Crises in the former USSR: the limits of Russian influence

Vladimir Putin and his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on September 25, 2020. Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Text by: Daniel Vallot Follow

4 min

Belarus, Nagorno-Karabakh and Kyrgyzstan: the last few weeks have seen an increase in crises in the post-Soviet space.

These repeated crises cause concern in Moscow, but also a finding of powerlessness, because the Kremlin has failed to play the role of arbiter that has come to it since the end of the Soviet era.

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From our correspondent in Moscow,

It is in Nagorno-Karabakh that Russian impotence is most glaring.

After two weeks of waiting, diplomatic efforts by Moscow have ended in dismal failure.

on the night of Friday 9 to Saturday 10 October by Sergei Lavrov, the head of Russian diplomacy, was shattered in just a few hours.

This is a disavowal for Moscow, which nevertheless maintains good relations with Armenia and with Azerbaijan and which, in 2016, only needed four days to silence the guns in the independentist enclave with an Armenian majority. .

Four years later, Russian influence seems to have eroded in a region which is nevertheless part of its near abroad, and of its traditional area of ​​influence.

Russian diplomacy will perhaps succeed despite everything in turning the tide, and in imposing a lasting truce?

Sergey Lavrov continues to work on this by receiving his Armenian counterpart this Monday in Moscow.

But for now, it's a deadly war playing out in the Caucasus, just a hundred kilometers from the Russian border.

A major source of uncertainty and destabilization for the whole region, and therefore for Russia. 

The Belarusian dilemma

War in Nagorno-Karabakh has broken out as two other Russian allies, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, are destabilized by post-election turmoil.

First problem for Moscow, these two countries belong to the two political and economic alliances founded by Russia to strengthen its links in the post-Soviet zone: the Collective Security Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union.

A particularly worrying weakening in the case of the second alliance, which has only five members, and among them Armenia.

Second difficulty, the protest in the street of rigged elections is a scenario which strongly displeases in Moscow, where one fears as much what is inevitably considered as "color revolutions" manipulated from abroad, as the effect. contagion that these movements could create in the region.

Faced with the risk of contagion and the weakening of its main allies, the Kremlin has only limited room for maneuver, and a difficult choice to say the least in Belarus. 

it will be analyzed as an admission of weakness, but if he supports him anyway, he runs the risk of permanently alienating a good part of the Belarusian population.

Turkey and China on the lookout

After having given the impression, in recent years, of using crises and power struggles to strengthen Russia's place on the international scene, Vladimir Poutine is faced with upheavals which weaken his allies, and which bear witness to the a loss of regional influence.

This accumulation of crises carries another peril for the Russia of Vladimir Putin, because the countries of the former USSR are courted by several regional powers.

In Central Asia, it is China which is on the alert and which is spending a lot of money to invest in the countries of the region.

This is evidenced by the mega-infrastructure projects linked to

In the Caucasus, it is Turkey which would like to compete with Moscow, as shown by

on Nagorno-Karabakh.

Finally, in Belarus, there is a risk that part of the population will turn away from Russia to prefer Europe - as was the case in Ukraine in 2014.

“ 

, summarizes in an editorial the daily newspaper with great circulation

 ”.

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