Daily Times

An important development in world affairs, the contours of which are slowly emerging, is the slow but steady emergence of Russia as an important player. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties was bemoaned by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”. When this was happening, Putin was a small fry in the vast Soviet intelligence apparatus. Apparently, the scale of the tragedy dawned on him when he became the country’s president in the year 2000. Since then he has held this position except for one term, when Dmitry Medvedev held office from 2008 to 2012 as constitutionally Putin could not consecutively hold the office after two terms. Putin was re-elected president for the third time last year, and the two swapped their respective offices, with Medvedev taking over as prime minister.

Returning to the collapse of the Soviet Union, it made Russia into a virtual economic and political basket case, with the then president, Boris Yeltsin, sinking increasingly into a state of drunken buffoonery, parcelling out the country’s economic assets more or less for free among booty hunters. Yeltsin picked Putin as his successor, apparently on the advice of some of these newly minted tycoons who reasoned that, with virtually no political pedigree and base, Putin would be easy to manipulate. How wrong they were! When some among them sought to outmanoeuvre Putin or crossed his political path, they either ended up in jail or in exile fearing for their lives.

Vladimir Putin soon established himself as a seasoned and ruthless president but he also cultivated popular support in his own way. For instance, Putin went hard on the Chechens’ insurgency to break away from Russia. Their terror campaign, reaching right into Moscow, was causing great insecurity and fear among many Russian citizens. Putin, in his usual brutal way, managed to create his own reign of terror in Chechnya, installing a regime that was, more or less, a killing machine. This regime, with Moscow’s help, has managed to create surface calm in Chechnya, though there is no pretence of winning over the people. And, in an odd sort of way, this has reinforced for many Russians Putin’s image as a man of action.

In the realm of foreign affairs and national security, Putin squelched the Georgian president’s military intervention to occupy South Ossetia, an erstwhile part of Georgia that had, in effect, carved out a separate existence under Russian patronage and support. If the Georgian president was banking on US and European support against a Russian counterattack, he soon found out that he was really on his own. The Russian military push ended right inside Georgia. The conflict ended with French mediation. Russia ended up creating two independent states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia under its control, though neither is internationally recognised. Even though the crisis in South Ossetia occurred in 2008 when Dmitri Medvedev was Russia’s president, Putin was known to be the real boss of Russia even as the country’s then prime minister.

And now he has thrown out a lifeline to Ukraine, though it is not welcome to many Ukrainians seeking the overthrow of their pro-Russian regime. They, in fact, want Ukraine to join the European Union. Whether or not Putin’s deal with Ukraine’s President, Viktor Yanukovych, to bail out its economy with a $ 15 billion loan and hefty discount on Russian gas sales to the country will calm down the political unrest in the country remains to be seen. However, the alternative of union with the European Union might not be much help to lift Ukraine from its economic morass. The European Union alternative would require an economic austerity package, with cuts everywhere that might not be what the Ukrainians want.

Within Russia, Putin is all ‘forgiveness’ these days for those who ‘sinned’ against him and the Russian state, which is one and the same thing really. For instance, he is going to make quite a few thousand people happy by pardoning them for their crimes. Among them are the two young girls from the rock band, Pussy Riot, serving sentences for their lyrics insulting Putin at Moscow’s main cathedral, though they still find him unbearable politically. Even more generously, he has pardoned and released Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has already served 10 years in jail charged with fraud, tax evasion and other economic crimes, but really because he dared to fund Putin’s political opponents.

On the larger question of human rights violations and abuses, he has been able to expose the US and UK by simply giving asylum to US whistleblower Edward Snowden, with his treasure trove of the US National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) comprehensive surveillance of its citizens and that of people around the world, including some of the US’s best allies and their leaders.

The Middle East is another area where Putin’s Russia is staging a comeback of sorts. The recent visit to Egypt of the Russian foreign and defence ministers, which I analysed in my recent column ‘Russia explores new ties with Egypt’ (Daily Times, December 11, 2013), is an important development. The US’s perceived vacillation and lack of steadfast support for rebels in Syria and diplomatic parleys with Iran on the nuclear question, have brought some stinging criticism from its long-standing friends and allies in the Middle East. Bahrain, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, has come out with a no-holds barred attack on Washington’s “transient and reactive” foreign policy in the region. According to Bahrain’s Crown Prince Sheikh Salaman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, “The Russians have proved [with Syria] they are reliable friends,” adding, “As a result, some states in the region have already started to look at developing more multilateral relations rather than just relying on Washington.” To add insult to injury, he said, “America seems to suffer from schizophrenia when it deals with the Arab world.”

Saudi Arabia, the US’s key ally in the Middle East, has made no secret of its displeasure with Washington’s lack of resoluteness in dealing with Syria and Iran. The US has come under criticism from the country’s current and former spy chiefs. In a recent visit to the kingdom, US Secretary of State John Kerry sought to reassure that the US was committed to defending Saudi Arabia from an external attack (an apparent reference to a perceived threat from Iran). He also assured the Saudis that the US would keep the kingdom informed about developments in the talks with Iran on its nuclear programme so that “there are no surprises”. While Kerry’s visit and assurances might soothe the Saudis to a degree, there is now an element of distrust on the Saudi side. When Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in his opening remarks at a news conference with Kerry after their meeting, “A true relationship between friends is based on sincerity, candour and frankness,” he was obviously making a serious point.

All this must be sweet music to Putin’s ears to make him feel a good deal better than at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.co.au