RUSSIAN POLICY EXPERTS BELIEVE UKRAINE’S REVOLUTIONARY FERVOR IS CONTAGIOUS
Igor Torbakov 12/20/04
EurasiaNet Organization
Dec 20 2004
Policy analysts in Russia are divided in their understanding of the
nature of the Orange Revolution in neighboring Ukraine. Yet many
in Moscow maintain that the revolutionary mood now gripping Kyiv is
capable of spreading to other CIS states.
The Western-oriented candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, is widely expected
to prevail in the Ukrainian presidential run-off scheduled for
December 26 – a re-run of the balloting conducted in late November.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, the Kremlin’s favored candidate,
was proclaimed the winner of that vote. However, the Ukrainian Supreme
Court subsequently tossed out the results and ordered a new election,
saying the late November tally was marred by widespread fraud.
For Russian “derzhavniki,” or champions of Russia’s great-power
status, a victory of Ukrainian democratic forces would signify a
disastrous geopolitical defeat. In a number of articles and policy
papers, Russian policy hawks, who tend to support President Vladimir
Putin, assert that since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,
the presidential race in Ukraine represented “the biggest [geo-]
political war between the United States and European Union on the
one hand, and Russia on the other.”
Although some analysts conceded that the Ukrainian crisis possessed a
“democratic dimension,” the general view was that massive rallies
in Kyiv in early December were the result of an international
conspiracy. As one analyst argued in a commentary published in the
weekly Ekspert, “the [Ukrainian] revolution, as the previous one in
Georgia, has very substantial propagandistic, diplomatic, ideological
and informational support from Western countries.” The commentary
maintained that the West’s “great geopolitical game” aimed at tearing
Ukraine away from Russia, establishing a cordon sanitaire that left
Moscow isolated.
The Orange Revolution, the statists believe, could touch off a
dangerous chain reaction. If Moscow fails to reassert its position
in Ukraine, argues prominent political analyst Vitaly Tretyakov,
“within the next two years ‘velvet revolutions’ will take place –
according to the Kyiv scenario – in Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and, possibly, in Armenia.” As a result, Tretyakov warned
in a recent column published in the government daily Rossiiskaya
Gazeta, the Kremlin might be deprived of “the room for maneuver in
the post-Soviet space.”
Many in the Russian policy community share Tretyakov’s strategic
concerns. It is no wonder, then, that some Kremlin political
gurus have started talking about a need to foment a “preventive
counter-revolution.” In a wide-ranging interview with the Nezavisimaya
Gazeta daily, a leading spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky argued that “the
Kyiv [events] are a very serious signal for Russia,” adding that
Russia’s own political system, along with its regional interests, is
vulnerable to the “new revolutionary technologies of the globalization
era.” Authorities in Russia and allied countries must take steps
to protect themselves from “regime-change” attempts, Pavlovsky
added. One antidote against a Western-sponsored velvet revolution,
he suggested, would be the development of an ideology that contains
“counter-revolutionary properties of our power structures and our
society.”
In sharp contrast to the hawks, liberal commentators in Moscow maintain
Russia’s geopolitical problems are largely self-inflicted, adding
that much of the blame is connected to the Putin administration’s
guiding political philosophy of “managed democracy.” Lilia Shevtsova
of the Carnegie Moscow Center characterized events in Ukraine as a
“revolution of a new type.” While the political conflicts in East
Central Europe at the end of the 1980s were the revolutions against
totalitarianism, the events in Ukraine are a “revolution against
phony democracy,” Shevtsova wrote in the liberal weekly Novaya Gazeta.
Like the policy hawks, Russian liberals tend to believe that the ideas
underpinning Ukraine’s Orange Revolution can prove contagious. In the
words of Vasily Zharkov, editor-in-chief of the Prognosis.ru website,
“a danger of a Kyiv-type velvet revolution is always present where
the principles of ‘managed democracy’ rule.”
Accordingly, concern about falling dominos is widespread in governing
circles in many CIS states. [For additional information see the Eurasia
Insight archive]. Authorities in Kyrgyzstan, where parliamentary
elections are scheduled for February 2005, have warned about the
“orange danger.” Speaking December 10 in Bishkek at a conference
called “Democracy in the Changing World,” Kyrgyz President Askar
Akayev alleged that opposition forces in Kyrgyzstan were using “dirty
political technologies,” adding his opponents were being financed by
“foreign capital.” According to the Kyrgyz president, the opposition
is determined to come to power “at any cost.”
Certain forces “are trying to impose democracy from abroad,” Akayev
continued. “Such practice is ruinous – it doesn’t correspond to our
national interests and might lead to unpredictable consequences.”
In Uzbekistan, a Central Asian nation with brittle regime,
President Islam Karimov has harshly criticized Putin for mismanaging
Russian-Ukrainian affairs, saying the Russian leader indulged in a
“shortsighted policy” of open support for Yanukovich’s candidacy
during the Ukrainian campaign. The Kremlin’s miscalculation was “one
of the reasons that led to the events in Ukraine,” Karimov maintained.
Armenia, where the results of the 2003 presidential and parliamentary
elections remain a source of contention and divisiveness, is
another country that could be significantly impacted by Ukrainian
developments. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Armenia’s opposition, which alleges that the 2003 votes were rigged,
has refused to recognize the legitimacy of President Robert Kocharian’s
mandate. Russia’s policy towards Armenia is flawed because it is based
on “unprecedented support” for Kocharian, wrote David Petrosyan,
a political observer for Noyan Tapan news agency, in a commentary
published by the Moskovskiye Novosti weekly. This staunch backing
for Kocharian has caused Russia to lose a considerable amount of
influence and prestige in the eyes of Armenian public, Petrosyan
maintained. He predicted that, given recent developments in Ukraine,
a large-scale political shift in Armenia is “quite likely.”
Editor’s Note: Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher
who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History
from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy
of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian
History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; a Visiting Scholar at the
Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
Washington DC; a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York;
and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. He is now based in
Istanbul, Turkey.