Russia as Partner

Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania‘s first President after the country quit the Soviet Union, explains why he is convinced that Russia is a threat to Western democracies, and warns of Russia‘s ambitions to use its energy resources as a tool in international power politics.

Partnerships between countries in what we still loosely call the West can usually be expected to yield mutual benefits. But the Russian view is that your partner in a game, not cooperation, is an adversary to be outwitted, to be made to surrender. The benefits should be all on one side. Westerners have tended to believe, or at least hope, that with the collapse of the Soviet Union such a special view would no longer be a feature of negotiations with Russia. But Lenin’s aphorism that “they will pay for the rope with which we will hang them” remains a guideline for Russian energy diplomacy.

The Russia of Vladimir Putin still shares the communist dream of a New World Order. In my observation it excludes such concepts as "universal values", "internationally recognised principles", "human rights" and "rule of law" introducing total relativism. Putinists still seek to persuade Western democracies that Russia is "new", "liberal" and "cooperative", or at least in selected areas. Russia offers itself as a land of opportunity for western entrepreneurs, where they are tempted with stakes even in stolen property. It suits Russia that some Western business people are corrupt. It is now clear in a light of story how that the major Russian oil company Yukos was illegally expropriated by the state. Its owner, Mikhail Khordorkovsky, once the richest man in Russia, is now in a Siberian jail, in an extremely far distance from home what consists an outspoken breach with Russian law.

The basis of the European Union’s relationship with Russia is the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) which came into force in December 1997. It sets out various common objectives and establishes a framework for contacts. It seems to have worked well for Russia, whose most recent gain was the simplified visa system that came into force in June of last year, following the agreement reached in 2006 at a Russia-EU summit in the Russian resort of Sochi, helped along no doubt by ample hospitality. It was signed despite the fact that Russia does not have yet the legitimate border with entire EU. So, in Russian eyes the EU’s friendliness does not inspire respect. In fact Russia prefers to deal with individual states, promoting dissent within the Union.

Yet most EU politicians still talk of “strategic partnership” with Russia as though it was a mantra. Many remain happy with the agreement on four “common areas”, which defines also that one of justice, freedom and human rights. Don't lough, please, on that latter "common" area as EU is not yet favouring the total relativism. And the threat that they warn most against is the perceived danger of isolating Russia. “Don’t isolate Russia! Let us do what we want, but be damned if you isolate Russia!” This has been the line of Alexander Lukashenko, the president-dictator of Belarus and a keen supporter of the Kremlin. The EU’s institutions have wanted to provide aid to the unfortunate people of Belarus, but are wary of being seen to give support to a dictatorship. As a result Lukashenko’s propaganda blames the “bad, rich Europe”.

Whether Russia itself takes much notice of Lukashenko’s plea that it should not be isolated is questionable. But Russia became aware that it may be distancing itself from Europe because of its (un)diplomatic behaviour, actions of terror, its controlled judiciary and corruption in state-run business. It has now set out to counter such putinist damage suffered in its partnership with Europe’s democracies. Hence the manoeuvre of a change of presidency. Dmitry Medvedev was appointed to be president, voted in early March and should took office on May. Putin remains the backseat driver, while Medvedev will play the role of being at the wheel with more sincere smile and a promise “to guarantee the rule of law and democracy”. It is a change that on the face of it would mean a new regime, but surely nobody takes the promise seriously, even those who harbours great expectations for "a new era".

First test will be the gorbachevist "glasnost", freedom of media, if Mr. Medvedev is given power to reintroduce it.

One more test of the rule of law is how it applies to a country’s banking system, and whether a bank’s customers are properly treated. Russia’s Central Savings Bank has robbed the Lithuanian people of billions of roubles, which were removed from Lithuania in 1990 as a punishment for proclaimed national independence. Not a penny has been returned. Formally, the money belongs to the Lithuanian savers, many of whom are elderly, and in need, but there seems no more chance of getting the money back than if it were on the moon. Yet Russia with such record of trustfulness is welcomed both into G-8, the group of rich countries, and as a fair member of the World Trade Organization.

Western companies have also suffered losses from investing in Russia, although some have continued to make good profits under “special circumstances” provided by the Russian government. However, such matters have been overshadowed by fears in the EU over energy supplies from Russia. In March of this year, Russia’s gas provider Gazprom cut supplies to Ukraine because of a debt dispute. The EU was understandably alarmed as about 25% of all gas consumed in the EU originates from Russia, and 80% of it is shipped via pipelines crossing Ukraine. The dispute recalled a quarrel in 2006 when deliveries to Western Europe were briefly interrupted, highlighting the EU's dependency on Russian gas and prompting it to seek new supply routes. The EU’s Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said, in a statement of the obvious, that the Union “places enormous importance” on a reliable supply of gas. Gazprom said it would fulfill all contracts, “as it has done for decades" but that did not dispel EU fears that its policy towards other countries was political as well as commercial. The new prices announced recently by Middle Asia states, which do not want to be robbed by Russia as before, may question Gazprom contracts as well.

Russia hopes, given time and with its faults overlooked, to become the dominant, and even the sole, provider of energy to the EU. By promising guaranteed supplies it hopes to undermine Europe’s projected Nabucco pipeline for transporting natural gas from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. It would run from Erzerum in Turkey to Baumgarten, a major natural gas hub in Austria. The project is backed by the EU and the United States, and would provide an alternative source to at least some of the present gas imports from Russia. Anyway, the hopes may be destroyed thanks Russia's influence on postcommunist Hungary and broader region.

Europe may soon have to decide whether to trust Russia’s promise to guarantee future energy supplies. That would also mean overlooking its authoritarian ways and putting aside fears that its energy resources may be reduced for "non flexible" countries. Will Europeans be willing to exchange their dignity, spiritual heritage and general beliefs in exchange for gas supplies? If Europeans wish to remain free from the Kremlin’s dictates, they have to show that they can if necessary live without Russia. Is that too much to demand of Western politicians? Think about it.

These are questions where our answers should perhaps be conditioned by two possible future scenarios. The first is what if China were to make a move? An expansionist China with its eyes on vast areas of north-east Asia that have been part of the Russian empire since tsarist times is among the Kremlin’s worst nightmares. Should that happen, Russia would be desperate to get the West on its side. You have our gas, the Kremlin would say, now help us, enter confrontation with China.

Second, what if today’s Russia were to crumble? Supposing the newly-rich-old-mentality Russia fails financially? Vladimir Milov, president of the Institute of Energy Policy in Moscow has been a remarkably outspoken critic of his country’s energy policy. On a visit to the United States in 2007 he said that Russia’s “simplistic and archaic policy” has led to a permanent instability in energy relations ever since the end of the Soviet Union. A pattern is developing whereby every year one of Russia’s neighbours finds its energy supply cut off, raising doubts about Russia’s reliability as a supplier, he said. More recently he has warned that the state energy companies Gazprom and Rosneft may be on the verge of default and that there is a “considerable chance that, at a minimum, there will be a crisis of liquidity in the banking system and, in the worst case, massive corporate default.” He has criticised Putin’s “reckless policy of restoring the government’s influence in the oil and gas sector in recent years”, a policy which “has not been free for the country. It has a concrete price and a very high one.”

There probably are real grounds in Russia for a third reform avoiding the collapse on a par Lenin’s New Economic Policy soon after the 1917 Revolution and Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika. A third collapse eventually making life easier for many neighbours could be followed by real democracy in Russia. We in the West must bide our time, and a better times for us all.

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