Fear is a constant of the Russian foreign policy. Starting from the alliance with France and Britain before the First World War due to fears of Germany and Austria-Hungary, through the experience with foreign military interventions on their soil during the Russian Civil War, to the Soviet subjugation of Eastern Europe after the Second World War to serve as a buffer zone against the West the Kremlin has never gotten rid of the fear for Russian national security from a threat that would come from the there. Even the rapprochement of Yeltsin's Russia with Western countries after the collapse of the USSR was short-lived because the creators of Russian foreign policy soon took a cautious attitude towards them. This has intensified in the Putin era. Fear gained an additional dimension.
After the chaos of the 1990s that left Russia looking a lot like a failed state, Putin promised changes. State services were to function better, a “dictatorship of law” was to be established in the country, and relations between the center and the federal units were to be redefined, thus avoiding the disintegration of Russia. However, promises were one thing, political practice another. Although some of the changes were achieved, Putin began to strengthen his political power and instead of further democratizing the country, he carried out its re-autocratization.
In addition to the resistance in Russia, this political trend was criticized by Western media and Western governments. Russia and the West again began to diverge more and more. In addition to its “hard power”, Western “soft power” has become dangerous. The perceived threat to the Russian national security became a threat against the regime itself. This danger did not exist during the Soviet period when the Bolsheviks held power firmly and no foreign power could influence internal conditions. But in modern times, the opening of Russia to the world and the much greater availability of information to citizens have made Russian authorities more vulnerable to the ideas coming from the outside. It was therefore necessary to strengthen control over the country and prevent external influence. There were two ways to do this. One was an increase in repression against political opponents, further suppression of media freedom and the legal designation of externally funded non-governmental organizations as “foreign agents”. Another way was to reject the Western influence as far as possible from the Russian borders. In order to do this, it was necessary to create a new buffer zone towards the West, in which Russia will de facto limit the sovereignty of the states that make up the post-Soviet space.
The expansion of influence and control over the "near abroad" was primarily attempted by Putin through regional organizations, some of which were founded back in the Yeltsin era. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and others are Kremlin attempts to bind post-Soviet countries to Russia. Some of these countries agreed to it because of the need to cooperate with Russia, and others because of similar fears that their authorities share with the Kremlin.
In the first case, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan have Russian military bases on their territory because they increase their security in relation to an insecure neighborhood, and countries like Kazakhstan must agree to close cooperation with Russia if they want to have physical contact with the outside world. In the second case, most of these countries are non-democratic, so their regimes as well as the Kremlin try to limit Western influence as much as possible to prevent the spread of democratic ideas and strengthen political pluralism in their countries. If they have Putin as an ally, who does not object to them in the least because of the state of political rights and civil liberties, their regimes will also be more secure from within and will be able to count on Russian support in case of rebellion. When, for example, a rebellion broke out in Kazakhstan at the beginning of 2022, the forces of the OSKS came to the aid of President Tokayev. After protests broke out against Belarusian President Lukashenka in 2020, he received crucial support from Putin that saved his stay in power. Every news that came after that about the ever-closer connection of those two countries was actually news about the closer connection of the two regimes, in which Putin is the principal and Lukashenka is his agent.
In the long term, a form of alliance based on the necessity or interests of current authorities rather than on the long-term interests of states is problematic because governments and regimes change while states remain. If a change occurs and the new authorities turn to cooperation with the West, Russia sees this as a danger, and an ally can become an enemy. This is now best seen in the case of Ukraine, whose authorities in most of the period from 1991 to 2014 cooperated closely with Russia and pursued a pro-Russian policy. In the post-Soviet space, Ukraine was for Russia what India once was for Britain: a crown jewel in its empire. Ethnic, cultural, economic and security ties strongly bound the two countries. About one-sixth of the population of Ukraine identified themselves as ethnic Russians, and many ethnic Ukrainians used Russian in their daily communication. The main gas pipelines that exported Russian gas to the rich European market passed through Ukraine, the Ukrainian military industry was important for the supply of the Russian armed forces, and the war port of Sevastopol was the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
The first red rag for the Kremlin appeared after the Orange Revolution and the 2004 elections, after which the pro-Western politician Viktor Yushchenko became the new Ukrainian president. The period of strained relations, in Croatia best known for the gas crises of 2006 and 2009, ended after the election of the pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovych as Ukrainian president in 2012. That election strengthened cooperation between the two countries again, but this lasted only two years. The development of events after the fall of Yanukovych in early 2014 was understood by the Kremlin as a re-strengthening of Western influence in the country. Then there was a schism between Russia and Ukraine that is still going on. The latter was punished by the Kremlin with the annexation of Crimea and Russian support for the secessionist rebellion in Donbas, and then from February 2022 with a general military attack.
The war was a sign to the surrounding countries that the expansion of Western influence and giving up of the cooperation with Russia will be punished by the application of “hard power”, and they now fear that the Ukrainian scenario could happen to them as well. A large Russian minority, which has been living in some of them since the Czarist and the Soviet eras, can become a reason for Russia to interfere in their internal affairs. After Ukraine, such a danger threatens Kazakhstan the most, whose northern part is inhabited by ethnic Russians, among whom there is a strong secessionist feeling. Because of this, every case of secession in the post-Soviet space is met with resistance from the Kazakh authorities, who are threatened by the same in their own country. At the Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg in June 2022, President Tokayev publicly and in front of Putin opposed the recognition of the breakaway regions in the Donbas as independent states. He explained this by saying that many other areas could declare their independence and the world would then be split into 500-600 countries. If Putin were to continue his policy of annexing part of the territory of neighboring countries if they do not play according to his foreign policy plans, this danger threatens Kazakhstan as well. Although relations apparently remained good after Tokayev’s statement, Russia began to obstruct the export of Kazakh oil to the world market, which mostly takes place via Russian pipelines and ports, and Kazakhstan banned the transport of Russian coal.
Another way Russia interferes in internal relations in its near abroad is by interfering in the secessionist wars. Apart from the Ukrainian war, which it is directly leading, Russia is indirectly involved in all the “frozen” conflicts in the post-Soviet space that others are leading: it has its own armed forces in them, prevents the state authorities from reintegrating the renegade provinces, and participates as the main mediator in the negotiations. Russia does not act as an impartial mediator, but as an active participant in the conflict and the conflicting parties must respect the will of the Kremlin if they do not want Russia to turn against them or leave them stranded. Thus, Russian peacekeeping forces in Transnistria enable the rogue region to exist as de facto a state despite the Moldovan authorities’ desire to re-establish control over its territory. Strained Russian-Georgian relations and President Saakashvili’s attempt to bring Georgia closer to the West resulted in the 2008 war and Russia’s recognition of the breakaway Georgian provinces as independent states. Russia’s alliance with Armenia makes it difficult for Azerbaijan to regain control of the entire breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, but Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan’s attempt to distance himself from Russia has resulted in the Kremlin being rather cool in supporting Armenia during its renewed war with Azerbaijan in the fall of 2020.
With such a policy, the Kremlin manages to maintain a physical distance from the West, but due to the aggressive foreign policy with which the regime tries to strengthen itself and eliminate external and internal threats, this struggle increases the danger to Russian national security instead of reducing it. Not only is the gap between Russia and the West widening, but the Kremlin’s reliance on the use of hard power over neighboring countries in order to keep Russia under its control makes these countries only convenient collaborators, not true allies. Russia’s actions increase neighboring countries’ fear of Russia, make cooperation between them unstable, and ultimately reduce Russia’s soft power over them.
Because of Putin’s fear for his own survival, Russia’s international position and security are increasingly deteriorating. A radical shift in Russian foreign policy is needed to stop this. One way to do this is to eliminate the Kremlin’s fear of Western countries. This would happen if Russia continued with the democratization that Putin stopped. This would bring the two parties closer in terms of ideas, because the Theory of democratic peace clearly states: democratic states do not go to war with each other. The Kremlin would no longer fear the spread of democratic ideas in its country, and the post-Soviet space should no longer serve as a buffer zone separating Russia from the West. This would also eliminate the need to use hard power in that area when a country shows an interest for cooperation with Western countries. That way, the current war against Ukraine would be unnecessary for the Kremlin.
