...After the Soviet Union's collapse, the West made the mistake of assuming that  Russia's reduced status meant it was unnecessary to accord the Kremlin any  special diplomatic consideration -- that Russia neither deserved nor should be  offered a major role in world affairs. Accordingly, instead of drawing Russia  into a network of dialogue and cooperation when it was weak -- and thereby 

helping it form habits that would carry on when Russia regained strength -- the  West ignored Russia. This indifference caused Russia to regard the West's  attempts to reassure eastern European countries about their security and place  in the West as unfriendly acts, leading to today's problems. Had Russia been  handled better in the 1990s -- had its sense of insecurity not been aggravated -- the country's tendency toward expansionism might well have been moderated...



Foreign Affairs



May-June 2007





Containing Russia



By Yuliya Tymoshenko



From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007



Summary: Russia's imperial ambitions did not end with the fall of the Soviet 

Union. The Kremlin has returned to expansionism, trying to recapture 

great-power status at the expense of its neighbors, warns one of Ukraine's most 

prominent politicians. The United States and Europe must counter with a strong 

response -- one that keeps Russia in check without sparking a new Cold War.







Yuliya Tymoshenko is the leader of Ukraine's parliamentary opposition. From 

January to September 2005, she was Prime Minister of Ukraine.







THE SOURCES OF RUSSIAN CONDUCT



Sixty-one years ago, a telegram arrived at the State Department from the U.S. 

embassy in Moscow. Its purpose was to examine the sources of the conduct of the 

men who ruled in the Kremlin. Its impact was immediate. The "Long Telegram," 

penned by a young diplomat named George Kennan, became the basis for U.S. 

policy toward the Soviet Union for the next half century.



Although the Soviet Union is long gone, the West is once again groping to 

understand what motivates the leaders in the Kremlin. Many believe that the 

principles behind Kennan's policy of "containment" are still applicable today 

-- and see a new Cold War, this time against Vladimir Putin's resurgent Russia, 

in the offing.







I do not believe that a new Cold War is under way or likely. Nevertheless, 

because Russia has indeed transformed itself since Putin became president in 

2000, the problem of fitting Russia into the world's diplomatic and economic 

structures (particularly when it comes to markets for energy) raises profound 

questions. Those questions are all the more vexing because Russia is usually 

judged on the basis of speculation about its intentions rather than on the 

basis of its actions.



In the aftermath of communism's collapse, it was assumed that Russia's imperial 

ambitions had vanished -- and that foreign policy toward Russia could be 

conducted as if former diplomatic considerations did not apply. Yet they must 

apply, for Russia straddles the world's geopolitical heartland and is heir to a 

remorseless imperial tradition. Encouraging economic and political reform -- 

the West's preferred means of engaging Russia since communism's end -- is of 

course an important foreign policy tool. But it cannot substitute for a serious 

effort to counter Russia's long-standing expansionism and its present desire to 

recapture its great-power status at the expense of its neighbors.



THE RUSSIAN JANUS



Thanks to high energy prices, the chaotic conditions that prevailed across 

Russia in the early 1990s have given way to several years of 6.5 percent annual 

economic growth and a trillion-dollar economy. Living standards have improved 

(although life expectancy has not), the middle class is growing and 

increasingly confident, and the stock market is booming. Russia possesses the 

third-largest hard-currency reserves in the world, and it is running a huge 

current account surplus and paying off the last of the debts it accumulated in 

the early 1990s. The ruble has been made fully convertible and may even be 

undervalued. Russian membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) beckons. 

Ordinary Russians are grateful to Putin for the country's stability and 

economic growth, and they are proud that Russia appears to matter when great 

global issues are debated. No wonder, then, that Putin's popularity rating is 

around 70 percent -- a sustained achievement that any politician would envy.



Yet, for every step forward that Russia has taken over the course of Putin's 

second term, it has taken a step backward. Greater state control of the economy 

-- especially in the energy industry, where, according to the Organization for 

Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the state's share of oil 

production has doubled in three years -- has bred corruption and inefficiency. 

Serious political opposition has been muzzled. Newspapers and television and 

radio stations have been shut down or taken over by the government and its 

allies. Kremlin cronies have replaced elected regional governors, and Russia's 

parliament, the Duma, has been emasculated as part of the Kremlin's drive to 

monopolize all state power.



Russia's foreign policy has been equally troubling. Moscow has given Iran 

diplomatic protection for its nuclear ambitions, and Russian arms sales are 

promiscuous. The Kremlin has consistently harassed neighboring countries; 

former Soviet nations, such as Georgia, have faced near economic strangulation. 

In February, Putin spoke favorably about creating a "gas OPEC."



None of this should be surprising, for Putin's aim has been unvarying from the 

start of his presidency: restore Russian greatness. Unlike Boris Yeltsin, who 

accepted dissent as a necessary part of democratic politics -- it was, after 

all, as a dissenter from Mikhail Gorbachev's rule that he gained the presidency 

of Russia -- Putin was determined from the outset to curtail political 

opposition as an essential step toward revitalizing centralized power. Mikhail 

Khodorkovsky, of Yukos Oil, for example, is in prison for daring to challenge 

the Kremlin's authority and perhaps aspiring to succeed Putin. Order, power 

(including the power to divide the spoils of Russia's natural-resource wealth), 

and reviving Russia's international influence, not democracy or human rights, 

are what matter in today's Kremlin.



The backgrounds of the people who make up Putin's government have something to 

do with this orientation. A study of 1,016 leading figures in Putin's regime -- 

departmental heads of the president's administration, cabinet members, 

parliamentary deputies, heads of federal units, and heads of regional executive 

and legislative branches -- conducted by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, director of 

Moscow's Center for the Study of Elites, found that 26 percent at some point 

served in the KGB or one of its successor agencies. Kryshtanovskaya argues that 

a closer look at these biographies -- examining gaps in resumés, odd career 

paths, or service in KGB a/liates -- suggests that 78 percent of the top people 

in Putin's regime can be considered ex-KGB. (The significance of such findings 

should not be exaggerated: former secret police may hold many of Russia's 

highest o/ces, but Russia is not a police state.)





Despite strong economic growth, Russia's domestic problems are awesome. In the 

long run, the country's systemic weaknesses may prove more disruptive to the 

world than its revived strength. Alcoholism and a collapsing health system are 

fueling a demographic catastrophe: the population has been shrinking by 700,000 

annually for the past eight years despite the fact that the country's HIV/AIDS 

epidemic has not yet peaked. Male life expectancy is among the lowest in the 

world. Most demographers expect that Russia's population will shrink even more 

dramatically, perhaps to below 100 million people by the middle of the 

twenty-first century.



Russia's robust growth, moreover, is precarious, because it is based on high 

oil prices that seem unlikely to last and rising production that clearly cannot 

be sustained, owing to grossly inadequate investment. Natural resources such as 

oil and gas are a mixed blessing for Russia, just as they are for other 

countries. High energy prices and raw material exports have allowed Russia to 

become the world's tenth-largest economy. Energy exports finance about 30 

percent of the Kremlin's budget. But that figure is based on the assumption 

that oil will remain at $61 per barrel, which it has already fallen below. 

Aside from energy, Russian industrial exports primarily consist of armaments, 

with advanced aircraft accounting for more than half of sales. This lack of 

economic diversification leaves Russia vulnerable to any downturn in world oil 

and commodity prices.



Social inequality is vast and growing. Corruption, the OECD reports, is far 

higher today than it was under Yeltsin. State interference in business 

decision-making is at its highest level since the end of communism. Moreover, 

without the rule of law, today's growing middle class will never acquire the 

confidence it needs to sustain a modern economy. Meanwhile, the insurgency in 

Chechnya has been met by the Kremlin's local strongman, whose minions openly 

terrorize, kidnap, and kill opponents. The North Caucasus is a tinderbox. The 

Russian army is riddled with graft, with o/cers selling conscripts into virtual 

slavery. And dangerous new forms of tuberculosis -- as well as of Islamist 

extremism among the 17 percent of the Russian population that is Muslim -- are 

being incubated through neglect.



Throughout the 1990s, it was fashionable to liken Russia to Weimar Germany -- a 

nation humiliated and shaken to its core by depression and hyperinflation that 

might fall under the spell of some reckless nationalist. But the defeated 

Germany of the 1920s was already a modern industrialized state, and the Nazi 

regime was only possible because it could seize the levers of such a state. 

These conditions did not exist in Yeltsin's Russia. Corruption and governmental 

chaos meant that Russia could not mount any sort of serious strategic 

challenge. But today's oil-fueled revival and the more disciplined government 

Putin has imposed may allow Russia to mount just such a challenge, particularly 

where world energy supplies are concerned.



After the Soviet Union's collapse, the West made the mistake of assuming that 

Russia's reduced status meant it was unnecessary to accord the Kremlin any 

special diplomatic consideration -- that Russia neither deserved nor should be 

offered a major role in world affairs. Accordingly, instead of drawing Russia 

into a network of dialogue and cooperation when it was weak -- and thereby 

helping it form habits that would carry on when Russia regained strength -- the 

West ignored Russia. This indifference caused Russia to regard the West's 

attempts to reassure eastern European countries about their security and place 

in the West as unfriendly acts, leading to today's problems. Had Russia been 

handled better in the 1990s -- had its sense of insecurity not been aggravated 

-- the country's tendency toward expansionism might well have been moderated.





UKRAINE EXPOSED



Ukraine's national experience has taught its citizens to regard peace as 

fragile and fleeting, its roots too shallow to bear the strain of constant 

social and political upheaval. We Ukrainians accept the lessons of our history 

and work toward solutions that relieve the sources of this strain, lest neglect 

allow war to overtake peace and authority to subvert freedom. This is why we 

see our future in the European Union: the goal of the EU is to confront 

instability and insecurity with a lasting structure of peace and prosperity in 

which all of Europe's nations and neighbors have a stake.



To ensure that Europe's structure of peace is secure in the former Soviet East, 

a clear understanding of the existing power dynamic is needed. Much like the 

periods following the treaties of Westphalia and Versailles, the aftermath of 

the Soviet Union's collapse features a powerful country confronting a group of 

smaller and unprotected new states. Given the economic and institutional links 

that arose in the decades of Soviet misrule, Russia's influence in the region 

was bound to be strong. This is a fact of life that I, as a practicing 

politician in Ukraine, live with every day. It is a fact with which the EU must 

come to grips under the current German presidency, by beginning to negotiate a 

new EU-Russia treaty to replace the one written at the nadir of Russia's power. 

In the coming months, German Chancellor Angela Merkel must answer the question 

of how Europe can forge a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with the 

powerful new Russia that has emerged under Putin.



As a convinced European, I support Germany and the EU in this effort. Relations 

with Russia are too vital to the security and prosperity of all of us to be 

developed individually and ad hoc. If there is one country toward which 

Europeans -- and, indeed, the entire West -- should share a common foreign 

policy, it is Russia. With high world energy prices allowing Russia to emerge 

from the trauma of its postcommunist transition, now is the time for a 

clear-sighted reckoning of European security in the face of Russia's renewed 

power. Relying on Russia's long-term systemic problems to curb its pressure 

tactics will not prevent the Kremlin from reestablishing its hegemony in the 

short run.



Moreover, now is a moment of maximum flexibility, because dependence on Russian 

energy supplies will only continue to grow. Indeed, a recent Center for 

Strategic and International Studies report estimates that Germany will depend 

on Russia for 80 percent of its gas imports -- compared with 44 percent today 

-- once the proposed trans-Baltic pipeline is completed. Unfortunately, 

political leaders usually have the least idea of what to do when the scope for 

action is greatest. By the time they have a better idea, the moment for 

decisive and effective action may have passed. In the 1930s, for example, the 

French and British governments were too unsure of Hitler's objectives to act. 

But their obsession with Hitler's motives was utterly misguided. Realpolitik 

should have taught them that Germany's relations with its neighbors would be 

determined by relative power, not German intentions alone. A large and strong 

Germany bordered to the east by small and weak states would have been a threat 

no matter who ruled in Berlin. The Western powers should thus have spent less 

time assessing Hitler's motives and more time counterbalancing Germany's 

strength. Once Germany rearmed, Hitler's real intentions would be irrelevant. 

This was Winston Churchill's message throughout his "wilderness years." But 

instead of heeding Churchill, the British and the French continued to treat 

Hitler as a psychological problem, not a strategic danger -- until it was too 

late. What matters in diplomacy is power, not the state of mind of those who 

wield it.



For most of the past 15 years, the response to Russian actions by the United 

States and Europe has been driven by their perceptions of Russian reform. 

Western policy seems to be based on the premise that peaceful evolution can be 

ensured by democracy and by concentrating Russia's energies on developing a 

market economy. Western diplomacy has thus seen its main task as strengthening 

Russian reform, with the experience of the Marshall Plan rather than the 

traditional considerations of foreign policy in mind.



But a far more important factor than reform is Russia's attempt to restore its 

preeminence in the territories it once controlled. The Russia that emerged from 

the collapse of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991 came with borders that 

reflect no historical precedent. Accordingly, Russia is devoting much of its 

energy to restoring political influence in, if not control of, its lost empire. 

Alongside this effort has come a shift of Russia's focus eastward, making it a 

more active participant in the dynamic Asia created by China's rise.



In the name of peacekeeping in places such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and 

Trans-Dniestria (restive regions within former Soviet republics), Russia has 

sought to reestablish its tutelage, and the West has largely not objected. The 

West has done little to enable the Soviet Union's successor states -- with the 

exception of the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- to achieve 

viable international standing. The activities of Russian troops in Belarus, 

Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the former Soviet states of Central Asia are 

rarely questioned, let alone challenged. Moscow is treated as the de facto 

imperial center -- which is also how it conceives of itself.





THE RUSSIA QUESTION





What can the West do to dissuade the Kremlin from pursuing Russia's age-old 

imperial designs? In the 1990s, an enfeebled Russia needed help from abroad. 

Unless oil prices unexpectedly collapse, no such leverage will be available in 

the near future. On the contrary, political pressure from outside is likely to 

aggravate rather than change Russian behavior. With the Kremlin once again 

firmly in control, Russia will change from within -- or not at all.



That is not to say, however, that the United States and the rest of the West 

can have no influence. Putin, like Russian leaders before him, is sensitive to 

outside criticism, as demonstrated by the Kremlin's paranoid desire to curtail 

the activities of nongovernmental organizations within Russia, particularly 

those with foreign backing. Outsiders must be willing to criticize his misdeeds 

while trying to avert the emergence of a leader even more assertive than Putin. 

Maintaining this balance will be hard. Yeltsin was gifted at deflecting 

international skepticism about his rule by portraying himself as the last 

bastion against a communist revival; Putin also relies on promoting that type 

of better-the-devil-you-know thinking.



Western leaders should speak out against any moves away from democracy, Putin's 

policy in Chechnya, and his use of energy to bully Russia's neighbors. (Many 

western European countries have been far too circumspect in their criticism and 

too anxious to make separate deals that will supposedly guarantee their 

national supplies of energy.) As the Russian presidential election in March 

2008 approaches, the West must insist, beginning now, that amending the 

constitution to allow Putin to run again is unacceptable and could result in 

Russia's expulsion from the G-8 (the group of advanced industrialized nations). 

Western leaders should press for free and fair elections, even if the Kremlin's 

handpicked candidate is almost sure to win.



A realistic Russia policy would also recognize that even Yeltsin's reformist 

government stationed Russian troops in most former Soviet republics -- all 

members of the United Nations -- often against the express wishes of the host 

governments. These forces participated in several of these republics' civil 

wars, even as successive Russian foreign ministers have put forth the concept 

of a Russian monopoly on peacekeeping -- essentially Russian domination -- in 

what the Kremlin calls "the near abroad." Russia has legitimate security 

interests in its neighborhood. But Europe's peace and international stability 

require that these interests be satisfied without Russian military or economic 

pressure or unilateral intervention. For example, Russia must not be permitted 

to use Kosovo's gaining its independence from Serbia as a precedent for 

promoting secessionist movements in Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, 

Trans-Dniestria, and, most important, Crimea, in an attempt to destabilize the 

national governments. The short-term prospects for peace depend on whether 

Russian military forces can be induced to return home and stay there. Russia's 

relations with the Soviet successor states must be thought of as an 

international problem, subject to the accepted rules of foreign policy, rather 

than as solely Russia's problem, subject to unilateral decision-making that the 

West can hope to influence only by appealing to the Kremlin's goodwill.



The West must seek to create counterweights to Russia's expansionism and not 

place all its chips on Russian domestic reform. Such a policy would divide the 

risks of any possible energy blockade equally among all Europeans, rather than 

having governments make separate deals that leave others vulnerable to energy 

blackmail. Of course, not every European nation has the same interest in 

resisting any particular act of aggression, and so there will not always be 

agreement on when and how to oppose Russian assertiveness. Some nations may 

balk at taking action on issues they feel do not immediately concern them. But 

the principle of collective security, which has ensured Europe's peace and 

prosperity since 1945, must continue to be pursued. Merkel's proposal to create 

a "collective energy market," which she made during a summit with Poland's 

prime minister last November, is a good start toward building a pan-European 

energy security policy that includes Russia.





PIPELINE POLITICS



One key question is just how reliable the Russian energy supply really is. 

Despite having the world's largest gas reserves, Russia now faces a domestic 

shortage of gas. Gazprom, the country's dominant gas supplier (which, when it 

comes to foreign policy, doubles as an arm of the Kremlin), is not producing 

enough for an economy growing at more than six percent a year. Production from 

Gazprom's three biggest gas fields, which account for three-quarters of its 

output, is in steep decline. The one large field that the company has brought 

on-stream since the end of the Soviet era is reaching its peak. Overall gas 

production is virtually flat.



According to the Institute of Energy Policy, in Moscow, Gazprom's capital 

investments in new gas production in the years 2000-2006 were one-quarter the 

size of its investments in other activities: media companies, banks, even 

chicken farms, as well as its downstream investments in western Europe's energy 

networks. Despite the enormous revenues to be gained from the new production of 

gas, Gazprom rarely attempts to find or produce more. As a result, it is unable 

to come up with enough gas to meet internal demand and its export obligations.







After more than ten years of delay, Gazprom has decided to develop a big field 

on the Yamal Peninsula -- a barren and barely accessible region in the Arctic. 

But the earliest that gas from Yamal will reach the market is 2011. Meanwhile, 

demand for gas -- from RAO Unified Energy System of Russia (UESR), Russia's 

electricity monopoly, as well as from expanding industrial companies and 

households -- is growing by about 2.2 percent annually, according to a recent 

report by the investment bank UBS. "The risk of supply crisis is real," the 

report noted, if growth in demand accelerates to 2.5 percent.







The impending shortage means that Gazprom will not be able to increase gas 

supplies to Europe, at least in the short term -- something that European 

countries should be aware of and concerned about. This may explain why Gazprom 

abandoned its plan to send gas from the Shtokman field, in the Barents Sea, to 

the U.S. market as liquefied natural gas and diverted it to Europe instead. The 

decision, initially interpreted as a move intended to irk Washington, may 

actually have been a sign of desperation: sending Shtokman gas to Europe would 

free up Siberian output for domestic consumption.





The problem, of course, is not a lack of gas -- Russia has 16 percent of the 

world's total known reserves -- but Gazprom's investment strategy. Over the 

past few years, the company has spent vigorously on everything but developing 

its reserves. It has built a pipeline to Turkey, taken over an oil company, 

invested in UESR, tried to gain footholds in European distribution markets, and 

become Russia's biggest media company. All this was done in the name of 

creating and sustaining a "national energy champion." Yet investment in 

Gazprom's core business was grossly inadequate.



There is another problem facing Gazprom: the actual engineering costs of 

developing new gas fields in Russia. In the Shtokman gas field and on the Yamal 

Peninsula, in particular, the engineering costs, including the cost of 

transporting the output to Europe, are twice as high as for new gas fields in 

North Africa and the Middle East. The international gas market is already 

beginning to recognize this, and, over the long term, it could be enormously 

dangerous for Russia. Indeed, Russia may actually be putting itself out of the 

gas business, because high engineering costs for new projects in Russia are 

signaling to the market that Russia and Gazprom lack the capacity to develop 

these fields. Western companies could come in and do the job, but given the 

Kremlin's recent usurpation of Shell's investments on Sakhalin Island, these 

companies would be remiss in their fiduciary duties if they undertook such 

investments.



The only way to avoid a crisis is to break Gazprom's monopoly on pipeline 

infrastructure and to license independent gas producers. Independent producers 

already account for 20 percent of domestic gas sales in Russia and are boosting 

their output. Further gains would require market-based incentives. Europe can 

help by explicitly linking its acceptance of Russia's WTO membership to 

Russia's ratification of the Energy Charter and its attendant Transit Protocol, 

which would guarantee access to Russian pipelines for Gazprom's competitors.



Any worthwhile energy security policy for Europe would also seek to loosen 

Gazprom's monopolistic grip on the pipelines. European competition policy, 

which has successfully brought companies as big as Microsoft into line, could 

-- if used skillfully -- also help turn Gazprom into a normal competitor. 

Establishing an independent regulator, as Russian Economy Minister German Gref 

has suggested, would also be an important step toward splitting Gazprom into a 

pipeline operator and a production company. But Putin has vehemently rejected 

such a move. Thus, he now faces a choice between domestic gas shortages that 

threaten to slow economic growth and losing the Kremlin's "national energy 

champion."



Beyond tackling Gazprom's monopolistic power, a realistic energy policy for 

Europe would also seek to share the risks of any possible energy blockade 

equally among all Europeans, rather than allowing separate deals that leave 

others vulnerable to energy blackmail. Such a policy would need to incorporate 

a consensus that no country could reach a deal with Gazprom that undercuts EU 

plans to help construct pipelines from Central Asia that bypass Russia. Another 

counterweight could be built through trade. By extending the single market 

eastward to include Ukraine, the EU would shift the center of gravity for the 

region's trade relations. Today's negotiations over a "deep free trade 

agreement" between Ukraine and the EU need to lead, eventually, to an agreement 

that will give Ukraine candidate status for EU membership.







A NORMAL COUNTRY



The West should support Russia when it pushes for democracy and free markets 

but bolster the obstacles to its imperial ambitions. Indeed, Russian reform 

will be strengthened if Russia is encouraged to concentrate -- for the first 

time in its history -- on developing its national territory, which sprawls over 

11 time zones from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, leaving no rational cause for 

claustrophobia.



It does Russia no good to be treated as if it were immune from the normal 

considerations of foreign policy; treating it so will only force Russia to pay 

a heavier price later on, by luring it into taking steps from which it cannot 

easily retreat. The West should not fear frank discussions about where its 

interests and Russia's converge and diverge. Western leaders should not 

hesitate to insist that signed agreements, such as those to withdraw troops now 

stationed in the countries of the former Soviet Union, be fully honored. 

Realistic dialogue will not unhinge the leaders in the Kremlin. They are smart 

and can readily grasp a policy based on mutual respect. In fact, they are 

likely to understand such a calculus better than appeals to goodwill and 

friendship.



Two objectives must be kept in balance when dealing with Russia: influencing 

Russian attitudes and affecting Russian calculations. Russia should be welcomed 

in institutions and agreements that foster cooperation -- most important, 

Europe's Energy Charter and the Transit Protocol, with their reciprocal rights 

and responsibilities. But Russia's reform will be impeded, not helped, if the 

West turns a blind eye to its imperial pretensions. The independence of the 

republics that broke away from the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, must not be 

tacitly downgraded by the West's acquiescence to Russia's desire for hegemony.



Ukraine can help Europe and the United States create a viable structure within 

which Russia can exist securely. Our destiny is to be neither a forgotten 

borderland nor a bridge between the so-called post-Soviet space of "managed 

democracy" and the real democracies of the West. By strengthening our 

independence, we can shape Europe's peace and unity as we roll back the crony 

capitalism and lawlessness that are now the norms of the post-Soviet world. 

During my premiership, we sought to achieve just that, working with Moldova and 

Romania to standardize the region's customs regimes and thereby crack down on 

criminal enterprises in the breakaway region of Trans-Dniestria (which is 

trying to secede from Moldova only because of Russian support).



We acted in concert with our neighbors because we know that self-determination 

does not mean isolation. Achieving national independence today means having a 

new status, not withdrawing from the world scene. New nations can build with 

their former occupiers the same kind of fruitful relationship that France now 

has with Germany -- a relationship founded on equality and mutual interests. 

That is the relationship I seek with Russia, and that is how Ukraine can help 

extend the zone of Europe's peace.



The real test of statesmanship is the ability to protect one's country against 

unfavorable and unforeseen contingencies. The fatal flaw in Russia's current 

oil- and gas-powered assertiveness is that the leaders in the Kremlin have lost 

their sense of proportion. Today's budget surpluses have allowed them to 

overestimate the extent of Russia's economic renewal, and they seem to have 

forgotten that by bullying their immediate neighbors they are also sending 

shock waves across the entire West. Of course, the Kremlin leadership will find 

it hard to admit that the centralized system that it is re-creating lacks the 

capacity to spur initiative, that Russia, despite its vast natural resources, 

remains a very backward country. The subservience that the Kremlin demands is 

stifling the vitality and creativity that Russia needs if it is to grow for the 

long term, let alone sustain its place in the world.



Russia will damage its own interests if it turns down serious U.S. and European 

offers to participate on an equal basis in the structures of European and 

Middle East security. Failure to cooperate sincerely on energy security would 

eventually isolate Russia in the face of serious strategic challenges to its 

south and east; it would deprive Russia of all but the crudest methods of 

influence.



Russia's leaders deserve understanding for their anguished struggle to overcome 

generations of Soviet misrule. They are not, however, entitled to being handed 

the sphere of influence that tsars and commissars coveted for 300 years. If the 

West, particularly Europe, is to ensure its economic prosperity and energy 

security, it must be ready to demand of Russia what Russia has so far been 

unwilling to provide. And if Russia is to become a serious partner for the 

West, it must be ready to accept the obligations of stability as well as its 

benefits.



 	МИНИСТЕРСТВО ИНОСТРАННЫХ ДЕЛ 

РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ



ДЕПАРТАМЕНТ ИНФОРМАЦИИ И ПЕЧАТИ

______________________________________



119200, Москва Г-200,Смоленская Сенная пл., 32/34 

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e-mail: [log in to unmask], web-address: www.mid.ru





Комментарий Департамента информации и 

печати МИД России в связи с вопросом РИА 

«Новости» относительно статьи 

Ю.В.Тимошенко «Сдерживание России» в 

журнале Foreign Affairs





578-16-04-2007





Вопрос: Как бы Вы прокомментировали статью 

Ю.В.Тимошенко «Сдерживание России», 

которая должна появиться в очередном 

номере журнала Foreign Affairs?



Комментарий: Обычно мы не комментируем 

статьи в зарубежных СМИ. Но в данном случае 

есть все основания сделать исключение из 

правил. Очевидно, что речь идет о своего 

рода антироссийском манифесте, попытке 

вновь провести разделительные линии в 

Европе и вернуть мир как минимум в 

атмосферу «холодной войны». Те, кто готовил 

эту статью, явно скучают по прошлому, 

испытывают ностальгию по по-военному 

простым отношениям в Европе. Как Бурбоны 

после реставрации, они ничего не забыли и 

ничему не научились. Отсюда столь 

тщательная «проработка вопроса» – от 

«длинной депеши» Джорджа Кеннана и далее. 

При этом явно игнорируются уроки «холодной 

войны» и более поздние оценки самого 

Джорджа Кеннана, который, в частности, 

признавал, что вместо политического 

урегулирования разногласий «от Советского 

Союза требовалась безоговорочная 

капитуляция, а он был слишком силен, чтобы 

ее принять».



Примечательно и признание Г.Киссинджера, 

который писал, что США политикой 

сдерживания «создали у советской стороны 

впечатление, что стремились загнать СССР в 

перманентно проигрышное положение». Можно 

также согласиться с тем, что США «также 

недостаточно хорошо сознавали потребности 

безопасности континентальной державы 

(каковой был Советский Союз)» и «были 

невосприимчивы к проблемам страны, 

подвергавшейся неоднократным нашествиям». 

Картину того периода в мировой политике, за 

который всем государствам пришлось дорого 

заплатить, дополняли демонизация 

соперника и черно-белое видение мира.



Убеждены, что сегодня как никогда важна 

непредвзятая оценка истоков «холодной 

войны», которая была развязана решением, 

принятым в узком кругу двух держав. Одна из 

них видела в идеологическом расколе мира 

приемлемый вариант сохранения своего 

глобального статуса после неизбежной 

потери империи, а другая – возможность 

утвердиться в мировой политике с опорой на 

военную силу. Сегодня кто-то, 

руководствуясь своими корыстными 

интересами, тоже хотел бы решать за всех.



В статье за подписью Ю.В.Тимошенко нет ни 

одного тезиса, который мы бы не слышали в 

последние годы в том или ином исполнении. 

До боли знакома и лексика. Несмотря на 

окончание «холодной войны», в глобальной 

политике продолжают действовать силы, 

которые никак не могут переступить через 

себя и преодолеть интеллектуальное и 

политико-психологическое наследие того 

периода, включая установку на «сдерживание 

России». В мире вновь становится душно от 

идеологии и официальной пропаганды. По 

сути, под проведение старой политики в 

новых условиях подводится 

псевдотеоретическое обоснование, 

апеллирующее к худшим предрассудкам и 

инстинктам недавнего и более отдаленного 

прошлого. Их живучесть, возможно, 

объясняется наблюдением Г.Моргентау, 

который отмечал, что идеологическая 

приверженность США антикоммунизму «была 

гораздо сильнее и менее скорректирована 

соображениями национального интереса, чем 

русская приверженность распространению 

коммунизма».



Наверное, надо только приветствовать, что 

эти силы решили выступить с открытым 

забралом. По крайней мере, для всех многое 

проясняется и встает на свои места. Уже за 

одно это можно поблагодарить авторов 

статьи. Нежелание сотрудничать с Россией 

на равноправной основе, курс на 

реидеологизацию и ремилитаризацию 

международных отношений, расширение НАТО 

на восток, тактика «беспокоящих действий» 

в отношении России на пространстве СНГ, 

планы создания базы глобальной ПРО США в 

Европе – все это вписывается в единую 

стратегию, призванную, надо полагать, 

утвердить вопреки фактам реальность 

«однополярного мира». 15 лет – вполне 

достаточный срок, чтобы убедиться в 

иллюзорности этого проекта. Не хотелось бы 

думать, что и нынешний кризис на Украине 

является частью этого сценария 

«повторения пройденного». Как и всегда в 

истории, это может вылиться только в фарс и 

дальнейшую дестабилизацию положения.



Нельзя недооценивать опасность попыток 

повернуть время вспять. В любом случае 

Россия не даст себя вовлечь в новую 

конфронтацию, для которой нет никаких 

объективных оснований. Не будем 

поддаваться на провокации. Подобный 

сюрреализм в мировой политике чреват и тем, 

что сократятся возможности для 

международного сотрудничества по всему 

спектру общих для всех государств проблем, 

включая новые вызовы и угрозы безопасности 

и устойчивому развитию, урегулирование 

региональных конфликтов. А это не отвечало 

бы ничьим интересам.



Возникает устойчивое ощущение, что кто-то 

просто привык жить под сенью «стены», 

разделяющей Европу. Хочется вновь ощутить 

прежний «комфорт» – только по ее 

«правильную сторону». Пробивается и 

желание зарабатывать на жизнь на расколе 

Европы, на попытках обустроить территорию 

вдоль западных границ России как 

прифронтовую зону. В условиях, когда здесь 

проходят процессы, вызывающие 

озабоченность в остальной Европе, трудно 

не усмотреть в таких попытках нечто 

большее и опасное, чем тоска по прошлому. 

Эта ситуация является составной частью тех 

процессов, которые определяют рубежность 

нынешнего этапа в европейской и глобальной 

политике, о чем предупреждал Президент 

В.В.Путин в Мюнхене.



Считаем, что такая политика бросает вызов 

всей Европе, всему международному 

сообществу, многосторонней дипломатии. В 

этих условиях Россия будет продолжать 

последовательно придерживаться своих 

внешнеполитических принципов, таких как 

прагматизм и многовекторность, и 

продвигать позитивную повестку дня 

международных отношений, конструктивные 

альтернативы решения проблем современного 

мирового развития.



Статья подтверждает актуальность призыва 

Президента Российской Федерации В.В.Путина 

в его Мюнхенской речи к серьезному и 

откровенному разговору. Причем российский 

руководитель сделал это прямо и открыто, в 

то время как у тех, кто скрывается за 

заказной статьей Ю.В.Тимошенко, не хватило 

мужества поступить столь же достойно. 

Очевидно, что без общего понимания того, в 

каком мире мы живем, вряд ли удастся далеко 

продвинуться в международном 

сотрудничестве. Ясно также, что тем, кто 

уходит от таких дебатов, есть что скрывать.





16 апреля 2007 года