Abstract
It is now impossible to examine the world’s largest country without acknowledging the new realities which have changed the situation there. The first is that the idea that Russia irresistible is no longer as compelling as it was even two or three years ago and that this has called into question, and even weakened, the Russian president’s authority. The second reality is that it would certainly not be in the interests of the world’s major democracies to allow Russia and China to combine forces against them. The third is that the botched attempt to poison Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020 has raised his status to that of an alternative to the incumbent president. However, the most striking of these new developments is that Russia is at a loss as to how to respond to the democratic protests in Belarus because the options available would have major implications for both Putin and Russia itself.
Highlights
The most striking of these new developments is that Russia is at a loss as to how to respond to the democratic protests in Belarus because the options available would have major implications for both Vladimir Putin and Russia itself
At what is the true start of the twenty-first century, there is an uncertain but very real possibility of a rapprochement between the EU and the Russian Federation
The EU and Russia need to conclude new security and cooperation agreements guaranteeing mutually beneficial exchanges, real recognition of Europe’s borders following the break-up of the Soviet Union and strategic security based on confidencebuilding measures, such as a Russian withdrawal from Eastern Ukraine or the neutrality of states that are currently as likely to join NATO as they are to be attacked by Russia
Summary
Putin cannot bring himself to allow freedom to triumph in the most Russian of the lost empire’s territories On the other, he does not know how to bring Belarus to heel without repeating the same mistake he made in Ukraine, where the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s intervention in the Donbas region have nurtured an anti-Russian sentiment that was once as unknown there as it still is in Minsk. The move was a saving grace for the super-rich, who were able to launder their wealth by rallying around the new centre of power This manifestation of the precedence of politics over money appealed to all sections of society, from the intelligentsia to former KGB agents, the urban middle classes to the military, and right down to those on the bottom rung of the social ladder and the peasantry. Building on this momentum and exploiting the US reluctance to venture onto more foreign battlefields, in 2015 Putin flew to the aid of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, allowing Russia to regain a foothold in the Middle East, and later dispatched mercenaries to Libya, a stone’s throw from the European coast
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