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Ulrich Beck, “Nation-States without Enemies: The Military and Democracy after the End of the Cold War,” in Democracy without Enemies, ed. Ulrich Beck (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 143 (emphasis mine).

30.

Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire, xiv.

31.

Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, La Russie menace-t-elle l’Occident? with a preface by Yves Lacoste (Paris: Choiseul, 2009), 202.

32.

Mongrenier, La Russie menace-t-elle l’Occident? 98.

33.

Michel Guénec, “La Russie face à l’extension de l’OTAN en Europe,” Hérodote no. 129 (2008), 224.

34.

Yuri M. Luzhkov, The Renewal of History: Mankind in the 21st Century and the Future of Russia (London: Stacey International, 2003), 156 (emphasis mine).

Chapter 4

Putin’s Grand Design

Many Russians consider Putin a providential man. In July 2011 the Kremlin’s political strategist Vladislav Surkov, with no hesitation, said that Putin was sent to Russia by God to save his country in turbulent times. “I honestly believe that Putin is a person who was sent to Russia by fate and by the Lord at a difficult time for Russia,” Vladislav Surkov was quoted.^[1] Putin himself, probably, would agree, because Putin—a former KGB Chekist—is a man with a mission. “The Chekists consider themselves completely above the law,” wrote Yevgenia Albats. “Worse, they tend to believe they are their homeland’s salvation, the only voice of authority amidst the political and economic chaos that has engulfed the country.”^[2] Putin came to power almost exactly eight years after what he considered to have been the “greatest geopolitical catastrophy of the twentieth century”: the demise of the Soviet Union. This catastrophy was followed by the chaotic, weak, and erratic rule of Boris Yeltsin and his kleptocratic “Family” (of which, we should not forget, Putin himself was a prominent member). When, in December 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed acting president by Yeltsin it became immediately clear that his priority was not so much to put an end to kleptocracy and lawlessness, because his first move as president was to grant Yeltsin amnesty and immunity from prosecution. His real priorities lay elsewhere. These were to put an end to Russia’s “humiliation” and to restore the lost empire. This reconquista could not, of course, be a simple reconstitution of the former Soviet Union of which the ideological glue that held it together, communism, was no longer available. The neoimperialism of the new Russia had to be based on new foundations. These new foundations were Russian ultranationalism and economic imperialism, a policy that was, in itself, not totally new. It had already been initiated during Yeltsin’s presidency, but could not at that time be fully implemented due to the chaotic economic and political situation. Putin’s policy had two main goals:

To reestablish at least a Union of the Slav core countries of the former Soviet Union.

To reestablish a close economic and political-military cooperation with the non-Slav former countries of the Soviet Union under exclusive Russian leadership.

Back to the USSR? From Commonwealth to the Russia-Belarus Union State

When the Soviet Union was dissolved by the presidents of the Russian Federation, Belarus, and Ukraine on December 8, 1991, they immediately created a successor organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This organization—called in Russian Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv (SNG)—functioned more or less as a receptacle for the broken pieces of the former empire. It was, in reality, not even a faint shadow of the former Soviet Union. The participating countries—including Russia—stressed the fact that it was a commonwealth of independent states. In addition, not all former republics were represented. The three Baltic states preferred to remain outside, Ukraine was not a formal member, Turkmenistan only an associate member, and Georgia left the organization in August 2009. Although the CIS managed to play a certain role in the post-Soviet space, especially in the field of collective security, it remained a loosely structured organization that did not satisfy the Russian ambition to strengthen its grip on the former Soviet republics.^[3] Also the economic clout of the CIS was restricted: only 17 percent of Russia’s foreign trade took place within this bloc.^[4]