Part LXXI
Brothers in Arms
Vladimir Putin had many accomplishments under his belt. Since his assumption of the Presidency on January 1st 2000, the Russian economy had rebounded by 60%, its oil and gas sector jumpstarting this post-post-Soviet era of Russia as a newly emerged ‘great’ power. No longer dependent on foreign loans or economic assistance from the IMF.
So too, had Putin managed to wrestle more power from the country’s institutions, muzzling independent media sources, gaining a monopoly on television news across most of the country, and taming the oligarchs who ran the national industry with reckless abandon, brought under the Kremlin thumb or entered into self-imposed exile or arrest.
But for all of the President's grand accomplishments, there was only one real concern in the minds of ordinary Russians. Their safety and security from terror.
Putin’s goal upon his entry to the Presidency had been to fight terrorism, he had begun Russia’s second foray into Chechnya. But despite a 7-year heavy-handed occupation of the small Caucasian statelet, despite high hopes amid a decline in violence in 2005 and 2006 as a national recommitment to the war took place, persistent gang warfare, inter-factional violence and terrorism had clouded perceptions of victory on the near horizon. Casualties both military and civilian remained stubbornly high and became more unpredictable as the rebel groups shifted strategy, expanded their insurgency outside of the heavily patrolled and tightly monitored Chechen territory and into the wider caucuses, recruiting from the majority Muslim, Dagenstani and Inguish regions, from the young men who were more inspired by the daring life of a mujahid, than the droll Russian army, roused by the increasingly religious and ethnic language around the war, as the ‘Crusade against terror’, as deputy minister Medvedev phrased it.
“There are three paths for the poor here, the army, bandits or the terrorists” said Russian journalist Sergei Babitsky,
“And to most, these options are one and the same”.
The war couldn’t be declared over, not while its commander Shamil Basayev was still at large, and still taking credit for the latest suicide bombing of an airport, or soldiers' mess hall. Reports on his location were varied, according to security insiders they got daily reports of Basayev sightings, one Turkish man was even arrested in a Moscow Café based on a slight likeness. Most agreed he couldn’t be in the country anymore, but none of it stopped him from claiming major propaganda victories killing a major general with a mortar round or recruiting local Inquish police officers to his cause.
But the biggest recent headache in Chechnya was that of former ally turned adversary for Russia, warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, who since being deposed and nearly killed by an FSB assassin (or so he said) claimed the banner of (non-jihadist) Chechen nationalism and paid his enemies back in kind by taking credit for planting the mine that killed Chechen President Alkhanov on the streets of Grozny on November 15th 2006, planting his flag as the
“True and faithful President of Chechnya” and then blamed Russia for the death of his father and orchestrating the 4/9 attacks as a false flag attack, calling Putin the real
“terrorist, who needs to be buried alive” and for presenting Chechnya with a non-Islamic state
.
Russia responded to the escalating political violence, by unceremoniously shuttering the Chechen parliament and presidential office completely, authoring a law to strip Chechnya of its republic status and de-jure autonomy.
“It’s time to stop bartering with terrorists, exchanging one warlord for another,” said Defence Minister Ivanov. Reinstituting direct rule through the various networks of military and security groups stationed there, to finally fully implement the Russification policy.
The Russian crusade against terror had altered Russian life everywhere, heavily armed state police equipped with tanks and MBTs were a common occurrence designed as a deterrence to attacks, placed outside airports, railway stations, theatres, schools and hospitals. But if Russia had worked hard to hide its ‘war in the south’ before, now it had since become a fixture of life in the federation, as part of a new openly nationalist agenda backed by the Kremlin.
Efforts to coopt nationalist organizations had been underway since Putin’s rise to power, utilizing football hooliganism and skinhead culture into the organization ‘Moving Together’ a group notorious for its fanatically pro-Putin stance reaching the level of personality cult. However, following the Moscow attacks, the organization was transformed into a more ambitious project, a nationwide movement of “
United Patriots” a group that was intended to direct citizens and businesses into volunteering to serve
“our soldiers, our people and our country” through pro-government protests
.
One member of a patriot organization and the nationalist party was Alexie Navalny just one of many Russians to join the groups after the attacks, not just to promote Russian nationalism but also to attack corruption and bureaucracy within the Russian government, without being seen as a traitor in the post 4/9 era in the more radical anti-government national-Bolsheviks or the various ineffective city-dwelling liberal groups.
Though the groups appeared to be moderate in nature, one did not have to dig deep to find thuggery, as they sported militant groups that became renowned for roughing up opposition gatherings and politicians. And holding ties with xenophobic, and ethnic nationalist groups like ‘Youth Russia’ known for their protests outside foreign embassies criticised Russia’s handling of the Chechen war, and ‘The Locals’ an anti-immigrant group known for its boycotts of immigrant-owned businesses and advocating the immediate deportation of most immigrants.
The Russian government had done more to mobilize fanatical nationalist support, in the aftermath of the attacks endorsing both a new ‘Day of Russian Liberation’ for November 7th replacing commemorations for the Russian Revolution and sponsoring annual demonstrations and military marches for the day which would vibe with passionate chest thumping slogans like
“Russia for Russians” a slogan that Putin had once threatened to arrest people for spouting for
“inciting racial and national hatred” in 2004, but by 2006 over 54% of Russians reported approval of the slogan and was backed by far-right Duma members like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Dmitry Rogozin full-throated ethno-nationalists who threatened the Kremlins right flank.
But it didn’t just stop at marches and flag waving, the Kremlin also developed relations with ultra-radical neo-Nazi groups primarily to attack left-wing organizations and rallies, and weren’t afraid to utilize deadly force, as reports of hate killings rose, including a deadly clash with students in St Petersburgh that killed 4, as well as becoming the lead suspects in the murder cases of a journalist Elena Milashina and gay rights campaigner Nikolay Alexeyev.
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(top to bottom, left to right) Pro-Putin protesters, Neo-nazi protesters, National-Bolshevik protesters, Russian police
An example of these nationalist remarks and policies reaching into Russian culture was the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, where Russian security and military forces were on full display to the European crowds as a display of reassurance but also pride and strength, with Russia’s own patriotic entry “Never surrender!” by Dima Bilan that did not go down well with the voters who favoured the conventional Europop of Greece.
Outside of domestic nationalism, Russia was in a strong geo-political stance going forward and pursued a political doctrine of the ‘Russian-world’ or ‘Pan-Russia’ (in more diplomatic language), As Russia worked to expand its economic, political and cultural ties with its neighbours specifically with the favourable governments in neighbouring Ukraine (under Yanukovych) and Belarus (under Lukashenko), a policy that sought to bring together Great Russia with Little Russia and White Russia into a strong tripartite alliance.
Belarus
Relations between the three countries were complicated, and Putin’s overall goals weren’t clear, though he pushed in the immediate period for an economic and financial union, he often spoke in more grandiose terms of a complete merger into a federation of nations, and in Belarus openly pushed for a referendum on the issue in 2003, which immediately led to a brief fracture between he and Lukashenko who rejected such a move out of hand
“What would a Belarus citizen say to such an agreement? Absolutely not, never.”, And instead pushed for a European Union-esque relationship.
The cultural relationship between Russia and Belarus also became even more tight-knit, as Lukashenko openly promoted a renewed ‘Russification’ strategy to grow his own political popularity prior to a referendum on removing Presidential term limits, and his subsequent re-election bid, universally adopting the Russian language in media outlets and phasing out Belarusian language teaching in schools. He similarly adopted November 7th as a National Unity Day to replace commemorations for the October Revolution, a day that similarly brought out the fanatically pro-Russian segments of the population into the open.
The two men and the two countries had an interesting relationship, often strong allies, Lukashenko’s strong support for Russia’s antiterrorist campaign led to technical assistance being provided to Russian troops in Afghanistan and ceased supplying embargoed weaponry abroad. But the Russian-Belarussian relationship still suffered from the outsized and easily bruised egos of the Presidents, with their braggadocio leading to diplomatic outbursts such as when Lukashenko sought to fight what he saw as the Russian takeover of the Belarussian gas sector in 2004 and joked that, that he may run for the Presidency of Russia in 2008 given Putin’s constitutional restriction from a third term.
However, despite the two men’s on-and-off relationship, efforts to expand the nation’s political ties continued, as they did with Ukraine. With the ratification of a customs union and the
Single Economic Space between Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in 2007, the two Presidents concluded an agreement in 2006 to create a single currency between the two countries as another step toward greater Union-State integration to go in effect in 2009.
Ukraine
Following the controversial victory of Yanukovych in the 2004 Ukrainian elections, Russia and Ukraine had enjoyed a close but politically fraught relationship, as the two Presidents' desires to draw the nations closer together, became a thorny issue inside Ukraine and especially amongst the predominantly ethnically Ukrainian opposition. amid fears that Yanukovych sought to adopt the Putin-Lukashenko model of ‘managed democracy’.
Yanukovych despite his narrow (and as Westerners perceived fraudulent) victory, entered the Ukrainian presidency with a divisive agenda for the country and was quickly seen as doubling down on past authoritarian tendencies and choosing to forge a close relationship with Russia and President Putin choosing his first foreign trip to be to Putin’s dacha in Sochi and also committing Ukrainian forces to assist Russia’s in Afghanistan. The countries reached an agreement to reduce the cost of natural gas from Russia into Ukraine allowing Ukraine to then sell the gas to the rest of Europe at a profit, a move that was cheered on by the nation's economists but seen with suspicion by Westerners who thought it was a power-move to make Ukraine more dependent on Russia.
“This is a step toward making Ukraine economically subservient,” said opposition leader and former Presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko
“This is 100% political, the Kremlin wants its arms around Yanukovych, it can threaten to remove these subsidies any time it wants” agreed a Kiev based political scientist Volodimir Polokhalov.
Yanukovych worked to strengthen ties to Russia in other ways, pledging to align Ukraine with the Commonwealth of Independent States, and he urged the creation of a treaty to settle the status of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Strengthened business ties further by agreeing to the customs union and a cooperative nuclear energy programme. And though he sought to portray Ukraine as a
“neutral party” between Russia and the European Union, following a scathing E.U. report on corruption and political intimidation relations soured and Yanukovich said it was in
“the countries interest to pursue both the collective defence and shared interest of our strongest and natural allies first”.
He also supported expanding cultural ties to Russia, via a controversial bill to recognize Russian as one of the official languages of Ukraine, equal to Ukrainian, though this was stalled by an antagonistic national Rada where opposition westerners, communists and socialists could stall the administration, and where they would frequently mock, cajole and attack the President and Prime Minister Azarov, especially when it came to the topic of Ukrainian corruption and the President's cronyism.
The strongest opposition to Yanukovych was divided thanks to differences between party leaders Yushchenko and the more firebrand Yulia Tymoshenko. Tensions between the two came to a boil after she blamed his passivity for stopping the
“necessary national revolution to stop tyranny” in 2004. Words that stung harder when just prior to parliamentary elections, she was indefinitely arrested for alleged tax evasion, pending trial which earned her national attention and global fame as a political prisoner of the Yanukovych government.
Yanukovych began to staff his administration primarily with loyalists from the east of the country as well the country's old power brokers, such as the key advisor and Putin confident Victor Medvedchuk. These efforts stretched into the police, judiciary and military, and his economic policy of backing continued privatization expanded the power of the nation’s oligarchs. And just like Putin, Yanukovych sought to coopt them for his own political interests and personal wealth, to bring the country's media under heel, leading international organizations like Reporters Without Borders to be
“dismayed by the backsliding … and return of harsh government censorship”.
When the parliamentary elections arrived in 2006, Ukraine faced a major political test. The 2004 protests had led to a constitutional change, which handed more power to the parliament and regions allowing for a coalition government, given Ukraine’s fractured politics the race was highly competitive and the outcome uncertain.
But despite being in prison, Tymoshenko’s party 'Fatherland' won the most votes and seats, by mobilizing the bulk of opposition support for her outspoken and more energized opposition. While not eligible to serve, her bloc of support was led by Oleksandr Tuchynov, however, the full results were a mess, and international observers sharply critiqued the results, especially in the east, where they noted incidents of ballot stuffing, bribery and the use of electoral intimidation by government supporting gangs and police
“Without money, they will try to stick to power by using physical force,” said a Donetsk based journalist Denis Kazansky.
Even with all the advantages, it couldn’t obscure the large Western turnout amid a still struggling economy and their now infuriated pro-western base, who hoped to halt the President's turn of course and investigate his corruption. The opposition victory instead led to a legislative paralysis with the Tymoshenko bloc and Yanukovych’s second-placed ‘Party of Regions' unable to find a workable majority, the country looked to be on course for a further round of destabilizing elections.
Unable to find an accord, the President took to attacking the reformed constitution and tarred his opponents for seeking to
"sew civil war in Ukraine," asking the constitutional court to throw out the amendments and restore the President's authority to choose his own Prime Minister, effectively threatening to tear up the agreement that had de-escalated tensions in 2004. Thankfully some order prevailed when socialists, communists and some breakaway opposition members voted in favour of the government to prevent the constitutional clash, a deal that the opposition attacked, claiming that parliament members (including those of Yushchenko’s bloc) had been bribed or threatened into compliance.
Though the national Rada had been locked off from opposition control, it hadn’t stopped Tymoshenko aligned, local politicians governors and mayors from taking charge including the Mayor of Kiev former professional boxer Vitali Klitschko who defeated both the incumbent mayor and the President preferred candidate on an anti-corruption, pro-European candidacy.
At her sentencing hearing, Tymoshenko claimed that Ukraine was already in a battle for its democracy and survival as a sovereign nation.
“We have a criminal government, that associates with criminals, hires criminals and appoints criminals, selling our territory, independence and identity, if this goes on any longer, all will be lost.” Before she was sentenced to a 6-year prison sentence, galvanising opposition youth groups who had already declared her the legitimate prime minister.
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(left to right) Pro-government rally in the Donbas, police keep protesters apart, pro-Tymoshenko poster
When it came to issues outside of the ‘Russian World’, Russia occupied an interesting place in the international sphere. Still a growing power, Russia was still constrained from its soviet era, unable to intervene internationally as it once could, but that did not stop it from taking significant interest.
Russia had become an erstwhile ally of the United States, at least on matters of ‘international terrorism’, and Russian arms quickly became the go-to, when countries needed to fight ‘terrorists’, forging connections with Ethiopia as it invaded Somalia, and Sri Lanka which entered an anti-Tamil offensive, the Philippines and Indonesia as they confronted local militant sects and other global hotspots. Making Russia by far the biggest arms seller in the world, outpacing the United States by a healthy margin. Some of the biggest buyers were in the Middle East, where following the Summit bombing and the onset of the Iraqi civil war, the various kings, sheikhs, and presidents-for-life began to beef up their armed forces and security to stop any potential radical conflict, and as more terrorist bombings were conducted in the Muslim world.
But the U.S. partnership extended to other ventures outside terrorism, allowing fruitful negotiations and cooperation when it came to North Korea's nuclear programme, ongoing Kosovo and Serbia-Montenegro negotiations and passive support for the Darfur intervention, this had the effect of angering politicians and thinkers in Russia who adhered to a Eurasian ideology like Alexie Dugin or the Russian communist party who advocated that Russia align with the global south primarily China and Iran to counter the west, Dugin himself criticised Putin in 2007 for backing the war in Darfur and failures in the Chechen war.
This newfound alliance with the United States and the perceived closeness of President Putin with President Bush and Edwards had rejuvenated the average Russian's perspective of the United States even amidst the neo-nationalist resurgence, this went further when Edwards cancelled Eastern European missile programmes on the basis of cost and the Russian military entered into a close relationship with the United States in central Asia where troops worked closely and shared bases like Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan nicknamed ‘Amerigrad’ where old Soviet monuments hoisted the stars and bars aloft.
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(left to right) Foreign Minister Lavrov, Russian Troops in Central Asia, Free Iraqi leader Sadr
The onset of the Iraqi civil war left Russia with a choice, for a decade it had enjoyed better relations than most with Saddam Hussein, and had criticised the Western bombing and harsh sanctions programmes as unproductive and sternly argued against American intervention to remove Saddam, but the ‘crusade against terror’ shifted perspective, though Saddam had condemned the Chechen rebel attacks, allegations that his government had turned the other way or even held active ties to international terror had left him more isolated than ever. And now with a well-organized militia, presenting a formidable opposition to Saddam, Putin broke openly with Saddam, accusing him of
“aiding and fomenting terror, beyond [Iraq’s] borders” in a U.N speech
. And was the first country to extend some form of legitimacy to the opposition ‘Free Iraqi Islamic Republic’, and foreign minister Lavrov met and championed his exiled delegates.
These attacks were part of a larger Putin strategy of winning the crusade against terror, by cutting off the international network from penetrating Russia via its neighbours and home countries, coupled with an increasing belligerence regarding mother Russia's borders. Evidenced when a group of Japanese nationalists erected flags on the disputed Kiril islands, the Russian military responded by blowing them up with gunboats, and a later incident saw several crab fishermen shot dead for violating Russian territory, sparking renewed diplomatic fury between Russia and Japan.
Georgia
But the object of most of Putin and his administration's anger was Georgia. In the aftermath of the Rose revolution, Russia's relationship with Georgia had deteriorated, the Presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili a determined Westerner, who hoped to completely wrestle his country from Russia’s underbelly and join NATO had been short but definitive, his death at the hands of an anti-government militant had embedded pro-western emotions through his compatriots and successor in office Nino Burjanadze, who also advocated for the unification of Georgia, though with less populist fury advocating negotiations over armed confrontation with the seceded territories. Though she promoted several members of her administration with hawkish views, like Defence Minister Irakli Okruashvili who publicly backed a military campaign to bring the separatists to immediate order.
There were efforts to rebuild relations, but each time they were scuttled, either by an attack by Abkhazian or South Ossetian troops in Georgia, or an attack by Chechen rebels from Georgia. Attacks on gas and electricity infrastructure, a refusal to negotiate a treaty to remove Russian troops from the port of Batumi, and harsh claims made by Russia that Georgia was actively assisting Chechen terrorists, a poisonous refrain that had been parroted by dozens of Russian officials and media mouthpieces. Most poisonous of all, was the claim that Shamil Basayev, the number one terrorist responsible for the Moscow attacks was hiding in the Georgian countryside, and strict restrictions on Georgians travelling to Russia were applied up to the arrest of a Georgian news team for the supposed visa violations, a squabble that required international mediation to remedy.
The diplomatic conflicts often flared up militarily, Georgian security arrested a rebel militia leader in 2006 leading to an attempted breakout by partisans that left several Georgian police officers dead. The rebel states dug their heels in, establishing governments and bragging about their support from the Russian government as they sported body armour and weaponry that outpaced that of the average Georgian soldier.
In 2006 Georgia accused Russia of knowingly violating its airspace following jet and helicopter flights over the border and argued that the Russian government was placing military equipment including landmines inside of Georgia, disrupting its local agriculture.
Inspired or encouraged by Moscow, the seceded territories made their own provocations, sending troops to roadways to collect 'taxes', holding referendums on secession, and shooting down a Georgian transport helicopter which ‘President’ Kokoity of South Ossetia said was preparing to fire shots at their troops.
However, President Burjanadze stood sturdy unwilling to give in to the
“provocations, from Moscow, they want to trigger panic” and in a move criticised by some of her more hawkish allies rejected sending more troops to the region
“We are pushing for an international solution, not more conflict”. While digesting the steadfast refusal of Burjanadze to act on these threats, Russia began to undertake a large wargame in the bordering mountains
CAUCUS 07, that imagined a scenario where Russian troops were needed to intervene in an unnamed neighbouring nation.
In 2007, while on a visit to Munich Germany for an international convention on foreign policy and international security, Putin was to deliver the keynote address. He outlined what he saw as Russia’s and other ‘great powers’ roles in the world.
Though he emphasized that states should of course pursue their own national interests and
“national spheres” warning of perceived Western encroachment. He said that it was now the duty in this modern age, for the world's ‘moral leaders’ (Russia and the United States) to uphold the modern international order, and if necessary intervene to stop dangerous ‘destabilizing elements’. The remarks marked a watershed for Putin’s public foreign policy, which was both vaguely revanchist referring openly to the Pan-Russian world, while at the same time conciliatory, calling the United States a ‘partner in resolving international issues’ and supporting a military doctrine of pre-emptive strikes and interventionism.
With national elections due in 2008 and Putin’s terms of office due to expire, some opposition forces rallied in the hopes of building a
“Russia without Putin” where faces like chess champion Garry Kasparov and former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov criticised what they saw as a failed security and domestic policy by the Kremlin. But these hopes totally vanished when in April, Putin announced that he had been convinced by advisors and members of the state duma, to seek a third term of office and a referendum to vote on a constitutional amendment to allow for this, would be put forward at the same time as parliamentary elections in December all but guaranteeing that Russia would have to wait to see a world without Putin.
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