The Soviet Legacy in Russian Foreign Policy

Abstract

Today, Russia’s Soviet-era institutions stamp out any idealism. It will take more than one generation to change that. —Lev Gudkov, October 20171 First of all, we must recognize that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [twentieth] century. —Vladimir Putin, April 20052 AFTER THE SOVIET UNION BROKE APART in late December 1991 and the Russian Federation emerged as an independent country, Russian political leaders had to confront a wide range of foreign policy issues left over from the Soviet regime. The series of agreements codifying the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which led to the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and broad international recognition of 15 new states by the end of 1991, designated Russia as the “legal successor state” to the USSR, a status that, for many Russian leaders (both then and now), has blurred Soviet and Russian interests. As the official successor state, Russia was given sole possession of the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal and was awarded the USSR’s permanent seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council.3 In return, Russia took ultimate responsibility for the Soviet Union’s foreign hard-currency debt to both private and government creditors. These and other formal aspects of the Soviet inheritance were bound to affect Russian foreign policy after 1991.