Putin's foreign policies

Obwohl die Ukraine den territorial zweitgrößten Staat Europas darstellt, ist sie nur selten Objekt adäquater Medienberichterstattung, tiefgehender öffentlicher Diskussionen und politischer Auseinandersetzung in Deutschland. Im Resultat ist das deutsche Engagement für die Gazprom-Unterwasserpipelines Nord und South Stream von unzureichender Berücksichtigung des Spannungspotentials dieser Projekte für die russisch-ukrainischen Beziehungen gekennzeichnet. Der niedrige Stellenwert der Ukraine im deutschen öffentlichen Diskurs steht im Widerspruch zur erheblichen geo- und sicherheitspolitischen Bedeutung des Landes. Eine Neuorientierung der europäischen und deutschen Ostpolitik ist überfällig. While territorially being the second largest state of Europe, Ukraine is only rarely the object of adequate media representation, deep public discussions or political debate in Germany. As a result, the German involvement in Gazprom’s underwater pipelines Nord and South Stream is characterized by a lack of attention to their potential of increasing tensions in Russian-Ukrainian relations. The low salience of Ukraine in German public discourse is in contradiction to the geopolitical importance of the country. A reorientation of the EU’s and Germany’s Eastern policies is overdue.

I mention a number of effects that the Orange Revolution in Ukraine had on the political regime, official discourse and public opinion of Russia, since 2005. These repercussions, I argue, partly modified the nature of Putin’s political system making it somewhat distinct from traditional autocracy. I label this alteration “paratotalitarian,” in that it was reminiscent of certain features of totalitarian states, yet did not result in a real regime change from authoritarianism to totalitarianism. I also briefly touch upon some worrying developments in Russian public opinion which, under the influence of an upsurge of anti-Western propaganda in the Kremlin-controlled mass media after the Orange Revolution and in connection with the Russian-Georgian War of 2008, became pre-dominantly anti-American by the end of the last decade.

Can Putin really be considered a neo-Eurasianist? Is his policy of ‘multipolarism’ a direct consequence of his neo-Eurasianist inclinations? If so, why did he try to construct closer relations with the US in the post-September 11 period? Is this a real pro-Atlanticism or did Putin’s pro-Atlanticism simply result from the pragmatist tendencies in his foreign policy? Could it be that he had suspicions - from the very beginning of his tenure - about the chances of Russia in following a more neo-Eurasianist foreign policy? These are some of the questions this study will try to concentrate on. Only by finding responses to these questions, one can make judgements about Putin’s neo-Eurasianist inclinations in his foreign policy. However, in order to find such responses, one should also try to take a closer look at neo-Eurasianism’s views about Russian foreign policy. Thus, first of all it is necessary to note down some key elements of the neo-Eurasianist paradigm regarding Russia’s position in the new context of international relations, and to consider the views of two significant figures, Aleksandr Dugin as a theorist and Yevgenii Primakov as a practitioner, about the Russian foreign policy in order to evaluate Putin’s relationship with neo-Eurasianism in his foreign policy.

"Looking at the examples of the Gazprom’s gas import arrangements in the several East European countries, this paper suggests that the centrality of the intermediary companies’ role in them cannot be explained with purely economic or even political factors.

The data gathered in the course of this research confirms the assumptions developed on the base of modeling Putin’s Russia as a kleptocratic regime: in most cases, there are convincing evidence suggesting that the intermediation schemes created numerous opportunities for private individuals close to the government in Russia or its gas trade partner countries to benefit from the intermediation arrangements ultimately at the expense of Russian citizens' interests. Thus, the concept of a kleptocracy indeed provides us with important insights into understanding Putin regime’s policies, including those affecting international gas trade."

This article focuses on the Russian Federation’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Belarus and Ukraine during the presidencies of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. It addresses the question: Which specific factors influenced Russian foreign policy towards the aforementioned European states? The goals of the study are to illuminate these factors and to compare Russian foreign policy at the time of Yeltsin’s administration with that during Putin’s presidency. Russo-Ukrainian and Russo-Belarusian relations are analyzed using the method of structured focused comparison. The research examines presidential speeches, decision-makers’ memoirs, decisions or the absence thereof, and official declarations of the Russian government towards Ukraine and Belarus, as well as official agreements and empirical reality that exemplify the implementation of Russia’s foreign policy. The empirical analysis reveals that geopolitical considerations, threat perception, interest groups, and decision-makers’ perception of the past influenced the formation of Russia’s foreign policy. Perception of the past, however, is fundamental to the understanding of this process.