its military budget and lower the number of soldiers to 250 years low. What’s your understanding of these decisions?

We need to completely rethink NATO – where are its bases, how is it run, maybe even who its members are – just as we need to completely rethink our information policy and the funding of political parties in Europe. How is it possible that the National Front can take 40 million euros from a spooky Czech-Russian bank? How is it possible that Russian disinformation appears regularly in mainstream media all across Europe? To prevent these things, each individual European country would need to sit up and realize that Russia is a threat and then to react accordingly. Almost nobody has done that.

Both the European Union and NATO are multinational structures. Who do you think can be the agent behind such change?

Poland could be an important agent of change.

It’s too weak.

Until recently, Poland was considered the absolute leader on European relations with the former USSR, and indeed inspired several absolutely critical EU institutional reforms. Poland created the Eastern Partnership, for example, which of course helped pave the way for the Maidan revolution in Kiev.

Theoretically Germany could make big changes to European Union – particularly in conjunction with Poland, Britain or other states – but Berlin is very ambivalent about its own power, and actually avoids taking the lead unless there is a serious crisis. A third possibility is the United States. But first the presidential administration must realize there’s an important problem with the transatlantic alliance.

Why don’t they?

I have met White House officials. They say that the Ukrainian crisis is a regional issue which doesn’t pose a threat to the US. They also say that Putin is bluffing – and it’s just a matter of time before he falls.

Yet the Congress has urged president Obama a few times already to get more involved in the conflict and provide Ukraine with military help. The resolutions were passed with both Democratic and Republican support.

There are some people in Congress who see the magnitude of the challenge, but not in the White House. And for something as big as the reform of NATO you need the full support of the president.

But maybe president Obama is right about not getting too engaged in a struggle with Putin? Russian money reserves are shrinking, Western dependence on its resources is diminishing, Chinese domination in the eastern Asia is already indisputable. Why worry then? Let’s just wait for Russia to crumble under its own weight just as the USSR did.

A sick man with a gun is still a man with a gun. If Putin decides on his way down that the only way to remain in power is to create a real crisis, he’ll do it. We’re hoping he will lose power before he does anything truly awful. If we’re lucky then he will. If we aren’t, tensions may rise beyond what we can now imagine.

We need to completely rethink NATO – where are its bases, how is it run, maybe even who its members.

Anne Applebaum

Ilya Ponomarev with whom we talked a few weeks ago said that the year 2017, the 100^th anniversary of Bolshevik Revolution will bring another political earthquake to Russia. Do you agree?

I really don’t know. I can’t predict because I’m too likely to be wrong.

I guess that’s the case with most of the predictions…

It’s particularly true in Russia. Although change can come rapidly there – it has in the past – it’s also true that current system could last a very long time, f even if it’s in many ways dysfunctional. The Soviet Union was also an impoverished state where nothing worked the way it supposed to, and yet it lasted for 70 years. It can be the same with Putin’s Russia.

Especially when 80 to 90% of Russians support the president.

If you believe the polls…

Even the independent analyses like those conducted by Levada Center confirm these results.

Imagine you’re a taxi driver in Kranoyarsk. Somebody calls you saying “Hello, this is Levada Independent Polling Center in Moscow. Could you please tell me, whether you like the president?”. What are you going to say? Of course you’re going to say you like him. One cannot do a poll in an authoritarian country and expect realistic results.

In Russia even such dramatic events like the killing of Boris Nemtsov provoke hardly any social opposition. Aren’t we therefore naïve in putting too much hope in the Russian opposition?

There are two separate issues here: one is whether most Russians approve of the current situation. I believe they don’t. Another is whether their disapproval will bring about a street revolution. Although I hope I’m wrong, I don’t think that it will.

What is more probable then, a coup d’état?

There could be a coup, an assassination or – as Ponomarev seems to hope – an internal change in the political system, which will bring new people to the political scene.

I have met White House officials. They say that the Ukrainian crisis is a regional issue which doesn’t pose a threat to the US. They also say that Putin is bluffing.

Anne Applebaum

Some warn that the toppling of Putin’s regime might lead to a break-up of Russia and geopolitical chaos nobody would be able to control. In other words Putin might be a bastard but he is still “our bastard”.

I once wrote an article in which I went through obituaries of every USSR leader published in the American press. Every single time one of them died or – as was the case with Khrushchev – was replaced, American papers speculated about the hard liners who were supposedly on the verge of taking over the power and the great crisis which was about to follow. Even when Stalin died “The Times” wrote a long obituary in which it warned against Stalin’s radical followers who were waiting to grab power. Can you imagine? Stalin – one of the greatest murderers in history died and they were worried about who was coming next!

What is the reason for these fears?

Russia has no institutional mechanism for change. When a leader goes, we not only don’t know who his replacement will be, we also have no idea how he will be chosen. There is no procedure, it’s always a power struggle.

There’s at least one more argument against toughening our policy against Russia. Andrei Kolesnikov from the Carnegie Center claims that sanctions and increased military pressure from the West may backfire: “In the face of growing economic pressures, Russia’s middle class is steering clear of political involvement. The working class is no different. The more the West increases its pressure, the less likely it becomes that this will change.” Do you agree?

The sanctions are not aimed at ordinary Russians but at the elite. That’s how they were designed. What does hurt ordinary people is Putin’s response: his boycott of Western food definitely harms working class and middle class Russians.

There are pundits who argue we can only reform Russia if it’s integrated into global economy. Otherwise the Kremlin will resort to military options.

We’ve been trying to make Russia part of the global economic system world for the last 20 years! That was Clinton’s policy, Bush’s policy and even Obama’s policy at first. Why was Russia in the G8? Why was Russia allowed to join the Council of Europe, or the World Trade Organization? The idea was that Russians would feel appreciated and become a part of the Western world.

But then the West decided to enlarge NATO and accept former communist countries, including Poland. Some say it was a violation of Russian sphere of influence, which now Russia is trying to undo.

Both NATO and the EU are clubs which require their members to meet a given list of conditions. That’s why it takes so long to get in. Many countries did this but Russia from the very beginning made it clear that it would not change its political system to meet the requirements of European institutions. I think if Yeltsin, and later Putin, had been willing to make truly fundamental changes – and this was said by many people, many times – then there absolutely could have been a discussion of NATO membership for Russia. But they never were and there never was.

Europe very badly needs a common foreign policy and probably a common defence policy.

Anne Applebaum

When Vladimir Putin became president he was long seen as a pragmatist who really wanted to improve his relations with the West. His visit in 2009 at Westerplatte was…

…impressive, I agree. At that period of time, he had decided to ease some of the “history conflicts” with his neighbors, in order to open up new business opportunities. He did the same thing in Budapest. Of course it was right for Poland to encourage this, and to invite him to acknowledge the real date of the beginning of the Second World War – and thus the USSR’s role in starting it. It was also right for the West to try to have a pragmatic relationship with Russia for so many years. The mistake was to take one step further and imagine that Russia had already become a Western country, which it never was, and to imagine that it no longer posed any military threat whatsoever. I don’t think that any Polish government ever made that mistake, but others did.

Europe is equally unable to cope not only with Russia but with the other challenges it’s facing – in North Africa and the Middle East. What is wrong with us? Were our weaknesses always there or do they result from some major mistake made over the last decades?

There have been three important Western political miscalculations in the past two decades. The first was in the 1990’s, when we assumed that the fall of the Soviet Union meant the end of Russia’s role as a world power and the end of any possibility of military conflict in Europe. The second mistake was to admit too many countries into the Euro.

What do you mean?

There’s nothing wrong with the common currency in principle, but admitting countries which were unprepared like Italy, Spain and Greece – particularly Greece – was a disastrously bad decision which benefited no one, except possibly Germany. A generation of southern Europeans has been impoverished as a result.

The third bad decision was the invasion of Iraq which misdirected Western military power and attention at an issue which could have been solved differently.

And what about Putin’s claim that there’s some cultural deficiency in the West which prevents us from standing our ground?

By cultural deficiency Putin means the advancement of gay rights and that is of course ridiculous. No, Western weakness is really a political, not a cultural issue. The level of political debate in almost every European country, including Poland, has deteriorated significantly in the past decade. Radical changes in the media – the growth of the internet and anonymous commentary, plus the bankruptcy of traditional media – have made it impossible for news to be either gathered or discussed as seriously as it once was. At the same time, it’s very easy for teams of internet trolls to organize and manipulate online discussion. As a result, European countries which once had outward-looking, intellectual political debate have now became hysterical and shallow. Germany still has excellent private media and the UK still has good state media, in the form of the BBC, but most European countries have neither.

The non-stop need for news and the constant invasion of privacy are now making politics unattractive too. How many people want to live in a world where every misinterpreted word or misunderstood joke can be spun into a stupid scandal? As a result, fewer competent people now want to become either journalists or politicians, both in Europe and the US.

Doesn’t the kind of politicians we have mirror social expectations?

At the moment, most of our political leaders made their careers in the post-Cold War era of globalization and European peace. Now they have woken up and suddenly found themselves in a situation of military crisis. There’s been a change in what’s expected of them and they are floundering – not least because many have not even understood the change yet. For many European countries even to start thinking about Russia as a threat again, twenty years after the end of the Cold War, requires a total paradigm shift, a Copernican revolution.

Illustration by: Magdalena Walkowiak

What can Europe as a whole be doing now?

Europe very badly needs a common foreign policy and probably a common defence policy, in addition to and in conjunction with NATO. No European country on its own – not even Germany, France or Britain – has any significant influence over the Middle East, Russia, China or the United States. But if on their own they don’t matter, together they are the biggest and the most powerful country in the world. What is Europe doing instead? Wasting time on ridiculous, petty regulations and a common currency for which some countries were totally unprepared. We need a leap of imagination and of leadership.

Łukasz Jasina: Your book, The Ukrainians, was really important for my generation.

Andrew Wilson: Really?

Yes. I’m from so called „generation of Orange Revolution”. Your book was one of the most important books written around this moment. And that is why my first question of course will be naive. How can you compare the present situation in Ukraine with the situation described in your book? Ten years is sometimes a very long period.

I actually wrote two books. In 2006 I published Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. It was written in a justifiable spirit of optimism, because it was written quickly. An intelligent student asked me many years later, whether I would change it in the light of disappointing events in Ukraine.

Would you?

No, that would be dishonest.

People tend to say there have been three Maidans already in the last ten years.

It depends on how you define a Maidan.

I mean three sets of demonstrations physically located on that central square. What was very distinct and hopeful this time was that many people in February were talking in terms of lessons learned. What went wrong last time, how can we do better this time? We don’t know what would have happened without Russian intervention. But at least people really wanted to learn from the mistakes of the past. Viktor Yushchenko was one of the worst presidents in history. That was quite surprising, because he campaigned very well in 2004. Yet he turned out to be a completely different man after the campaign.

Yes, he was very ill. Much more than his associates admitted. The poisoning contributed probably to his “Messiah complex”. But your question is really about general problems.

And it needs a general answer.

It is well known that Ukraine is regionally a very divided country. But there is less known stuff, that’s been a constant problem. Why Ukraine has the worst political class in Europe? It is still the case – even now, year after the greatest revolution. Political class in Ukraine are rent-seekers and pretenders. Political technology there was very corrosive and at the same time deeply rooted in the Ukrainian system. And it is still there.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk is doing pretty well as prime minister, but in 2009 he was running for the presidency on the Eurasian ticket. We shouldn’t forget that. There were also plenty dirty tricks used in recent elections campaign.

Plenty of new faces, too.

Yet, twenty three years of having the worst political class in Europe can’t leave no mark on the society.

But right now we are after parliamentary and presidential elections, first completely democratic elections in the Ukrainian history. Will there be any change of this class?

I wouldn’t say those were the first democratic elections. These in 2006-2007 and even 2010 were more or less democratic. Then there was a regress. But what are the prospects of change in the political class? Better than they might look a few months ago. It is very interesting that many Maidan activists are now inside the political class. For example the well-known journalists, Mustafa Nayyem and Sergey Dolzhenko. Mustafa Nayyem started everything off with his famous tweet back in November, calling people to demonstrate on the Maidan. Nayyem and Dolzhenko underestimated their support level, because they both tried different parties. They eventually went to the Poroshenko block, like a lot of other activists they accepted places in the traditional parties. That is one route Ukrainians got a few new faces in the Parliament.

The other is this famous phenomenon of veterans of battalions and commandos. They are radical but I’m not quite sure in what way. Some of them want to change the system, some of them just want more resources for the army. 

Everyone has an individual policy.

Exactly, and there are big differences between them. People like Nayyem and Dolzhenko underestimated the level of tensions within the society. It seems that on the elections day people came to see them as two good guys surrounded by all the rest of the old guard. So they looked for the newest and cleanest party they could find, which is why „Samopomich” got such a big share of the vote.

And that is probably the reason for the success of Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk parties.

Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk success was similar in a different way. In the final weeks of the campaign they put more emphasis on patriotism and tough line against Russia. But that did not resonate with the society, because the other campaigners were pushing this message more forcibly. So in the last week Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk switched to a campaign against the old politics. As a result the voters gave more support to these fresher faces that looked new a few months ago. That is obviously good.

It is ironic, because Yatsenyuk is an Ukrainian version of Leszek Balcerowicz and this man is winning the election in a country at war. He is the man who will be probably responsible for very severe economic reforms, but at the same time he is not very charismatic.

Yatsenyuk is an academic, he is a son of academics. I think it was Balcerowicz who created the phrase “extraordinary politics”, which we have seen enough in the Ukraine. Balcerowicz said quite rightly: do things quick when you have political cap, before your enemies re-gather.

Now we are almost sure the Ukrainian Prime Minister will not have this opportunity, because there is no more time to do this quickly.

Which leads us again to the lesson of elections we had last year. There was too much politics as usual and a lot of voters wanted to see more and quicker changes.

Many Polish politicians and pundits claimed the Ukrainian revolution would present a possibility for Poland to return to the European main political stage. Sadly, so far it does not seem to work. How do you assess the Polish role in this conflict?

Poland played very important role during the beginning of the conflict. Now its role is much weaker. You are not the part of the „concert of superpowers”. I think this is an important moment for Poles to find their real place in Europe. You can find out how really important and strong your country is. There are many problems which could be known as checking – your relations with Britain where Cameron is doing his policy, Ukraine, Russia. But of course Poland is not so weak as you sometimes seem to think.

Piotr Szymański, Iza Mrzygłód, Anna Olmińska, Łukasz Pawłowski and Konrad Kamiński contributed to this interview.

Special thanks to Piotr Buras for his kind help.

Łukasz Pawłowski: Is the European Union going to fall apart?

Jan-Werner Müller: Nobody can tell for sure. However, quite apart from the empirical likelihood of Europe actually disintegrating, the way we think about this question is itself indicative of a certain problem. Angela Merkel famously said: “If the euro fails, Europe fails”. This may be true – if Greece were to exit the euro, and there were knock-on effects on other countries, the financial and political consequences could be severe, perhaps catastrophic, not only for Europe, but for the rest of the world. My concern, however, is why we assume that any failure of any particular European policy to deepen integration must automatically be fatal to the project as a whole. We are always so proud to say that democracy is the only system which – unlike dictatorships – can learn, can make mistakes and can change course. And yet in the European context it is said we cannot afford any mistake, so we always have to charge ahead, enlarge and/or become more closely integrated. Ultimately, we actually have so little trust in the European project that we think any policy failure of any kind could destroy it.

Author: Aesthetics of Crisis. Source: Flickr

Do you consider what Angela Merkel said a factual statement, or more of a political statement, which aimed to get people mobilized behind efforts to reform the European Union?

It certainly had some motivational function. It was a rallying cry meant to make people understand that they should care more about the freedoms they now take for granted, like the freedom of movement. But it also was a threat to the Europeans that we might lose what we have already achieved, if we don’t behave in a certain way. Can you imagine this kind of politics on domestic level, if every single issue was presented this way: either you adopt exactly my policy, or the state is going to collapse.

Yes, but introduction of euro was not just any kind of policy initiative. It was a project that was supposed to take the EU to a whole new level. Its failure might therefore be very consequential.

I’m not denying it. I simply think that you cannot blackmail everybody all the time into agreeing on one particular policy by saying that any alternative will have devastating consequences.  Such rhetoric is likely to boost populist movements and parties.

We have so little trust in the European project that we think any policy failure of any kind could destroy it.

Jan-Werner Müller

The European Constitutional Treaty (often simply presented as ‘the Constitution’) was rejected by the French and the Dutch and the EU did not break into pieces…

That is true, but the so-called European Constitution was then replaced by the Lisbon Treaty and when the Treaty was rejected by Ireland, the Irish were asked to vote on it again. This had two major effects: one was that a lot of European citizens felt ignored by their leaders and disempowered. On the other hand, European leaders drew the conclusion that they cannot undertake great initiatives and attach a lot of symbolic weight to them because these are not popular with the electorate. As a consequence, European elites are very defensive and don’t want to stick their necks out with any grand plans.

Where do we go from there?

Well, there are many factors at play. In a sense all of Europe is now being held hostage by Great Britain, because David Cameron let the genie out of the bottle by promising British people a referendum on leaving the EU. He thought that if he gives something to the Euroskeptics in his own party, this will calm them down. Clearly, he made both a strategic and a tactical mistake. Any practical concession will only increase their hunger for more. That’s one factor, but there’s also a difference emerging between two continental visions of a future EU. One is, for shorthand, a German vision that is leaning towards a more comprehensive and legal – constitutional, if you like — solution. In short: treaty change and the creation of a new overall institutional template. The alternative is something more congenial to certain French practices, which aim at a more flexible empowerment of executive agencies and agreements between particular member-states.

And what about Euroskeptics who were just elected to the European Parliament? Some pundits say they may bring the EU to its knees, others claim it’s a blessing in disguise, because these people will provide a background against which the EU will finally be able to define itself. What is your opinion on the matter?

Before speculating about consequences, let me point out to a significant structural problem that exists irrespective of what we think about Euroskeptic or even anti-European parties and that was often pointed to by the late Irish political scientist Peter Mair: citizens tend to use the European elections to register a deep discontent with Europe or the EU. But the problem is that the European Parliament does not really determine the architecture of the EU as a whole, it does not write the treaties. Therefore, if you want to see a fundamental change in the EU, you really should make this more of an issue in national elections and you should appeal to your national government, which will sit at the table when the next treaty is formulated.

On the other hand, if you have a major issue with a particular European policy, let’s say data protection, then ideally you would make this a priority in guiding your vote in a European Parliament election. But, as Mair argued, people get it exactly the wrong way round and express their preferences in the wrong political forum, so to speak. And as to the specific consequences of the parties you mentioned in the Parliament – I don’t think these parties will be able to paralyze its work.

But you compare them to the Tea Party, which has done precisely that to the U.S. Congress…

Well, there’s a difference between actually having enough representatives to bring a parliament to a hold, and only frightening other people so that they become extremely defensive and cautious about any further moves. This is exactly the case with the Tea Party. When people think of it, they imagine a huge movement with millions of members, while it’s actually very small, but creates a significant psychological effect. This can be replicated in Europe. Success of anti-EU parties may cause European leaders to think their electors are so anti-European that it would be politically suicidal to make any bold moves. That’s a little bit different from saying radicals can actually sabotage the European Parliament though something like a veto power.

If you join the European Union you cannot pull out the trump card of sovereignty whenever it pleases you. The EU is not an organization in which everybody can pick only these rules which suit them best.

 Jan-Werner Müller

There is another crisis you’ve been calling attention to for the last 4 years, since Viktor Orbán became Hungarian prime minister. You claim there is a growing institutional and ideological problem for Europe because it doesn’t have a way to effectively punish its members for – as is the case with Hungary – breaking common rules. But wouldn’t such punishment be a breach of national sovereignty and the will of the Hungarian people who elected Fidesz to power?

Nobody is denying that you can elect whoever you want. The European Union can never force a country to change its government if it was properly elected. However, it can point to certain measures or laws adopted by a government and say that they contravene the values listed in the treaties or, if you don’t want to talk about values, the kind of common core understanding of how certain institutions should work in liberal democracies. If you join the European Union you cannot pull out the trump card of sovereignty whenever it pleases you. The EU is not an organization in which everybody can pick only these rules which suit them best.

Do you think that Hungary should be expelled or somehow isolated from the European Union?

Legally, all that Europe can do at the moment to the Hungarian government is to take away its voting rights in the European Council.  But that is not really a form of intervention in the country itself; rather, it is a form of “political quarantine” or, if you like, normative isolationism: the rest of Europe is effectively saying “We want nothing to do with your government; we don’t want our citizens to be subject to decision in which your government has had a hand.”  It’s an expression of radical distrust in an institutional structure – the EU – that crucially relies on mutual trust and recognition.  There is also the question of what is supposed to happen next?  In theory, a disenfranchisement of a Member State in the European Council could go on forever. You could forever have a country in the EU that at the same time isn’t really in the EU. That prompts one to think about better means of intervention and maybe also of a mechanism to expel countries altogether. Right now we don’t have anything of this sort.

Do you think such mechanism might be used not only against Hungary? In one of the articles you make a broader case saying that there are ideological and political problems all across the Eastern Europe, with Hungary leading the way for other countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and even Poland. Is it not too soon to say – as you do – that Eastern European countries are backsliding from their way to democracy?

It depends on when you think the right moment for a warning is. I am trying to say that we have one, very clear-cut case of violation of the rules we all agreed upon and that other countries may be trying to learn from that case. Just to clarify, I do not say that the whole of Eastern Europe is the same, nor is it my view that everything in Western and Southern Europe is going great. Not at all. However, given that the change in Hungary has been so comprehensive and that it has generated a sort of a rule book on how such political transformation can be done, it does pose a great threat.

What does this rule book say?

I believe Orbán’s policies are to some extent modeled on Putin’s. It’s partly institutional: keep having elections, but disable checks and balances, and make a real turnover of power extremely unlikely.  But it’s also ideological: the Russian president has created a certain political package combining nationalism, very conservative values, nationalization of the economy benefiting oligarchs, and a kind of economic policy which promises the government will keep gas and utility prices low.  People are supposed to keep quiet in return.  In certain ways this actually also reminds one of the Kadar system in Hungary before 1989: the ideology was different, of course, but the idea of an authoritarian bargain with society is somewhat similar.

Are the Hungarians willing to accept the deal?

If you look at the polls conducted before the elections in April 2014 you will notice that Orbán’s government was not very popular for a long time. And then they came up with the idea of lowering utility prices, while forcing companies to write on the bills by exactly how much costs were lowered thanks to the government. As a result everybody knew that the government helped them save a certain amount o money. It seems that many Hungarians liked the idea.  What usually gets forgotten is that Hungary has the highest value added tax in the EU – and VAT is very regressive, of course.

We have to think about better means of intervention and maybe also of a mechanism to expel countries altogether. Right now we don’t have anything of this sort.

 Jan-Werner Müller

But why do you think this may be repeated in other Eastern European countries and not in the West, where populists are also becoming dangerously popular?

Because I believe that the new political systems remain somewhat more vulnerable than the older ones. Again, I’m not saying that everything in Western Europe is perfect, but even if there are parties or movements which are very worrying, such as the National Front in France, they are unlikely to reshape the institutions comprehensively — whereas in Central and Eastern Europe volatility of voting is much higher, and the political systems are less entrenched. It is hard to deny that even 25 years after the end of socialism, there is a little bit more fragility in these systems than elsewhere.  Having said that: it’s not enough to have illiberal ambitions and get elected; the circumstances have to be favorable and you have to be, if permit this expression, not just an ambitious authoritarian, but a smart authoritarian.  Orbán found highly favorable circumstances: the discrediting of the socialists, weak checks and balances apart from the Hungarian Constitutional Court to start with, global economic and financial developments that helped him (quantitative easing), and an EU distracted by the Eurocrisis.  And he has extraordinary political intelligence.  In that sense, it is not that easy to imitate what he has done.

Allegedly one of the reasons behind growing Euroskepticism is the EU’s distance from everyday issues that concern average European. Instead of being helpful it’s seen more as a nuisance, an organization trying to regulate those areas which clearly do not need to be regulated, while ignoring those which are really important…

I think that people are much less likely to say now that Brussels is this distant, technocratic entity that, as the cliché always goes, regulates the length of cucumbers and condoms. If you are Greek or German you can no longer say that Brussels does not profoundly affect the way you live. You know that you ought to be engaged with it. The problem – as I said earlier – is at what level can you really engage. The European Parliament will not fundamentally change the way the euro is set up, so in a sense it is not enough to realize that Europe matters, and then participate in the European Parliament elections. It will only make some marginal difference. To change the overall European architecture we need to put much more pressure on our national governments.

Jarosław Kuisz: Why do you organize the conference „Ukraine: Thinking Together” in Kiev just before the presidential elections which are due on 25^th May? Do you intend to directly influence politicians and diplomats?

Timothy Snyder: First, let me emphasize, that our meeting does not have any direct political dimension. The major goal is to meet with our colleagues from Ukraine, to show our solidarity with current transitions and to express our support for people who demand freedom and respect for human rights. There are different kinds of diplomacy. There is a “high” diplomacy connected with foreign policy, but there is also a “bottom-up”, social diplomacy. In this case scientists, journalists and artists go to Kiev to bear witness that an event like an international conference, a conversation between people engaged in public life, can just now take place in Ukraine. We would also like to collect experiences of Ukrainians and to listen to their voices. Ukrainians themselves know the situation in their country best, in contrast to the Western societies which are not so well informed about these issues. It is important that participants of our conference meet in Ukraine at this time. We want to show that we can talk in Kiev about issues of fundamental importance for us – like peaceful fight for human rights, history and collective memory, or the meaning of pluralism and democracy in the 21^st century.

Is it an efficient way to overcome the Kremlin’s narrative, which have already won over some Western intellectuals?

I admit that Putin’s narrative has a great appeal, because he doesn’t have to stick to the facts. People who are responsible for this narrative can freely create and spread fake news by using their own media. However, I would cautiously say that we can see changes in Western attitude towards news coming from Kremlin. Russian-Ukrainian conflict has been going on long enough for more and more people to understand that there is an obvious clash of two narratives. This means we are witnessing an ideological confrontation.

Putin’s narrative has a great appeal, because he doesn’t have to stick to the facts. However, I would cautiously say that we can seen slow changes in Western attitude towards news coming from Kremlin.

Timothy Snyder

In “Kultura Liberalna” we have published an article “Affluent Poles looking at Ukraine”, but we believe similar expression could be used not only in regard to Poles, but to all Western societies. How can we avoid the risk of paternalism, a situation when Western intellectuals come to Kiev to tell Ukrainians what they should do?

Fortunately, this way of thinking is now behind us. Today intellectuals from the West don’t have any right to teach somebody. On the contrary, they can learn a lot in Ukraine, because the most important current events are taking place just there. For the conference we have invited people from all around the world, not only Western intellectuals. What is more, we have also excluded any “symbolical” domination, because there is no official language of conference. Panel debates will be conducted not only in English, but also in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, French and German. All participants will share this experience of expressing themselves in a foreign language – just like Ukrainians are forced to do it. It is important to show the mutual respect also in this symbolic way.

Today intellectuals from the West don’t have any right to teach somebody. On the contrary, they can learn a lot in Ukraine, because the most important current events are taking place just there.

Timothy Snyder

Talking about learning from one another – we need to find an answer to a very concrete challenge: how can Ukrainians manage their own state?

I would reverse this question. Through the whole 19^th and 20^th century the state in Europe constituted a problem. It was the national state that fought against natural, anarchical tendencies aimed against it that sprang up all over the continent. Today we know how important it is to convince citizens that the state can give them something, solve some concrete problems. In the West the problem is that the state benefits seem to be natural. People don’t even notice them anymore, and in a consequence they do not appreciate their own state. In a meantime for Ukrainians Western states are still a source of hope.

So there is a hope for Ukraine.

Definitely there is.

See you in Kiev, then.

See you in Kiev!

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

Die Angst um die eigene Zukunft ist nach Osteuropa, in die baltischen Staaten und sogar nach Skandinavien zurückgekehrt. Kein Wunder, dass nach Russlands Annexion der Krim sich Experten und Politiker nicht nur über dieser Situation angemessene Sanktionen und Sicherheitsmaßnahmen den Kopf zerbrechen. Sie versuchen auch, die passende Sprache für diesen Vorfall zu finden. Historische Analogien gibt es viele, am stärksten aber sind heute die Stimmen zu vernehmen, die an die Zeit des Kalten Krieges erinnern, als sich der Begriff „internationale Sicherheit“ änderte. Ludwig von Mises, der Klassiker des Liberalismus, schrieb einst: „Derzeit sind die am weitesten verbreiteten Chimären Stabilität und Sicherheit.“ Diese Aussage gibt, obwohl sie mehrere Jahrzehnte alt ist, ausgezeichnet die Evolution des Verständnisses von geopolitischer Stabilität wieder. Plötzlich sind diese „Chimären“ in unsere Welt zurückgekehrt – in der griechischen Mythologie sind das menschenfressende Monster mit Löwenköpfen, Ziegenkörpern und Schlangenschwänzen. Heute haben sie sich in den Köpfen von Politikern eingenistet, die bereit sind, einen anderen Staat zu überfallen, seine territoriale Integrität und das internationale Recht zu verletzen.

Putins Strategie bezüglich der Krim macht nicht den Eindruck, der Plan eines Wahnsinnigen zu sein, wie es sich ein Teil der Journalisten wünschen würde. Das ist ein Plan, dessen Erfolg nicht nur die Niederlage der Ukraine, sondern auch die Niederlage von uns Europäern zur Folge hat. Russlands Präsident ist sich durchaus darüber im Klaren, dass der Begriff „Krimkrieg“ für Historiker für das 19. Jahrhundert reserviert ist. Der damalige Konflikt hatte zur Rekonfiguration der globalen Ordnung geführt und Veränderungen innerhalb Russlands eingeleitet, unter anderem die Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft von Bauern. Heute wird ein ähnliches Szenario – basierend auf dem Wachstum der politischen Solidarität zwischen dem Westen und der Demokratisierung des gedemütigten Russlands – immer unrealer.

(more…)

Lukasz Pawlowski: Why haven’t the mass protests prevented Mr. Putin from winning the presidential election for the third time?

Lilia Shevtsova: Because the protest tide was weak, it wasn’t a real tsunami. The December movement had no structured leadership and no concrete agenda. It wasn’t strong enough to force political leaders in the Kremlin even to think about some serious change at the moment. Nonetheless, it shocked them and proved the society has awakened although luckily for the Kremlin it is not that frightening yet.

In Russia there are numerous parties and non-governmental organizations working against the regime for democratization. There have been there for many years and now when they got a marvelous opportunity to achieve at least some of their goals they missed it. They have been working long to get Russian society out in the streets and when they finally managed to do that they seemed completely surprised.

Everybody was surprised, maybe with exception of some people, who – just like myself – have been telling themselves every year, every month: “it will come, it will come, the bubble will burst”. But even we were not sure, when it will happen. The number of people that took to the streets was some kind of revelation. Even sociological instruments failed to reveal, what was happening beneath the surface of the society. The most respectable survey institution, Levada Center – the best in Russia, and maybe even in Europe – before the parliamentary elections in December estimated that the Kremlin party, United Russia, will get about 55% of the votes, while in the end it got officially only 45% and in reality less than 35% of the vote. So yes, for many people in the society, even in the opposition the events that followed parliamentary elections were unexpected.

But why has the opposition failed in their hour of trial, despite the fact, that we have so many movements, groups and parties? Why have they failed to get together, to find a common platform and deliver some message to the society?

There are several reasons. Firstly, the opposition is incredibly fragmented and the fragmentation has been much supported by the authorities, because it works to their advantage. Secondly too many oppositionists come from the 1990’s and therefore lack credibility in Russian society. The Russians are tired of that period and do not want it to come back. Thirdly, it was not that the political movements were not prepared for any kind of breakthrough. They were prepared for a long period of legal struggle, but they were not ready for people taking to the streets. This latter situation calls for totally different tactics, political ones.

Are you saying that the Russian opposition is not a political movement?

A lot of demands made by Russian December movement are still moral and ethical, they are calls for human dignity, for mutual respect. This is in fact chiefly a normative agenda not a profound political agenda. So, this movement has to be politicized and the people who organize and work for it, need to understand that politization requires a constant and often mundane work. The opposition cannot succeed just by organizing carnivals or happenings. It cannot be a hipster movement or a flashmob. It also cannot have too much faith in the Internet and social media. These are only tools, they can bring people out to the streets but they can also atomize them. Invited through Facebook or Twitter many people came, but then when standing on the Sacharov Prospect they saw many different people around them and began to ask themselves “What really unites us”? Some of them were there solely against Putin and if he left the Kremlin they would be satisfied, some of them would like to raise their status within the system, without changing it and making revolutions, finally some of them would like to change the system itself. It is the role of the political opposition to find a platform for unification and consolidation of those various groups. In my view the movement cannot be based solely on the rejection of the previous regime but needs a constructive element in it, a project of constitutional and political reform. We need to realize that we are not fighting Putin personally. The major problem is not the particular personality at the Kremlin, but the rules of the game – the personalized power and its close connections with big industry.

Will the opposition eventually succeed?

I’m pretty sure that this movement will continue. The first tide has subsided, but there will be second, third, fourth tide, although I’m not certain what will be the result of those tides. What will be the intervals between them? Will they succeed in Moscow and St. Petersburg in uniting people on the basis of broad liberal and democratic values, not only dignity, but rule of law and political competition?

A lot depends on whether the opposition succeeds to reach people living outside two major cities, in provincial Russia. There are up to 45-48 million people living in the former Soviet industrial cities. They are also dissatisfied with the regime but their protests may be provoked by another set of reasons. People who took to the streets in Moscow were moved by moral, ethical and to some extent political demands. The people in the post-soviet industrial Russia can be moved by social and economical woes. The problem though is that they might long to solve their problems by looking for a new “savior”, i.e. the leader who will promise that he can deal with all their miseries in the same way as Yeltsin and Putin had promised before. Such person would only take Putin’s place while keeping all the pathologies of the Russian political matrix. The major question is therefore how to combine all those social tides, how to find some common denominator and how at the same time reach people with ethical, political and socio-economic demands, how not to leave the “second “ Russia behind.

Would it be easier for the protesters if Dmitri Medvedev continued as a president? His attitude towards the opposition seemed to have been a little more open than Putin’s.

Somehow paradoxically I believe that the return of Putin is better for the opposition. Medvedev’s second term would prolong hopes that he could make a difference, that he could finally become a reformer and modernizer we long for. The return of Putin gives us much clearer picture and it is better to have certainty than delude oneself that change may come from the Kremlin. During the last four years Medvedev has proved that he’s “Mr. Nobody”. He never delivered anything he promised and he already looks in retrospective like Brezhnev who also increased the disparity between declarations on the one hand and deeds on the other. In this way Brezhnev in fact helped the society to understand the rotten nature of the Soviet system. So maybe the fact that Medvedev had promised too much and never delivered will eventually be his only positive legacy that will push the educated Russians to believe that no change can come from the top.

And what will happen to Medvedev now?

Who cares?! Apparently because he was promised the post of the prime minister, he will become the prime minister but nobody will ever take any notice of him, because nobody respects him.

But he has been the president for four years, you cannot forget about this. How will the authorities officially refer to his time in power? You have to explain to the people why Putin has come back. Is it because Medvedev was such a bad president that Putin had to intervene?

They are not going to talk about that this way. The period will enter the Russian history as a period of a Putin-Medvedev tandem which in fact has achieved some goals. Firstly it created a possibility for Putin’s return to the Kremlin. Secondly it has achieved another goal, very important, of seducing the West – chiefly the United States – which believed a reset in relations with Russia is possible. You know there were many people who thought that Medvedev was a new page in Russian history. So from this point of view that tandem has fulfilled some positive goals for the regime. It helped it to survive. But now, when we are approaching the end of this tandem regime, we see that it also had some drawbacks. It undermined the presidential power and started to desacralize it. Medvedev contributed a lot to desacralization of the Russian Presidency.

Especially after the overheard conversation with Barack Obama when Medvedev said he would repeat everything to Putin, we all realized he is simply a kind of liaison officer with no decisional powers. Looking from this perspective, how do you think the return of the old/new president is going to affect Russian foreign policy?

The paradigm of Russian foreign policy will not change because the system remains the same. The foreign policy is determined by the domestic agenda. So if the leader is the same, if the system is the same, if the regime is the same – how come the foreign policy could become radically different? Thus Putin will continue with the same foreign policy paradigm which is based on two pillars. The first is pragmatism. Putin understands that Russia depends on its export to the West and the well-being of the Russian ‘rentier class’ depends on the oil prices and gas production. What is more the elite is personally integrated into the West. Their kids are in schools in London, they have accounts in western banks, they live in the West and would like to have free access to it. Therefore Russia cannot become a totally closed country. On the other hand we need to remember that the Russian society has moved and Putin needs some means to control it. He will be trying to get them by launching anti-western campaigns, by constantly searching for an external-internal enemy and by being anti-American. Thus in the end he will have to walk a very thin line proving at the international level that he is a pragmatist who can be dealt with while at the same time provoking anti-Western feelings inside the country. Until recently he has been pretty successful in riding two horses in opposite directions but my hunch is that in the nearest future it will become too complicated for him. There will be much more anti-Americanism, anti-Western feelings and much more aggressiveness and assertiveness in the Russian foreign policy because – having no means to solve domestic problems with domestic resources – Putin will be accusing the alleged enemies to distract the attention of the public from other issues. So the foreign policy will be much more, I would say, assertive than before.

Is there anything the West can do to prevent this turn? Do you think that increasing the international support for democratization in Russia would be a good idea? On the one hand it might help a lot of democratic and non-governmental organizations, on the other, however, it might provoke a fierce reaction of the authorities and help them present Russia as a besieged fortress.

It’s a very complicated question and there is no unanimously accepted answer to it. I’m not sure that my opinion on that is popular even among other Russian liberals. I would say that the old model of democracy promotion that has been successful during the third tide of democratization is now outdated and has lost its effectiveness. At that time the western foundations and governments were trying to help to promote democratic norms and rules of the game in transitional societies and in authoritarian societies as well. For instance they tried to help those societies to build parties, to understand the importance of the parliament, democratic elections, free media etc. In my view the Russian society does not need this kind of assistance. Western money coming to Russia to support different initiatives and to support democratic cells within the society could be counter-productive, because – as you said – the authorities can always present the recipients of such assistance as a kind of fifth column and thus discredit domestic routes to democracy. True, we have different groups and organizations that have no financial means and survive using foreign funds. They are good people doing good job: they defend citizens against the authorities, they address the West when they notice human right abuses etc. If the West cuts its financial help those groups will cease to exists, so some external support is definitely needed. Western governments should not do anything more though. It seems to me that Russian society already understands what democracy is, what party building is, what independent parliament is, what free media is. Thus we really need to rely upon our own sources and create our own movement.

In that case is there anything the West can do?

Certainly, it can do at least three things. Firstly, it would help us if the West practices what it preaches, because at the time being it is no longer a systemic alternative for Russia mainly due to its hypocrisy. Secondly, the western leaders when communicating with their Russian counterparts should remind them that Russia belongs to the Council of Europe, that it signed various declarations and promised to follow the rules of the game that are written in the declaration on human rights. Being a member of the Council of Europe means that Russian domestic decisions are not entirely up to Russian politicians, that the West can criticize Russia. Thirdly, the West can significantly influence what is going on in Russia by influencing the Russian elite abroad. If western governments tried to persuade the representatives of the Russian political and business elite living and working in western countries that their possibilities in those countries depend on how they behave in Russia it would be a great asset and assistance to democratization movements. Regretfully western governments are ready to send money to the Russian society to support human rights activists but they are not willing to do anything to influence members of the Russian political elite who live within their borders.

But you yourself are an analyst at a multinational foreign policy think-tank, independent, yet as it says on its official website “promoting active international engagement by the United States”. Does this affiliation somehow influence your work?

Yes, I work for Carnegie Moscow center that is affiliated with the Carnegie Endowment but I work with many other institutions: I am an associate of the Chatham House, member of the Davos World Economic Forum Global Councils Network (and the founding chair of the Global Council for Future of Russia), and even a key researcher for the Institute of Economy (the Russian Academy of Sciences). I expect all these institutions to give me total freedom of expression. My colleagues at Carnegie may have different views on Russia and the rest of the world. Some of them are defenders of the US-Russian reset, I am its tough critic. I’ve never experienced any pressure from those institutions, including Carnegie Endowment. Moscow Carnegie Center has its own status and its own agenda. It is funded by many Western foundations (not only Carnegie) and it accepts funds only on the basis of having total independence in using these funds for the democratic agenda. The fact that our autonomy is respected allows us to be part of this network. It allows me to be critical of Obama administration (I was critical of Bush too) and its policy toward Russia. My personal agenda is the Russian transformation. This goal sometimes coincides with the western agenda and sometimes not.

Can a radical change in Russian political system come about only by a pressure exercised by a bottom-up movement or is at least a tacit consent of the elites needed as well? If so, which elites are likely to become tired of Putin – military, economic, political, maybe religious?
The last nearly 20 years have proved that real transformation of the Russian system can come only under pressure from the society, that is from the broad social and political movement. Just like the transformation of the communist systems that took place in the Eastern and Central Europe. Any top down changes within the Russian matrix can only either prolong its life or (ironically) start to undermine. However, even in this latter case we cannot guarantee a civilized and peaceful transformation but rather a sudden collapse. That is why the organized social movement and some pressure from the bottom are needed.

Nonetheless a peaceful transformation will depend on whether the ruling elite gets fragmented, and pragmatic grouping emerge that will be interested in the pact with the anti-systemic opposition. Hopefully, this will happen. From my observations the majority of experts working for the Kremlin understand that the system is not sustainable in the longer run. They are simply not ready to become heroes yet… They are not kamikaze. Despite that I hope such cooperation sooner or later will be established. Who will join the opposition? It is difficult to say – it depends on the degree of courage, understanding and… conformism too. Much depends also on when we will have the next tide of wrath and whether it will trigger some serious work on the political and ideological alternative. Because, you know, the worst scenario will be if the Russian system starts to unravel before the alternative is built.