WHAT THE FORMER SOVIET STATES ARE THINKING ABOUT RUSSIA
National Journal
April 4 2014
In the west, all is not good in the neighborhood. In the east, it’s
a different story.
By Marina Koren April 4, 2014
With no evidence that Russia has any plans to withdraw its troops
from the border of Ukraine, some former Soviet states are worried
about their own regional security. Farther east, other countries,
closely aligned with Moscow rather than the West, say they are trying
to ease tensions. And several central Asian states have responded by
simply staying silent.
The United States and NATO announced this week that they are boosting
military support in the Baltic region, which is on especially high
alert. Moscow has long complained about Russians’ rights there, and
its takeover of Crimea suggests it may be willing to do something
about it. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he has no plans
to go further than the recent annexation, but maintains his right to
defend ethnic Russians in foreign countries.
Here’s where the former Soviet republics stand on the Ukraine crisis.
Ukraine
Well, you know.
“I want to be perfectly clear. We will never recognize the annexation
of Crimea,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk told Reuters
on Friday. “The time will come when Ukraine will take over control
of Crimea.” Russia has hiked up the price of natural gas for Ukraine
by 80 percent, a move Yatseniuk called “totally unacceptable.”
Estonia
Last month, Russia “signaled concern” at Estonia’s treatment of
its large ethnic Russian minority. Russian officials took aim at
Estonia’s national language policy, which is similar to that of
Ukraine, where all children use Ukrainian in school. A quarter of
Estonia’s 1.3 million people are Russian speakers.
Some fear this could give Putin all he needs to intervene in the
country, but Russians there say they don’t need to be “rescued.”
Still, the Estonian government is wary. “Russia’s posture has no place
in the 21st century,” Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said last week. This
week, Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas called for NATO to deploy
“boots on the ground” to the Baltics. Estonia regained its independence
when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, after more than 50 years of
Russian rule.
Latvia
“We are very much concerned about what is happening currently
in Ukraine, but we are not hysterical of course,” Latvian Foreign
Minister Edgars Rinkevics said recently. If the situation escalates,
his government would consider imposing sanctions against Russia. Until
then, a NATO presence is crucial in all Baltic states, he said.
This week, Latvia banned a Russian-language TV channel, citing
“war propaganda.”
Latvia, like the other Baltic states and much of Western Europe,
depends heavily on Russian exports of natural gas and crude oil.
Latvian President Andris Berzins has called for accelerating
construction on gas pipelines linking Poland, Lithuania, and
eventually Latvia. This week, Berzins asked the head of the Russian
Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who is considered a Kremlin ally,
to postpone his planned May visit to Latvia, citing tensions between
Russia and Ukraine.
About 35 percent of Latvia’s population of 2 million are Russian
speakers. About 270,000 Latvians, most of whom came to the country
for work during the Soviet era, do not have citizenship. They feel
like they are “second-class citizens.” “This is Russia’s land,” one
resident recently told Reuters. Latvia was also taken over by the
Soviet Union in 1940 and did not regain its independence until 1991.
Lithuania
“The Russians occupied a part of Ukraine and they concentrated
their forces, and I think we should be ready to defend our states if
this aggression should continue,” Jouzas Olekas, Lithuania’s defense
minister, said this week. Regularly scheduled Russian military activity
over the Baltic airspace has put Lithuanian officials on edge.
Last month, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Russia’s
annexation of Crimea is a direct threat to Lithuania’s regional
security. “We witnessed the use of brutal force to redraw the map of
Europe and to undermine the postwar political architecture established
in Europe,” she said.
The Soviet Union annexed Lithuania in 1940. Russians make up 6 percent
of Lithuania’s population.
Belarus
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Moscow,
said last month that Russia’s annexation of Crimea sets a “bad
precedent.” Ukraine, he said, should remain “a single, indivisible,
integral, nonbloc state.”
Belarus and Russia, however, are still talking. The two nations’
foreign ministers met on the sidelines of a Moscow meeting of the
Commonwealth of Independent States, an organization of former Soviet
republics, to discuss working together to diminish regional tensions.
Belarus also voted against a U.N. General Assembly resolution last
month declaring Crimea’s referendum invalid.
A Belarusian news agency on Thursday said Belarus-Russia cooperation
in the nuclear energy sector has “a bright future.”
Moldova
Moldovan Prime Minister Iurie Leanca has asked both Western leaders
and Russia “to prevent his country from falling apart.” But the
country has recently shown its Western leanings. On Thursday, Leanca
praised a decision by the European Union to lift visa restrictions on
Moldova, allowing its citizens to travel through the Schengen area,
a passport-free zone spanning 26 European countries. “I want to tell
the skeptics, who until recently have not believed that we will
travel freely to the European Union, that the prospect of joining
the European Union will be recognized in the same way,” he said.
Rumors are swirling that Russian special forces have already arrived
in Transnistria, a small Russian-occupied republic that broke away
from Moldova after a civil war in 1992. Transnistria, which no United
Nations members legally recognize, is well under Moscow’s influence.
Moldova’s closer ties to the E.U. have been met with threats from
Moscow’s representative to Transnistria.
Armenia
Armenia, unlike just about everyone else, recognized the results
of Crimea’s March referendum to become a part of Russia. Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan told Putin that the vote was “yet another
example of the realization of peoples’ right to self-determination.”
Armenia recently announced plans to boost its yearly imports of
gas from neighboring Iran by 75 percent, and in exchange export
electricity to the Middle Eastern country. The move has been met
with relative silence from Russia, which controls Armenia’s entire
gas-pipeline system.
The non-reaction, Marianna Grigoryan explains at Eurasianet.org,
could be attributed to Putin’s desire to bring Armenia into a Eurasian
Economic Community union it created with Belarus and Kazakhstan in
2010. Members hope to expand the organization this year to other
former Soviet states, and furnish it as a counterweight to the
E.U. An E.U. commissioner said Friday that the union “undermines the
sovereignty of individual countries.”
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan, on the other hand, condemned the Crimea referendum, and
a statement from its embassy in Kiev said it “condemns extremism,
radicalism and separatism in its every manifestation and once again
confirms its adherence to the principles of sovereignty, independence
and support of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
But Azerbaijan has to tread carefully. Russia, along with the U.S. and
France, has played the role of mediator in Azerbaijan’s ongoing
battle with Armenia for Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked region in the
South Caucasus.
Georgia
Georgia broke diplomatic relations with Russia six years ago,
following the South Ossetia war, a brief armed conflict between the
two nations. Russia still occupies two breakaway provinces inside
Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia helped support in
their fight against Georgia in 2008.
NATO membership for Georgia is far off, but the alliance’s foreign
ministers met this week with their Georgian counterpart in Brussels
to talk about its possible eventual accession. In February, Georgian
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashivili advocated for a full seat at the
table. “This desire is supported by the overwhelming majority of the
Georgian population, as well as Georgia’s major political parties,”
he said. “The Georgian government will undertake every effort to
continue the path of reforms that will bring us closer to NATO.”
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, which borders Russia in the south, has the largest
population of ethnic Russians out of the former Soviet republics
in central Asia, at 22 percent of its population. Last month,
its president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, told Putin that he understood
Moscow’s stance on Crimea. But he said that Kazakhstan’s cooperation
with Russia on the recently formed union doesn’t mean Moscow would
exert more influence in the country.
“As far as our political independence is concerned, this is sacrosanct,
and Kazakhstan will not cede its sovereignty to anyone,” Nazarbayev
said.
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry bashed ousted Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych in a statement last month, which hinted at the country’s
past failed attempts at parliamentary democracy.
“The only source of power in any country is its people, and
a president who lost his people’s trust, who de facto lost his
presidential authority and, moreover, who fled the country, cannot
be legitimate,” the statement said. However, Kyrgyzstan, faced with
threats of retaliation from Moscow, abstained from voting last month
on a U.N. resolution that declared Crimea’s referendum illegal.
Kyrgyzstan maintains strong ties to Russia, which provides generous
aid packages to the cash-strapped nation, as well as arms and fuel,
and it hopes to join the Eurasian Economic Community. In other other
words, Kyrgyzstan is firmly in Russia’s grasp.
Tajikistan
Tajikistan also depends heavily on Russian aid. Like Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan did not vote in the U.N. resolution condemning Crimea’s
vote to join Russia. Russian and Tajik representatives continue to
cooperate on economic and trade issues, and have largely steered
clear of discussing the Ukraine crisis.
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan broke its silence on escalating tensions in Ukraine in early
March but did not mention Russia. The events “pose a real threat to
the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a statement
from its foreign affairs ministry said, and ” elicit deep concern
in Uzbekistan.”
Uzbekistan’s leaders have cooperated with NATO on security issues
in the past, but the country leans heavily toward Russia, thanks to
strong economic ties. On Thursday, Moscow welcomed Uzbekistan into
the free-trade zone of the Commonwealth of Independent States, an
arrangement that will boost trade between Uzbekistan and its fellow
former Soviet republics. Uzbekistan has also asked Russian energy
firms to help tap its vast hydrocarbon deposits.
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan, ruled by a Soviet-era holdover with zero tolerance for
dissent, depends on a Russian pipeline for exports, but it has recently
turned to Beijing for more business. The competition may spell future
trouble for Russia, but Turkmenistan has no plans to sever ties with
Moscow, let alone make comments about its involvement in Ukraine.
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