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Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj during his time as Prime Minister of Mongolia (2006)
Photo:
Nir Elias / REUTERS
The day before the attack on the neighboring country, a strange map of Ukraine was presented on Russian state television: it was divided into several parts, marked in different colors. Only the small yellow spot in the middle is Ukraine, while the areas around it shown in orange and red tones are "gifts" from the Tsar, Stalin, Khrushchev or Lenin, it was said.
On another occasion, Putin justified the conquest of the area that is now Saint Petersburg by saying that Tsar Peter I had not conquered the area at the time, but had only brought it back from Sweden. And most recently in an interview with US agitator Tucker Carlson, Putin justified his policies with long-winded historical digressions. The aim of all of these statements is clear: to create legitimacy for one's expansion policy using any historical data - actual or merely alleged: what was once ours can soon be ours again.
Only: Putin is not the only one who has mastered this trick. This is what Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj shows.
Elbegdorj was Prime Minister of Mongolia in 1998 and from 2004 to 2006, and then President from 2009 to 2017. He is very active on social media - and leaves no doubt about the threat he believes Vladimir Putin to be. Following the Carlson interview, he first reposted an entry from Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky on
And then, a few hours ago, Elbegdorj simply turned Putin's argument about the historical mission around: Following Putin's words, he found a historical map of Mongolia, he writes - and then published several pictures: The country can be seen on them in borders that extend from present-day Romania to South Korea. In one of the maps that are supposed to show the gigantic Mongol Empire, there is a small yellow spot with "Russia 1471" written above it.
But that's not all: Elbegdorj takes the satire a little further, adding a friendly note to the flashy, powerful cards: "Don't worry. We are a peaceful and friendly nation." This also fits with Putin's narrative, who claims that the lack of Western security guarantees forced him to deploy troops in Ukraine.
In other words, Elebgdorj tells exactly the same story that Putin tells. Except he reverses the roles. The only thing missing is the word “security interests”.
If one day there is a troop build-up on the border with Russia in Mongolia, Putin doesn't have to worry. He can assume the peacefulness of his neighboring country: Elbegdorj's time as prime minister also included his attempt to correct the well-known image of Genghis Khan as a bloodthirsty tyrant and brutal conqueror of a global empire. At the opening of a campaign, Elbegdorj once announced that Genghis Khan "wasn't really a bad guy." "He just had bad press."
Sol