According Vladimir Putin the implosion of the Soviet Union, 30 years ago, it was the greatest geostrategic catastrophe of the 20th century. If one takes into account that it was the same century that recorded two world wars, this data is enough to get an idea of the profound impact that this fact had on those who have guided the steps of Moscow since the beginning of this century. By the way 15 countries have appeared where there was only one And although the Russian Federation is still the largest country in the world, it is obvious that its military power and its wealth in hydrocarbons have not served to maintain the superpower status that the USSR once had. An opinion, if anything, that Putin does not seem to share.
It is true that the last decade of the last century saw a brutal fall into the abyss for Moscow, plunged into a debacle caused by the lack of political control against some economic actors who knew how to take advantage of the situation for their own benefit, while the welfare levels of the population as a whole only got worse. Internal wars, such as the one in Chechnya, thinly disguised secessionist drifts and pro-western alignments of the old “satellites & rdquor; of Central and Eastern Europe only increased pessimism about the future of an utterly depressed Russia (albeit with thousands of active nuclear warheads).
But since the middle of the first decade of this century it has also been evident that Putin managed not only to stop the collapse but also to regain political control, eliminating all his possible rivals along the way, and taking advantage of the rise in oil prices to modernize his military potential and regain nationalist pride. One time internal threat nullified -with a mixture of clientelism that has brought him high rates of popularity and repression of any attempt of dissent- Putin has focused his efforts on regain lost influence in both Central Asia and Eastern Europe. And for this they have developed a strategy that combines energy blackmail with the use of force (both conventional and hybrid), as they have well experienced in their own meats Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova. But surely it would not have reached the current point if those who have wanted to take advantage of its weaknesses had not made so many mistakes and, above all, had not shown so much unwillingness to set clear red lines to the Russian attempt to return to its old ways.
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This explains why we have reached a point where Putin, who has so many times implied that only knows the language of power, dares to demand new rules of the game on the European continent. In essence, what Moscow wants is to annul the agreement of the NATO Summit of 2008, by which the Alliance tenderly opened the door to Georgia and Ukraine. Likewise, its intention to achieve formal recognition by NATO that it will not add any new member in the region is clear, and that it also renounces carrying out military maneuvers and deploying units and weapons that could threaten Russia in the territory of your immediate neighbors (even if they are members of the Alliance, like the Baltic countries, Romania, Bulgaria or any other). And, to top it all, while the armed forces that Russia is deploying near its border with Ukraine continue to increase, the Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, it has threatened serious consequences if those demands are not heeded.
The problem is enormous and goes far beyond the fate of Ukraine. If Washington and Brussels accept the Russian order, it will be clear that Moscow will feel even more convinced that it can impose its dictates on the continent, effectively nullifying the sovereignty of many of the neighboring countries and deepening it even further. NATO’s credibility crisis. On the contrary, if Putin does not obtain anything of what he now demands, the probability that he will end up launching a new military intervention against Ukraine will increase, accelerating a dynamic that, deep down, cannot interest him either to the extent that it does not assure him. no final victory. Meanwhile, diplomacy is exiting.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com