• Vladimir Putin has offered eight gold rings to leaders, a marked reference to the "Lord of the Rings", while Ukraine has compared him to Sauron since the start of the conflict.

  • Within an alliance with former Soviet republics, the Russian president would like to gather, while he has only few allies since the invasion of Ukraine ten months ago.

  • The group embodied by the CEI has too many divergent interests within it to constitute real support for Moscow, believe the former soldier Michel Goya and the researcher Taline Ter Minassian.

In the past, Vladimir Putin has already poured out his literary preferences.

The Russian president devoured the works of Alexandre Dumas, Ernest Hemingway or Leo Tolstoy.

But, in view of his latest actions, one would bet that his heart of reader is not insensitive to the pen of JRR Tolkien.

Monday, during an informal meeting in Saint Petersburg of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an alliance of several former Soviet republics (Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan), the boss of the Kremlin presented as a gift eight gold rings to the leaders present.

The last wedding ring, bearing like all the others the inscription "Happy New Year 2023" with the emblem of the CIS, Putin kept it for himself.

One community, nine rings… The reference to Sauron from The

Lord of the Rings

seems clear, despite the denials of Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, evoking “simply a memory for the New Year”.

A wink sufficient to imagine the head of state as a "master of evil", gathering his troops around him at the time of intensifying the war effort in Ukraine?

Not that easy.

When the Tsar would like to become Sauron

Because the CEI is so heterogeneous that it does not form a bloc behind Moscow.

“If the eight countries had formed a real community behind Putin, we would have known it since the start of the war, ten months ago”, indicates Michel Goya, former colonel of the navy troops, historian and strategist.

Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have largely distanced themselves, Armenia criticizes Russia for not helping them against Azerbaijan, which is part of the CIS.

“Each of these countries knows that outspoken support for Russia would expose it to international sanctions.

Moreover, no country has made a military commitment, only Belarus has accepted that its territory be used.

It's a hollow alliance,” comments Michel Goya.



Founded on the initiative of Russia, Belarus… And Ukraine (which left in 2018) at the end of the Soviet era, the IEC is an old organization with no real “effectiveness”.

“At the economic level, the countries of this community are turning more towards the Eurasian economic union.

And, at the strategic level, it is rather the organization of the collective security treaty that governs the area,” explains Taline Ter Minassian, director of the observatory of post-Soviet states at Inalco.

For the researcher, this gift from the Russian head of state must be seen as a symbol, without falling into over-interpretation.

“It was an informal summit, and the communication adapts to this circumstance.

It's done to try to tighten the friendship.

»

Azerbaijan and Armenia, members of the alliance, are at war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Kazakhstan assured in September that it wanted to protect the Russians who fled their country to escape mobilization.

Latent tensions are simmering within the CIS, and the leaders of these former Soviet satellites seem unconcerned about helping Moscow.

Vladimir Putin struggles to gather

“Putin is looking for allies and material support, and he is struggling to find any, apart from Iran and North Korea.

Some CIS countries have also taken very badly of the fact that Russia has offered all foreign nationals of this community a Russian visa in exchange for enlisting in the army”, supports Michel Goya.

No one knows if the mythical fantasy tomes rest on Vladimir Putin's shelves.

But Lord of the Rings

fans

will easily remember that Sauron fashioned the One Ring, which allows him to control all the others.

And, on Monday, only Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin's closest ally, put the present on his finger.

The rest of the community did not tempt fate.

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War in Ukraine: Putin offers eight rings to leaders and fuels rumors

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