© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

On June 2, 2020 the Presidential Administration of Russian Federation published a new decree, titled “On the principles of the state policy of the Russian Federation in the field of nuclear deterrence.” Though the text itself claims to be a planning document, it is in fact not exact enough for military planning purposes; nor is it a strategy. It does not even contain any clear references to Russia’s existing security policy documents.

Instead, the decree, five-and-a-half pages long, is a declarative text, designed for consumption mostly by the outside world. Thus, the Kremlin is sending a message about its own thinking on the use of nuclear weapons; more concretely, it serves the informational support of Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy.

The Use of Nuclear Weapons

The text outlines four main cases, in which Russia may use nuclear weapons in retaliation for various forms of attacks. In the first case, Russia would use the nuclear option if it received confirmed information about ballistic missiles having been launched against the territory of Russia and/or its allies. Though the document does not specify it, Russian experts interpret the term “confirmed” as information provided by Russia’s own early-warning systems.

A remarkable detail is that the text does not specify whether this applies to an attack with ballistic missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) only, or with any ballistic missiles. This part is often interpreted as a manifestation of Moscow’s long-standing concerns regarding a mass non-nuclear strike launched with high-precision weapons. At present only the US would be capable of launching such an attack and China might gain similar capabilities soon; however, the Russian document does not specify any country as a source of threat.

The second eventuality is an attack by nuclear weapons on the territory of Russia and/or its allies, or by any other weapons of mass destruction. This option is not new; it can be found in the current military doctrine too, published in 2014, as well as in previous doctrines.

In the third case, Moscow would launch a nuclear strike if enemy activities were to target those elements of Russia’s military infrastructure in a way that would endanger Russia’s nuclear second-strike capabilities. Again, it is noteworthy that it remains unclear whether the attack would need to be nuclear to trigger the retaliatory strike or not. Both Russian and Western experts interpret this as the Kremlin’s intention to deter cyber-attacks against Russia’s critical military infrastructure.

The fourth case would be reached if the Russian Federation falls under a type of conventional attack that would endanger the very existence of the state. This part is not new either. Nevertheless, it is important to note that in the vicinity of Russia there is only country that has sufficient conventional forces for an attack of such a scale: China.

The document emphasizes that the Russian government considers the use of nuclear weapons only as a means of defense. However, this is not fully equal to a “no first use policy,” as Moscow reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear/WMD attacks.

Purposeful Ambiguity

In some passages of the presidential decree, its authors have purposefully avoided clear-cut wording, leaving room for multiple interpretations. The most important ambiguity is that the document does not differentiate between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Hence, it is unclear whether this decree applies to all nuclear weapons, or whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons is based on different considerations.

What makes this relevant is that while the possession, production, storage, and use of strategic nuclear weapons is a field that has been relatively well-regulated by arms control treaties, the state of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons is absolutely non-transparent. Moscow has consistently resisted repeated US efforts to bring tactical nuclear weapons under the umbrella of arms control processes.

The document also leaves it unclear whether nuclear deterrence applies to conventional weapons of strategic effect as well, i.e. to hypersonic weapons, high-energy lasers, space-launched conventional weapons, etc. Nor does it mention cyber threats in particular. It is also remarkable that the third case for using nuclear weapons, i.e. enemy activities against Russia’s critical state and military infrastructure, does not specify which elements of infrastructure count as “critical.”

De-Escalation by Escalation

The decree reflects a well-known characteristic of Russian military theory, namely that when it comes to the de-escalation of conventional conflicts, there is no clear line between conventional and nuclear deterrence. It is important to note, however, that using nuclear deterrence is not equal to actually launching nuclear weapons. Instead, nuclear deterrence is composed of a complex, multi-layered set of measures, such as declarations, exercises, demonstrative deployments, and a number of other steps which fall short of actually firing a nuclear missile, but may already have the desired deterring effect.

This approach has been present in Russian military thinking for decades. Moreover, simulated nuclear strikes have been part of many major strategic military exercises since the late 1990s. Nevertheless, the decree constitutes the first case of the Kremlin co-opting the concept of de-escalating conventional conflicts by employing nuclear deterrence. Of course, this very declaration itself is an integral part of Moscow’s nuclear deterrence policy.

Sending a Message

The timing seems not to be coincidental. In approximately half a year, in February 2021, the START treaty—the last remaining strategic arms control treaty between the United States and Russia—expires. Hence, it is quite likely that the publication of the document is meant to serve the purpose of motivating the US to continue the negotiations about a new START treaty, and possibly also about the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The fact that nuclear disarmament negotiations between Washington and Moscow have re-started in Vienna on June 22 indicates that framing that meeting was also part of the idea.

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© REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko

As the coronavirus was ravaging northern parts of Italy in March, Russia was one of the first countries to come to Rome’s aid, with the delivery of military medical aid. The final details were agreed during a phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on March 21. The next day Russia’s Ministry of Defense began sending fifteen military transport airplanes to Italy, with 122 personnel and dozens of military vehicles on board. The Russian team consisted of military doctors, virologists, radiologists as well as disinfection experts, while the equipment included mobile disinfection and chemical defense units, and a mobile laboratory. 600 respirators were also delivered.

In Russia the military plays an important rolein handling all types of crises, including health-related ones, so it is not surprising that it was Russia’s Ministry of Defense that delivered the aid to Italy. As this was a military operation, Russian cargo airplanes landed in the Pratica di Maremilitary airport close to Rome, and from there they moved to the Bergamo region that was severely hit by the virus.

Russian aid was composed mostly of elements that could operate without constant cooperation with Italian medical personnel, such as disinfection units. Since they did not have to be integrated into the Italian health care system logistics were considerably easier than if Russia had sent surgeons or nurses, who would have had to work within Italian hospitals.

“From Russia With Love”

The Kremlin made sure to take the opportunity to make a witty gesture by labelling both the aid packages, as well as the military trucks sent to Italy, with “From Russia With Love” signs.

However, within days of the arrival of the first shipments the backlash started. Quoting Italian governmental sources, the influential newspaper La Stampa wrotethat 80 percent of the Russian equipment was useless, and the whole operation was aimed much more at gaining political influence than providing humanitarian aid. An expert at the Rome-based Gino Germani Institute said that some parts of the Russian deliveries could indeed be usefulbut voiced concerns about the possible presence of Russian intelligence operatives among members of the Russian team, who might have wanted to use the operation for intelligence purposes.

On April 1, a Russian medical aid shipment landed on New York’s John F. Kennedy airport. The giant Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft delivered large amounts of medical equipment, including masks, gloves, protective suits, and again respirators. Similar to the aid to Italy, this delivery also took place shortly after the countries’ leaders, Putin and US President Donald Trump, spoke. The Russian aid delivery created a sizeable scandal in the US, partially in the context of the upcoming presidential elections, and also due to the allegations about the role Moscow played in the election of Trump in 2016.

A Similar Pattern

Several problems have since arisen with the Russian aid delivery to the US. In May, the Russian government charged Washington $660,000 for the aid shipment. Furthermore, the Russian transport included equipment that was not of much use in a pandemic, such as military-type gas masks and household cleaning gloves. The 45 ventilators that were delivered also turned out to be essentially useless due to the electricity network voltage difference between Russia and the US.

To make things worse, it later surfaced that some of the ventilators Russia delivered were the Aventa-M brand, which earlier had caused a deadly fire at a St. Petersburg hospital, killing several COVID-19 patients.

From April 3 on Russia started to deliver military medical aid to Serbia, too, with similar equipment to that sent to Italy. Details were again coordinated between the countries’ two presidents. Eleven Russian military cargo planes delivered 87 military doctors and specialists, including infectologists and experts on chemical warfare and disinfection. (As there is an existing multi-layered security and military cooperation between Serbia and Russia, Moscow delivering military medical aid to Serbia is a lot less surprising than it sending such shipments to NATO countries.)

In all three cases, the deliveries followed a similar pattern: Putin made the offer directly to the leader of the given country in a phone conversation, thus partially circumventing traditional diplomatic channels. Once the agreement was reached, details were coordinated by lower level officials; though not always perfectly, as the problems with the shipment to the US revealed.

Hoping for Reciprocity

Concerning the United States in particular, Russia from the very beginning hoped for reciprocity. The Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, openly declared that the Kremlin hoped for the US would provide Russia with its own medical equipment should Russia need it.

Indeed, there is considerable evidence indicating that in all three cases the dominant motives were political. The primary objective was to get the sanctions against Russia suspended. The deliveries to Italy coincided with a Russian initiativevoiced first at the March 26, 2020 G20 summit. Russia suggested that due to the humanitarian crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, all international economic sanctions should be suspended until the end of the pandemic.

While Russian diplomats referred only to the cases of Iran and Venezuela without mentioning their own country, it was still clear that Russian diplomacy’s intention was to get the sanctions against Russia suspended. On the same day Moscow submitted a similar initiative in the United Nations. Hence, it looks as if Russia tried to use the aid deliveries to get the sanctions lifted by using a humanitarian argument, and Moscow’s own humanitarian shipments were to demonstrate the Kremlin’s good will.  In fact, the way Russia has been employing a universalist, humanitarian-oriented narrative is a good example of how the Kremlin is using Western value-based arguments against Western sanctions. However, Russia’s initiatives at both the UN and G20 were rejected.

Not giving up easily, on April 27, 2020 Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the Duma’s International Affairs Committee and President of the Russian Foundation for Peace NGO wrote a letter to his Italian counterpart, Vito Petrocelli, President of the Italian Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and a member of the Five Star Movement. In his letterSlutsky asked for Petrocelli’s help in getting all international economic sanctions lifted by putting pressure on Western countries. Slutsky referred to the Russian aid delivered to Italy, and also mentioned the humanitarian situation in Iran and Venezuela.

Propaganda Campaign

Also, Russia apparently intended to demonstrate that it was able to act much faster and more decisively than the EU could. A recent report by the EU vs. Disinfo project pointed out that during and after the delivery of Russian military medical aid shipments to Italy, Russian propaganda accusing the EU of being incapable and helpless was a lot stronger than usual. Meanwhile, the same disinformation outlets portrayed Russia as a responsible power able to provide an efficient reaction to the COVID-19 crisis. Regarding Italy specifically, Russian disinformation outlets particularly emphasized the narrative that “The EU is not helping, but Russia does.” Similar, anti-EU messages were targeted also at the Serbian population, where there is already a certain receptivity for such messages.

While no great success, it is highly unlikely that Moscow will abandon this project and particularly the strategy of employing a humanitarian narrative. The next voting on the extension of the most important EU sanctions is due to take place in September 2020, during the German EU presidency. Until then Moscow is likely to continue its information campaign and other efforts to break up or weaken the European coherence behind the sanctions. The military medical aid shipments constituted a brief albeit spectacular element of this larger campaign.

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Ironically, even the liberal opposition has been calling on the Kremlin to introduce the state of emergency, but with no effect: Russia’s government continues its muted response to the virus that spreads across the country. Indecisiveness and confusion in the Kremlin has not only confirmed the inability of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personalized system to effectively react to the unpredictable circumstances. We also see the true nature of Putin’s governance style: his attempts to avoid responsibility and his distancing from unpleasant problems. Instead of using the crisis to shift toward a more restrictive rule, Putin has chosen “wait and see” tactics. He even postponed the national vote that has to legitimize his indefinite rule which were supposed to take place on April 22.

The most likely explanation: an introduction of emergency rule in Russia would mean a reconfiguration of power within the Kremlin and new political regime that Putin apparently is not yet ready to accept. Putin’s hesitation and foot-dragging could be explained above all by the belief that Russia will escape the dramatic spread of virus. (On April 7, Russia officially had a total of 7,497 cases, with 58 fatalities, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.) The seriousness of the pandemic, often described as “just a form of influenza,” has been grossly underestimated. And the authorities hoped that Russia’s economy would not be affected dramatically because it is more isolated than those of Western countries. Also, the Kremlin has built a financial “nest egg” for rainy days, with foreign-exchange and gold reserves presently around $570 billion. The political establishment until recently persuaded itself that moderate measures against virus spill-over were enough.

In addition, there’s a Russian habit of concealing bad news from the top and of attempting to create a glossy image of reality. Putin’s plan to celebrate the 75th anniversary of victory in World War II—the preparation for the May 9 parade continues at full speed—also played their role in the Kremlin’s attempt to minimize the hazards of covid-19.

In his long-delayed address to nation on the coronavirus crisis on March 25, Putin decided to refrain from introducing stringent measures against the pandemic. He did not adopt adequate measures to support the population segments that are losing their jobs, small and medium businesses, and big companies that will suffer from the pandemic. The measures announced so far have been piecemeal and are lagging behind those introduced by other states. Russian observer Sergei Shelin, expressing the dominant mood in Moscow, wrote on March 27: “The president’s ‘anti-coronavirus package’ has been prepared in haste with reasonable, opportunistic, and even absurd measures mixed together… There’s been an atmosphere of irresponsibility and chaos.” One could add a total disrespect for the human health and life as well as a fear of undermining the optimistic picture of Russia produced by Kremlin propaganda. In comparison, the Russian measures look meager:  the United States has announced to spend a sum equivalent of 9 percent of its GDP to fight the pandemic, the United Kingdom 14 percent, and Germany more than 20 percent. In contrast, Russia will only use means equivalent to about 1.3 percent of its GDP.

Moscow’s Mayor: Crisis Fighter

A week ago, however, Moscow finally woke up to the grim reality: the pandemic has started its deadly marathon across Russia. On March 30, Russia sealed its borders. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin ordered an indefinite city-wide quarantine (the self-isolation order applies to all residents regardless of age). Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin imposed the same restrictions in Russia’s regions.  On March 31 Russian lawmakers swiftly passed legislation threatening severe punishment—including up to five years in prison—for people convicted of spreading false information about the coronavirus. The ever-bustling Russian capital has been suddenly transformed into a post-apocalyptic sight. Precious time had been lost, however.

Moreover, the Kremlin continued to take a back seat. As Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov announced on March 30, “The state of emergency is not called because all necessary measures are being undertaken.” It seems now that the Kremlin’s strategy is based on several components: achieving “herd immunity”; attempting to force business and the middle class to carry the financial burden; relying on the population’s self-isolation, controlled by the authorities. However, even pro-Kremlin analysts think this approach is not any more satisfactory.

On April 2, Putin again addresses the nation. But he offered only the extension of Russia’s nationwide “non-working week” until April 30. Moreover, the Kremlin delegated the decision-making power on anti-coronavirus measures to the regional authorities. It looked as if the Kremlin was more afraid of introducing tough quarantine measures than of the coronavirus itself.  As one of the regional officials commented, “They even try to avoid the word ‘quarantine’.”

The Absent Leader

Meanwhile, Putin continues to shy away from publicity. Moscow Mayor Sobyanin (and not Prime Minister Mishustin!) was designated the lead figure organizing the coronavirus defense (Putin gave him the job of heading a special working group in the State Council for combatting the pandemic). But the state apparatus and society at large continue to wait for the Kremlin to define the mechanisms of fighting the virus. Having no definite agenda the police in the Moscow region introduced the curfew and then stopped it.

The speculation is that Mishustin and Sobyanin are hoping to use this crisis as a springboard if not to the status of Putin’s “successor” than at a minimum to that of his “number two.” However, the Russian system of personalized power has no place for the role of “successor” who could undermine the omnipotence of the only national leader. Meanwhile, the Russian system oriented toward solving bureaucratic tasks demonstrates its inefficiency in an emergency situation. It can  crack down on the protests, but is unable to tackle national disasters. It is quite a paradox: an authoritarian regime unable to successfully implement authoritarian measures!

Already, Putin’s popularity has fallen victim to the pandemic. Only 48 percent of respondents supported the idea of “Putin forever” in a Levada poll at the end of March, while 47 percent disagreed with this. Every second respondent preferred “a rotation of the authorities and the emergence of the new leaders”; only 37 percent of respondents opted for “stability and the same politicians.” Given that already a quarter of the population has to struggle to feed itself, there is much potential for disaffection growing for which there are no legal channels of articulation. The fight of millions left without jobs and financial help may well create “Titanic atmosphere” in Russia, pregnant with mass social turmoil.

Formidable Challenges

Russia will follow likely follow the Chinese pattern of restricting the freedom of information. However, the Russian system is lacking a uniting idea, basically relying on predatory clans. With Putin’s authority fading, there will be serious difficulties securing societal obedience even under threat of repression.

Systemic conundrums have become apparent, too. Putin will have to think about how to revive Russia’s ravaged economy. He will also have to balance Russia’s domestic insulation with its participation in the global politics, which he is eager to continue. Putin will try to return to the international scene as the responsible leader accepted by the West, and not only by China. Of course, in case of domestic disorder he may try to switch to the real “fortress Russia” mode. But this move will hardly be supported by the part of the Russian elite that has become globalized and personally integrated into the West.

The challenges Russia is facing are formidable. Depleted health care systems, corrupted authorities, an atomized and demoralized society, the state’s inability to help the most vulnerable segments of society—all that mean that Russia is moving toward an existential crisis. How Russia will respond to it will form its future destiny.

This article is based on a DGAP Study Group: Russia presentation delivered on April 7, 2020.

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© Sergei Chirikov/Pool via REUTERS

When the “family photo” was taken at the Berlin Libya conference on January 19, 2020, there he was standing confidentially in the front row, next to UN secretary general António Guterres and host Angela Merkel: Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. For the Kremlin, Libya is currently the most important African country when it comes to expanding Russia’s military influence as well as its influence on energy and migration policy—in a country that is of crucial importance to Europe’s security.

However, Libya is not an exception. All across Africa, Russia has expanded its presence recently, particularly as an arms exporter. The years 2018 and 2019 already saw a remarkable concentration of Russian diplomatic efforts to re-establish ties in Africa. In March 2018 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov conducted a spectacular diplomatic trip across the continent, visiting Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. Three months later, in June 2018 he visited South Africa and Rwanda. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the continent once, when he attended the BRICS summit in South Africa in 2018. At the same time, plenty of African leaders paid visits to Moscow.

A Summit in Sochi

So far, the largest and most spectacular diplomatic effort was the first Russia-Africa Summit, held in Sochi at the end of October 2019. All 54 African states took part, and a number of bilateral agreements or letters of intent were signed. The message was clear. Moscow is not only interested in re-warming ties the Soviet Union once enjoyed during the Cold War. The Kremlin aims to establish partnerships of a new quality.

Russia is also using the newly-forged ties for practical diplomatic purposes. Moscow utilizes its position on the UN Security Council to support its African allies, for example, by publicly endorsing the idea of granting Africa a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. In exchange, Moscow can count on the votes of its regional partners in the UN General Assembly, when issues important to Russia arise. For example, on December 18, 2020 the UN General Assembly voted on a resolution about the human rights situation in Crimea and Sevastopol. Although the resolution was adopted by 65 votes, none of Russia’s newly (re)forged African partner countries voted against Moscow; Algeria, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan all either voted against the resolution, abstained, or decided not to vote.  Closer relations, of course, do not necessarily guarantee unconditional support. In other words, there are limits to the loyalty Russia can buy. The results, however, had been largely similar in an earlier vote, held on December 9, 2019, on a resolution that condemned Russia for the militarization of Crimea, and generally for violating Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Meager Economic Ties

Moscow has long been trying to bolster its foreign policy by economic means. However, Russia’s economic capabilities are much smaller than those of the Soviet Union. Despite its diplomatic efforts, Moscow at present remains a comparatively small player in the continent´s economy, although its trade with African countries is undoubtedly increasing. While in 2009 its total trade turnover with African states was $5.7 billion, by 2018 it had reached $20 billion. However, even this spectacular increase is dwarfed by China´s approximately $200 billion annual trade with African countries, or by the EU´s $300 billion. The main comparative leverage that Russia has, particularly over Western investors, is that Moscow can be a lot more flexible by posing no political conditionality. Furthermore, trading with Russia does not pose the danger of a debt trap , which might make it a more attractive partner than China.

The situation is similar in terms of aid, assistance, and investments. While the EU, Japan, China, and the United States all have aid, investment and assistance programs worth of tens of billions of dollars, Moscow has no resources for providing investments or any economic assistance on a comparable scale. Although during the Russia-Africa Summit President Putin spectacularly announced that Russia was going to write off ex-Soviet debts of African states in the accumulated value of $20 billion, this seemingly generous move was less a real investment and more a recognition of the fact that these debts were anyway impossible to collect.

Despite Russia´s comparably small share in the continent´s economy, certain Russian companies have been remarkably successful in establishing strong regional positions, often with the Kremlin´s active support. During the Russia-Africa summit the state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom signed a contract with Ethiopia to build a nuclear power plant there, and another one with Rwanda to build a nuclear science and technology center. Meanwhile, the Rosgeo State Geological Company signed cooperation agreements with South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda, while the diamond mining company Alrosa has already been active in Angola and Zimbabwe. The Russian state oil company Rosneft has been working in Nigeria on developing more than 20 different oil production facilities, and there are a number of other Russian entities (including the state-owned VEB bank) looking for expansion opportunities.

The Biggest Export Goods: Arms

Certain African countries also represent an important market for Russia’s arms exports. It is well known that arms sales are an important source of income for the Russian economy. In addition, they also serve as a foreign and economic policy tool, due to the fact that by supplying a country with weapons Moscow can establish long-term dependences and keep existing Russia-friendly regimes in power.

Those African countries that were Soviet allies in the Cold War have armed forces that relied heavily on Soviet-made weapons, and Russia is building on those ties. Furthermore, in some cases arms sales also constitute a form of debt relief: in exchange for writing off debts that would anyway probably be difficult to collect, Russia often agrees that the given country can instead sign arms procurements contracts.

Algeria is a good example in this respect. Back in 2006 Russia wrote off Algeria’s entire $4,7 billion state debt and in exchange signed contracts for arms exports as well as for positions in the country’s agriculture and energy sectors. More recently, in 2017 Moscow agreed to supply Algiers with Iskander-E long-range tactical missiles.

After the Sochi summit Russia confirmed that it is currently supplying 20 African countries with weapons, including Uganda, Rwanda, Angola, and Mozambique. The overall value of arms exports was put at $4 billion—approximately one-fifth of Russia´s total trade turnover with Africa.

Big Buyer Algeria

Based on data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2009 and 2019 Algeria has been the largest purchaser of Russian weapons on the continent by some margin. In this period Russia supplied 75 percent of all the country’s arms imports. Algiers has been buying practically the fully spectrum of what Russia’s defense industry has to offer, ranging from diesel-electric submarines to tanks, from helicopters to air defense systems.

Uganda is another significant buyer, procuring a wide variety of Russia-made weapons, ranging from old T-55 tanks to modern T-90 tanks, as well as missiles for the also Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30 fighter-bombers. Egypt has also been a major buyer of Russia-made weapons, although Cairo concentrates mostly on air defense systems, including radars, missiles and other equipment.

Earlier, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi had been the largest buyer of Russian-made weapons. When Gaddafi fell in 2011, Russia lost already signed contracts worth approximately $4 billion, together with the potential for future deals. This particular case also illustrates that Russia’s well-known aversion vis-à-vis externally imposed regime changes is not only because the Kremlin is worried about a potential similar regime change at home, but also because it may lead to significant economic losses.

Across the continent, the most popular military equipment sold by Russia are helicopters, whether they be Mi-8/17 military transport helicopters or Mi-24/35 attack helicopters. Moscow apparently sells military helicopters to whoever can pay, including Zambia, Chad, Angola, and a dozen other countries. The latest helicopter delivery contract was the one signed with Nigeria at the Russia-Africa Summit for 12 Mi-35 attack helicopters.

In addition, Russia is also successfully selling African countries even older, long outdated weaponry, left over from the Cold War era. Low-tech conflicts on the continent are absorbing even those largely obsolete weapons, ranging from small arms to mortars, from armored cars to outdated tanks. Sudan constitutes one of the main “depos” for aged, ex-Soviet Russian weapons and spare parts. Engines supplied by Russia help the Sudanese government keep their old T-55 tanks and BTR-80 armored personnel carriers still operational.

Proxy Boots on the Ground

While Russia has no military base on the African continent, Russian private military companies and mercenary groups are actively present in many armed conflicts there. The infamous Wagner Group, a private military company with close ties to Russia´s military intelligence (the GU), has already seen action in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Mozambique, and Libya. In fact, despite their de jure private status, the group functions more like a proxy, irregular Russian force than a real private entity.

In the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Mozambique, operatives of the Wagner Group provide security assistance, military training as well as reportedly combat operational support to the central governments. In exchange, the Russian oligarch who owns the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, usually gets mining or oil production concessions, as well as other economic benefits.

From Russia´s point of view using private military companies such as the Wagner Group (or any other of the more than a dozen PMCs Russia already has) offers several benefits. First, unlike deploying the regular military, only a very low level of domestic accountability is involved, as Wagner operatives do not count as military personnel, only as employees of a private company. The same applies to international responsibility: the nominally private status of Wagner enables Russia to consistently deny its official involvement, even though Wagner is so closely connected to the GU that they even share a training facility in Russia, and Wagner´s commander, Dmitry Utkin, was a career military intelligence officer.

At present the group’s biggest operation is probably in Libya. Estimates vary, but it seems that at present there are at least 1,500 Wagner operatives deployed there, who conduct not only their usual support tasks, but also high-intensity operations, i.e. fighting. In addition, according to US sources, there are also Russian regular troops deployed in Libya, though there is only very limited public information available on this. What makes Russia´s presence particularly interesting is that in Libya Moscow is not supporting the legitimate, UN-recognized government residing in Tripoli, but the forces of warlord General Khalifa Haftar, who is opposed to the central government.  Russia’s likely motivations for involvement in Libya include the opportunity to have another military base on the Mediterranean (it would be the third one after the harbor and military airport in Syria), to get concessions in oil production, and also to gain a leverage over the migration flow coming from Sub-Saharan Africa towards Europe. These factors make Libya an operational theatre of very high interest for Moscow.

Having boots on the ground in Africa is not without risks for Russia. The Wagner Group recently suffered significant losses in Libya, losing more than 30 of their operatives in September 2019 alone, and another five in Mozambique, who fell victim to an ambush by rebel forces. However, so far these losses remain tolerable for Russia, mostly due to the deniability Moscow employs both at home and abroad. So far, the profit achieved through Wagner´s involvement conveniently outweighs the losses; hence, there is no reason to believe that Russia would downscale the operations of its proxy forces in Africa in the foreseeable future.

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© REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

Deterrence, transparency, risk reduction. They have all become buzzwords, especially as Russia’s relations with the West hit an all-time low. Numerous experts have become concerned about a new arms race and its implications for transatlantic security. Alexander Graef, in his recent Berlin Policy Journal article “Getting Deterrence Right on NATO’s Eastern Flank”, sets up a discussion about the right balance between deterrence and transparency. He refers to all three buzzwords, suggesting that “without confidence and trust-building measures, rhetoric about deterrence—and deploying additional forces—risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that might bring about what it is supposed to prevent: real military conflict, where all sides would lose.”

This piece will not concentrate on the importance of deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank nor seek to rebut the suggestion that an increased US presence in Poland might start a vicious circle of increasing insecurity and new deployments. Rather, this article will try to frame the discussion about the role of transparency and risk reduction.

It is true that the current relationship between Russia and NATO (or more broadly the West) is marked by a mounting lack of trust as well as growing risks. Therefore, transparency is often perceived as a silver bullet solution. Yet transparency is not isolated or unconnected from strategy. Since 2014, Russia has decided to instrumentalize risk, treating it as a security policy concept. Russia’s continues to pick and choose which arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament treaties and agreements it complies with. In fact, Russia’s policy of selective violation and non-compliance, as well as its practice of exploiting loopholes in the existing frameworks, significantly increases uncertainty and unpredictability.

The Benefits of Openness

In such circumstances, why does transparency still matter for NATO and the West? For one, when properly implemented, it promotes predictability between competitors, increases the chances to reduce risk, and helps to (re)build mutual trust. Yet transparency should not undermine security, nor hinder NATO from having a credible deterrence and defense posture.

There are three main goals that transparency should contribute to. First, security, which is indivisible. The ultimate task is to eliminate any security grey zones or regions of unequal security. Second, stability, which should be based on reciprocity. Indeed, only balanced final results will maximize incentives for parties to stay in compliance with any arms control, disarmament, or non-proliferation obligations. Thirdly, verification, which in practical terms means the ability to assess compliance. Transparency should increase the possibilities for deterring possible violations.

From an eastern flank perspective, there are three main platforms which should be used to achieve greater, yet measured and reciprocal, transparency: NATO-Russia contacts, the OSCE framework, and finally, bilateral/regional dialogue.

NATO-Russia Founding Act

In his piece, Alexander Graef suggests that “the alliance could publicly announce that it is willing to uphold the threshold of “substantial combat forces” on the Eastern flank implied by the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act and propose to clarify the exact meaning of this term in negotiations with Moscow.” In fact, such a solution is a non-starter for Allies on NATO’s eastern flank. Not only would it belittle Russia’s political and military violations of the Act, but it would also undermine the concept of equal security among all allies, which is one of the goals transparency should contribute to. Therefore, a return to a discussion about the NATO-Russia Founding Act is counterproductive as this document should be perceived as a Russian “political A2/AD tool” inside NATO.

Instead, one should concentrate on achievable steps. Both the NATO-Russia Council as well as direct military contacts between SACEUR and the Russian Chief of Defense offer valuable instruments to increase predictability and potentially reduce risks. Currently, risk reduction is one of the integral elements of the NATO-Russia Council meetings, which entail reciprocal briefings on NATO and Russian military exercises. At the same time, the meetings and phone calls between SACEUR and the Russian Chief of Defense allow both sides to maintain strategic military-to-military contacts, thus serve increasing predictability. However, from NATO’s perspective a qualitative change in the transparency and risk reduction pillar can only happen when Russia starts to address the most destabilizing elements in its military posture, such as inherently destabilizing snap exercises. Informing NATO about the start of a snap exercise (so-called ‘day one transparency’), for example via the SACEUR-Russian Chief of Defense line of communications, would considerably contribute to practical risk reduction.

Revitalize the OSCE

Alexander Graef suggests that “Russia could agree to give military observers access to newly deployed and modernized units or provide notification and invite NATO officers to military exercises unregulated by the OSCE’s Vienna Document”. At a first glance, such a solution might seem tempting. Yet, voluntary measures should not distract us from the fact that Russia does not deliver on the obligatory requirements of the Vienna Document, such as inviting observers to exercises with 13,000 troops or more. In fact, since 1990 Russia has never officially organized a military exercise involving more than 13,000 troops in the Vienna Document zone of application. Official or not, this makes no sense—such exercises happen on a regular basis, including near NATO borders.

Therefore, the goal should be to enhance the OSCE framework, which was primarily designed to increase transparency and help reduce military risk, but also to allow participating states to (re)build confidence among them. However, in the last few years the OSCE platform—despite ongoing constructive attempts by the West—has failed to properly tackle the issue of transparency and risk reduction.

First, chapter III of the Vienna Document (“Risk Reduction”) has never been properly tested. In a real life situation, on the eve of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in March 2014, its value proved limited.

Second, Russia, despite some initial interest, did not agree to modernize the Vienna Document. The Polish proposal to amend paragraph 17 of the Vienna Document (‘Co-operation as regards hazardous incidents of a military nature’), currently co-sponsored by more than half of the OSCE participating states, has so far not attracted Russian politico-military attention.

Third, the Structured Dialogue—launched in 2016 to work on the current and future challenges and risks to security in the OSCE area—has produced limited results. This informal platform was designed to tackle the issues of concern that for political reasons could not be effectively addressed in the formal fora (e.g. snap exercises, hybrid warfare). Yet to this point Russia’s engagement in the Structured Dialogue process has been far from constructive.

Finally, the OSCE discussions on military doctrines—a crucial element of reciprocal confidence building and a perfect platform for strategic and technical military to military contacts—has not brought much added value in recent years. In short, the OSCE framework still has untapped potential to make a lasting contribution to transparency and risk reduction.

What is achievable? In a short-term, one could ensure that technical elements for risk reduction are in place. The OSCE Secretariat (Conflict Prevention Center) could organize an exercise during which national points of contact for military incidents would be tested. However, the precondition for any substantial change, including the modernization of the Vienna Document, is a Russia willing to engage constructively.

Bilateral/Regional Dialogue

Graef also advocates agreeing additional bilateral measures between Russia and the West (“bilateral agreements on Vienna Document-like evaluation visits”). In the Baltic Sea region, additional bilateral confidence and security building measures (CSBMs) were agreed upon between Russia and the Baltic States in the late 1990s and at the beginning of the past decade, among them CFE-like information exchanges. The latter were terminated by Russia after it suspended its participation in the CFE Treaty. In addition, in 2001 Russia and Lithuania had agreed to allow for one reciprocal evaluation visit beyond the regular Vienna Document quota to be carried out in the territories of the Kaliningrad Oblast and Lithuania. This provision was cancelled by Russia in April 2014. Currently, only Finland has bilateral agreements with Russia (signed in 2000 and 2002) allowing for one additional evaluation visit per year as well as biannual exchange of naval visits to Finnish bases at Upinniemi or Pansio and Russian bases at Kaliningrad or Kronstadt.

In the current security environment, entering into new bilateral agreements with Russia will be politically and militarily difficult for most of the countries in the Baltic Sea region, but also for e.g. Black Sea littoral states. Nevertheless, both sides should at least start looking into this option as a mid-term to long-term goal. Such an approach should encompass the necessary internal national preparations, including setting the expected objectives as well as conducting the intra-agency brainstorming.

Finally, one should not forget that regional dialogue can also prove to be useful in rebuilding trust. In the recent years in the Baltic Sea region, two working groups, which included among others Russia and NATO, contributed to increasing air safety for both civilian and military aircraft. The work of the ICAO-facilitated Baltic Sea Project Team (2015) as well as Finnish-led Expert Group on Baltic Sea Air Safety (2017) led to a reduction of air incidents in the region. The engagement of the Russian side in the works of both groups confirmed that there is interest on technical and military level to establish additional principles to enhance air safety. The full implementation by Russia of the rules and procedures for air safety and engagement in safe and responsible airmanship will help to potentially replicate the Baltic Sea experience in other regions (e.g. Black Sea, North Sea).

More Than Just Transparency

Transparency and risk reduction are certainly important elements in the deteriorating relationship between NATO and Russia. The West should continue to pursue achievable steps, such as OSCE or NATO dialogue and bilateral agreements where possible. But until Russia stops conducting a policy of intentional escalations and provocations to enforce its interests and exercise influence, transparency will never reduce tensions as much as some strategists believe.

The views and opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the institution he represents.

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© REUTERS/Leah Mills

On June 12, the Polish government finally secured its long-sought after joint declaration with Washington on enhancing the US military presence in Poland. As part of the intensive lobbying process leading up to the declaration, Polish President Andrzej Duda had even jokingly offered to name the prospective installation “Fort Trump”. Predictably, the name stuck. But what will this new deployment actually amount to—and how will it affect deterrence, NATO’s Eastern Flank and wider relations with Russia?

Warsaw had initially aimed for the permanent deployment of a US armored division (about 15,000 troops)—and even promised a significant financial contribution (up to $2 billion) to secure it. Over the course of negotiations, however, it became clear that Washington was not ready to meet these expectations. The final declaration instead foresees the deployment of 1,000 additional US troops, the establishment of several combat training centers, and the upgrade of the existing Mission Command Element in Poznan to a US Division Headquarters. In addition, the US will establish special operations capabilities and build-up a squadron of armed MQ-9 Reaper drones.

The Polish government has, obviously, been keen to play up the significance of this deployment, in part because the display of US support and Poland’s status as an indispensable ally helps to mitigate the criticism within the EU of its domestic policies. During the lobbying process, President Andrzej Duda claimed that the US presence would “guarantee (…) security and defense of our part of Europe that is the free world”. Most Western observers have also welcomed the decision to deploy, as it will supposedly strengthen deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank, where the alliance has been steadily increasing its military presence and readiness since Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The 2014 Wales Summit created the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), comprised of up to 5,000 troops ready for deployment within 48 to 72 hours, and increased the size of the NATO response force from 25,000 to 40,000 personnel. 2014 also saw the US launch what is now known as the European Deterrence Initiative, which established a rotational Armored Brigade Combat Team of approximately 3,500 troops in Western Poland, plus 80-90 tanks and hundreds of other vehicles. It is complemented by a combat aviation brigade, mostly based in Germany.

Over the last five years, the budget of the initiative has increased six-fold. Since 2017, the largest part  has been reserved for the pre-positioning of additional equipment that would facilitate the deployment of division-sized forces into the regional theater in case of military conflict. NATO has also increased the number of its military exercises in the region and, at the Warsaw Summit in 2016, established an enhanced forward presence (eFP) of around 4,000 (multinational) troops in the Baltic states and Poland.

A Tripwire for Russia

Nevertheless, despite these measures, Russia continues to enjoy overwhelming military dominance in the Baltics—as it has for decades—and the current level of NATO reinforcements will not change that. Hence, within NATO there is a growing consensus that the alliance cannot practice “deterrence by denial,” which would require deploying sufficient local military forces to defeat a possible invasion, without being caught in a security dilemma. The issue is that any force sufficiently large to achieve denial would present an intolerable threat to Russia and be misinterpreted as an offensive posture. The obvious gap between the initial expectations of the Polish government and the final US commitment suggests that some people in the Pentagon are aware of such risks. 

Tripwire deterrence works on a different principle and does not require regional military superiority: This is deterrence by punishment. The tripwire would not stop a Russian offensive; rather, it ensures that if Moscow ever decided to invade the Baltic states, it would need to engage the forces of different NATO member states directly. Although these forces would be easily defeated, the casualties they incurred would trigger a reaction by the entire alliance, which has global superiority in conventional forces. The tripwire is thus seen to deter. The prospect of the unacceptable damage that would stem from an alliance-wide response, driven by the states that bore the brunt of the casualties, should discourage Moscow from pursuing any such aggression.

The drawback of both deterrence strategies is that they are only appropriate if an adversary indeed plans to attack. After all, the value of successful deterrence is that it prevents military action by changing the state of mind of a potential aggressor. Capabilities alone, though, do not deter. Their deployment needs to be adjusted to the interests and motives of the target state, and they must be accompanied by clear and unambiguous communication efforts. Hence, if an adversary’s political intent is misinterpreted, signals meant for deterrence can instead provoke a vicious circle of increasing insecurity and new deployments. Indeed, in the last five years both NATO and Russia have adopted increasingly robust mutual deterrence postures, which are inherently unstable because offensive and defense postures are increasingly difficult to distinguish from each other.   

A Lack of Trust

Despite all the rhetoric of deterrence (of whichever kind), harder questions are rarely asked: Why would Russia attack the Baltic states with conventional forces or try to test NATO’s credibility on the Eastern flank? Is the stationing of more troops on the ground as a tripwire an adequate response to hazardous incidents between warships and jets on and over the Baltic sea? And what about Russia’s own motivation for military reinforcements? Why does Moscow permanently deploy short-range Iskander-M ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad and strengthen its anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) capabilities to limit NATO’s ability to freely operate within the region? Common wisdom has it that the intentions for this kind of behavior are ultimately unknowable and that one should thus prepare for any possible contingency.

However, just because an opponent’s intentions are difficult to comprehend does not mean that one cannot come to informed and reasonable judgements about them. In truth, Russia’s force posture seems to be driven by an almost neurotic sense of insecurity, stemming from both existing and upcoming NATO ballistic missile defense infrastructure and the vulnerable status of Kaliningrad. In addition, due to its overall conventional inferiority, Russia seems to practice ambiguity and even nuclear signaling on purpose as a deterrence strategy. 

The real problem is that Russia’s actions in Ukraine, in combination with military snap exercises and its malign efforts in cyber and information domains, have significantly—and understandably—increased the level of distrust in its relations with NATO. Hence, what might have been perceived as non-threatening before is now looked upon with suspicion within NATO. Under these circumstances, deterrence rhetoric has presented itself as an easy political fallback option, aggravated by the Cold War tradition. In this sense, references to deterrence stabilize the identity of states—whether as friends or foes. Indeed, NATO’s moves to bolster its Eastern flank are mainly aimed at reassurance of intra-alliance solidarity and resolve. The Fort Trump debate is a case in point: Arguably, it does more to strengthen US-Polish bilateral relations than to enhance NATO deterrence towards Russia.     

So what can be done to proceed more constructively and reduce the risk of misunderstanding, or even conflict? The best option would clearly be to engage in political dialogue between the parties to address the substantive fears on either side and foster a more constructive relationship. Yet given the overall lack of trust and political disagreements between NATO and Russia, this is highly unlikely.

More Transparency Required

In the absence of such a political move, however, there are still a number of practical steps that both NATO and Russia could take in order to defuse a potentially escalating situation. Greater military-to-military dialogue and cooperation can play an important role in the absence of major political initiatives.  

For example, Russia could agree to give military observers access to newly deployed and modernized units, or provide notification and invite NATO officers to military exercises unregulated by the OSCE’s Vienna Document. Currently, military activities with 9,000 or more troops require notification in advance, whereas exercises with 13,000 or more troops are subject to obligatory observations. Russia often evades these measures by splitting up larger exercises into smaller units with several operational commands and conducting the aforementioned snap exercises, which do not require notification.     

Moscow could also reiterate the commitment it made in 1999 to show due restraint with regard to conventional deployments in the Kaliningrad and Pskov oblasts, both of which directly border NATO territory. Since Russia suspended the implementation of the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE) in December 2007 (and withdrew from it altogether in March 2015), no treaty-related on-site inspections have taken place on its territory. Given that the three Baltic states are not members of the CFE, bilateral agreements on Vienna Document-like evaluation visits—such as the one between Russia and Lithuania that was in place until the annexation of Crimea—could be revised or even expanded. 

In turn, the alliance could publicly announce that it is willing to uphold the threshold of “substantial combat forces” on the Eastern flank implied by the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act and propose to clarify the exact meaning of this term in negotiations with Moscow. At the moment, NATO deployments remain below the threshold, usually understood as troop levels exceeding more than three permanent brigades, but more and more voices are calling for the termination of the Founding Act.

A better alternative is to revive existing arms control instruments to their full extent, which would help to reduce the perceived dangers of surprise attacks and uncertainty about intentions. Without such confidence and trust-building measures, rhetoric about deterrence—and deploying additional forces—risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that might bring about what it is supposed to prevent: real military conflict, where all sides would lose.

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© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Vladimir Putin’s Russia–or Putin himself–has often been described as hard to read, enigmatic, or even misunderstood in the West. Do you agree? Well, I’m asking the question: how was Putin’s Russia with a per capita GDP less than that of Italy, with a declining population, a crumbly infrastructure, a heavy reliance on oil and gas exports able to reposition itself as a global player? And my conclusion is that Putin definitely had a plan given his background and given his view on the collapse of the Soviet Union. He certainly believes that Russia is a great power and wants to restore it as such. But I also think he has been very adept at taking advantage of opportunities that were offered to him by a West that didn’t have a plan. He’s been in power for 19 years now and he has seen lots of Western leaders come and go, and what he was doing is having Russia in many ways act as a disruptor, go into areas where the United States or Europe is trying to accomplish something. So, I don’t think he is misunderstood but I think we aren’t very good at anticipating what his next move is.

The Russian side always insists that there’s nothing untoward in what Putin is doing and pleads ignorance as to why the West is so antagonistic. I think that’s disingenuous. I mean why would they think the West wasn’t upset about the fact that they annexed Crimea and started a war in south eastern Ukraine. Did they really think that the West wouldn’t respond negatively to that?

Is the annexation of Crimea in 2014 an example where long-term planning and short-term action came together? I think it’s not that they didn’t have plans to do such a thing, but it was clearly triggered when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled. This was the moment for them to strike. It’s probably true that the worst fear that they might have had is that Ukraine would terminate an agreement to have a Russian naval base on Crimea and that possibly you would have seen NATO ships in Sevastopol—highly unlikely, but I think that they thought that that was the moment to strike.

Once the Kremlin started the war in south eastern Ukraine, there were fears that the ambitions were even greater—a “Novorossiya” was being built all the way to Crimea to have a land connection. They tried the Novorossiya and it didn’t work. I think maybe they misunderstood the reaction in Ukraine to what they were doing and even though obviously you have support for separatism in those regions it doesn’t extend much beyond that. And I think you could make the argument that the Western reaction, the sanctions, acted also as a deterrent. Now you see what the Russians have done in the Sea of Azov, so they’re trying to deny the Ukrainians access to that body of water from which a lot of Ukrainian exports leave. We don’t know what they are going to do in the Black Sea, but it looks like they are encroaching on some of this area and then ever so often people think that they will still move on Mariupol or maybe Odessa. But the situation is more or less frozen because nothing is getting resolved.

Russia went as far as inferring in the US presidential election. Did they overreach? I think that what they probably didn’t anticipate was the American reaction to the knowledge of their interference. As a consequence of all these inquiries Russia has become such a toxic issue domestically that has made it really difficult for Donald Trump to do what he said he wanted to do which is to make a deal with Russia, have good relations with Russia, etc. He can’t do that and I think the publication of the Mueller report doesn’t change that because in the first volume it documents in great detail how the Russians went about it in the social media sphere, in the cyber sphere, interfering in the election. And so, going into the next US election, this is still going to be a major domestic topic, particularly for the Democrats. So, I think they didn’t anticipate that. But what they did was certainly help exaggerate the polarization that existed in the United States, and I think that was one of their goals. They didn’t really think at that point that Trump was going to get elected; they were as surprised as everyone else.

How successful would you say Putin’s foreign policy is overall? It’s certainly a mixed picture. One of the successes is, at least in the medium term, the relationship with China. It enabled Russia to continue doing what it does. The West obviously can’t isolate Russia—the Chinese signed a big gas deal with the Russians shortly after Crimea, and they backed the Russians up at least formally and publicly on everything. In the longer run, though—China is a rising power, and Russia isn’t. But at the moment you can say that Putin is still looking for other options both politically and economically. The other success is Russia’s return to the Middle East. Unlike in the Soviet times, nowadays it’s much more pragmatic. Russia is the only great power that talks to Iran, all of the Sunni states, and to Israel. The latter, along with Saudi Arabia, (both US allies!) hope that Moscow can use its influence to temper what the Iranians are doing in the region. I’m not sure that Russia can but it is seen as a neutral operator there. And obviously in Syria, it helped Bashar al-Assad to survive.

There also seems to be some ambition to return to Africa. Yes, and both economically and militarily. Russia is also playing a role in Venezuela, making it more difficult for Juan Guaidó to become the president. So, in all of those ways it has reappeared as a disruptor largely. But in Ukraine, for instance, this has been counterproductive. Yes, Russia is making it much more difficult for the Ukrainian government to function, but it helped really unite Ukrainians in a way that wasn’t possible before. This applies also to many other parts of the post-Soviet space. Even if you look at Belarus, the relationship with Minsk isn’t going as well as it was; and the Central Asian countries: yes, they all have strong ties, but they are wary, obviously, of what Russia might do, given what happened in Ukraine. Obviously, its relationship with the West significantly deteriorated, including with its main European partner, Germany.

What kind of future relationship do you foresee? As long as Merkel is in power, no big changes are to be expected. More and more people realize the attempts Russia made to divide the West, and they brought a NATO critic into the White House, which is quite unusual. EU sanctions are still in place largely because of Merkel’s leadership. A number of European countries—Italy, Hungary, some other Central European countries—have argued against the sanctions and would like to get rid of them. So, what you see is a more divided Europe, and I do think there’s a Trump effect, too. The extent to which the US relationship with Europe has deteriorated under Trump has also prompted some rethinking in Europe. If you find yourself between Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia, it’s difficult because the US is no longer seen as a country that is the most reliable partner, as it used to be. In other words, Russia was successful in destabilizing Europe; also, all the euroskeptic parties and groups tend to be pretty pro-Russia.

How successful can disruption be as a long-term foreign policy strategy, though? Do you foresee a future relationship between Russia and the West that is less antagonistic? I think that there’d have to be a different leadership. I don’t see that happening under Putin. He has become convinced that the US wants regime change in Russia, convinced that Europe would like to impose a value system. I think Putin hoped that the US and its allies would recognize the sphere of influence Russia should have, according to Putin, in the post-Soviet space, and that has not happened. So, the preconditions for having a closer relationship with the West would either be that the West changes its policies or that you have a different leader in the Kremlin. And even then it might take some time. I think the best-case scenario would be to have a generation coming to power after Putin that are more technocratic, that understand that Russia has to modernize its economy and its institutions, and that those kind of reforms would be much easier if there were not such antagonistic relations with the West. If you had more people like that coming to power, maybe that could change the way Russia interacts with the West.

 Angela Stent is one of the world leading experts on Russia, Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and director of its Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies. Her new book Putin’s World is now available in German as Putins Russland (Rowohlt).

The interview was conducted by Henning Hoff. Assistance: Melina Lorenz.

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© REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

In late July, President Vladimir Putin signed law 276-FZ , which amended the federal law “on information, information technologies, and information protection.” With a stoke of his pen, he tightened the net of censorship in Russia even further. The law bans anonymous messaging applications and the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), both of which are used to communicate and browse the internet free from government snooping. While wildly popular with young Russians, one such encrypted messenger was reportedly used by the perpetrators of April’s terrorist attack in St. Petersburg – and the Telegram app’s founder, Pavel Durov, has been locked in a power struggle with authorities, having refused to provide them with backdoor access to the app’s databases.

There are therefore legitimate concerns over the role such technology plays in terrorist attacks. On the other hand, the timing and nature of Law 276 indicates a purpose beyond making life difficult for potential terrorists. In recent months, independent media outlets have also come under increased pressure: at the popular Vedomosti daily, a new editor-in-chief has been brought in from state-run TV, while the Moscow Times has also experienced editorial reshuffles. Such crackdowns had been relatively infrequent in the months prior, making these two all the more unusual.

It would be naive to assume that these events are not linked. The government is facing a level of domestic unrest not seen since the 2011 protests at Bolotnaya Square. Populist firebrand Alexei Navalny is mounting a ferocious political campaign on an anti-corruption platform, organizing several marches throughout the country, and anti-regime bloggers have become so prominent that they are being doused with fluorescent antiseptic by pro-regime activists as a method of public intimidation.

In light of this, two explanations exist for the introduction of this law. The most obvious is that the Kremlin has realized the need to re-assert its grip on the information sphere. From this perspective, Law 276 should be interpreted simply as updating the Kremlin’s legal toolkit. Packing editorial boards with cronies helps to control the narrative in print media, but there are few such boards in the deep web; the tech sector has inserted itself into the media and communication sphere, rendering almost useless the state’s previous playbook for controlling public narratives. Just as the SORM initiative was introduced as the internet exploded in popularity in the 1990s, Law 276 represents a riposte to the advance of technology in the late 2010s.

Russia is far from alone in fighting against encrypted messaging – the pitched battle between WhatsApp and US law enforcement is evidence of this. Yet intelligence services are – or should be – loath to conduct their business in the open. If the FSB or CIA can access these ostensibly secure services, the public would surely not be informed; in any case, introducing new legal tools will not help the state to crack encryption.

A Political Signal

When viewed in the context of the boardroom-level struggles of recent months, it becomes clear that the Kremlin is not seeking to improve its snooping capability. Rather, the explanation lies in its desire to send a political signal. If existing ways of browsing anonymously are banned, it will surely not be long before new tools are invented. A truly determined terrorist will simply turn off his or her phone to avoid being tracked. On the other hand, a curious young Russian may not want to break the law simply to understand why Putin has a $1 million watch. The Russian public will appreciate seeing the state taking apparently concrete steps to combat terrorism. Meanwhile, protest movements – often organized through Telegram and similar apps – will now become harder to convene, with their leaders facing prosecution even before taking to a stage.

This tells us two things. First, the state is getting increasingly worried about Navalny and his ilk. Anonymous messaging and browsing existed long before the horrific attack on St. Petersburg’s underground, and limiting them will be ineffectual in preventing further violence. This law, then, is a reaction to the increasingly vocal political unrest. Introducing new legislation is a relatively cost-effective way of discouraging Russians from engaging in investigative journalism at home. Such a tactic is also politically savvy, signaling to domestic audiences that the government is tough on crime and terrorism.

Second, the Kremlin has made it clear that it is not giving up on the fight against encryption just yet. Even as it appears increasingly difficult to entirely ring-fence political opposition and limit their influence on mainstream Russian narratives, the pitched battle continues between a privacy-obsessed tech sector and a state which abhors being in the dark about its citizens’ browsing habits. For those who want anonymity online – terrorists and dissidents alike – Putin has a message for you: you’re being watched.

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© REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

At the height of the conflict in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, as tensions with Europe bubbled dangerously close to the surface, a major energy crisis emerged: Ukraine and other parts of Europe are very much dependent upon Russia for oil and gas, and there were serious concerns over disruptions to that energy supply.

Moscow’s gas and oil exporting firms jockeyed for the spotlight in an expanding political drama. But the state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, took the opportunity to reassure the world market it steers clear of politics.

“Nuclear should be out of all political discussions, all temporary disagreements, because it is a very sensitive area and first and foremost it is all about safety,” Kirill Komarov, the deputy director general, told Reuters news agency.

The company has long touted its reputation as a neutral player. Executives point to Rosatom’s global customer base and expanding network of “memoranda of understanding” – primarily symbolic agreements the state can use to preserve its place within an emerging energy market and reinforce the perception of Russia as a global power.

Yet these professions of non-partisanship have begun to ring hollow. Western policymakers and experts continue to underappreciate and underestimate the role of nuclear energy in the Russian foreign policy toolkit. Rosatom is increasingly asserting its economic clout in pursuit of the Kremlin’s geopolitical interests – both in hard and soft power.

Calculated Responses

In late 2007, Russia and Iran were locked in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. By shipping fuel to Iran’s Bushehr power plant, Moscow sought to halt enrichment of uranium and bolster its image as a responsible international player ready to shoulder its share of the global governance burden. The Kremlin would benefit by succeeding where the United States had failed.

Yet diplomatic efforts broke down and Tehran refused to provide assurances that enrichment would be halted, so Rosatom suspended its deliveries. The official explanation – widely dismissed by Russia watchers – was that Iranian authorities had failed to pay. In reality, such indiscretions were relatively common, making the timing of Moscow’s drastic move somewhat suspicious.

Almost a decade later, the same situation arose in Ukraine – twice. Following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, the Kremlin  announced an embargo on the transit of fuel through Ukraine, citing the “unstable situation” as an unacceptable level of risk. With its reactors running dry, the Ukrainian government was faced with disaster on a colossal scale. Rosatom’s chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, ostensibly refused to comply with the Kremlin’s wishes, yet two years later, Rosatom’s subsidiary responsible for the fuel cycle, TVEL, announced it would no longer import spent fuel rods from Ukraine due to non-payment. Lacking appropriate disposal methods, the fuel rods were stored in precarious makeshift shelters.

All this occurred, of course, as conflict raged in eastern Ukraine. Gazprom continued to offer relatively discounted prices to its Ukrainian customers, exercising what Adam Stulberg calls “strategic restraint” – and continuing a trend of relative leniency which made Rosatom’s assertiveness all the more puzzling.

Turkey has also found itself as the object of Rosatom’s displeasure, having downed a Russian SU-24M jet in disputed circumstances. Russia imposed an array of economic sanctions in retaliation, and Rosatom halted work on Akkuyu, Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. Akkuyu was not officially part of the sanctions package, but progress returned to normal after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a formal apology for the incident.

Soft and Hard Power

Coercion aside, nuclear energy has also been an effective tool of Russian soft power. The corporation builds, owns, operates, and occasionally transports a power plant to clients, reducing initial costs significantly and giving it a uniquely broad potential market. In this sense, Rosatom is a highly efficacious vehicle for Russian global influence, making excellent use of Russia’s comparative advantage over the West in the nuclear sector.

The “memorandum of understanding” is the central tool in this soft-power push. Such documents are signed between Rosatom and governments, competitors, and state agencies alike. Despite lacking legal force, a memorandum provides a public roadmap for areas of future cooperation: education and training programs on nuclear energy are announced and joint working groups are founded. If memoranda agreements fail to yield results, Rosatom has nonetheless helped construct an image of Russia as a global power. Such agreements play well to the domestic audience, too.

There is another, more practical, reason for these documents. Nuclear technology is generally not cross-compatible: Russian models cannot use American or French fuel without an element of risk. By training local engineers to use its reactors, Rosatom will have created a degree of path dependency. If Sudan is to invest in nuclear energy in the future, for example, its previous experience with Russian technology will likely influence its choice of partner company. Unlike natural gas or oil, nuclear energy provides a guaranteed source of influence that cannot be blocked off like a pipeline. The construction of a nuclear power plant creates a deeply asymmetrical relationship. The Memorandum of Understanding can also be a cost-efficient way of securing future deals.

The Paradox of Rosatom

The Kremlin has shown it does not respond well to perceived disrespect. By announcing that nuclear enrichment would not stop, Tehran undermined the work and status of Russian diplomats, for example. In Moscow’s view, the overthrow of President Yanukovych in Ukraine represented an unacceptable incursion by Western forces into the Russian sphere of influence.

And yet, Russia’s foreign policy establishment prides itself on its pragmatism. A realist world view dictates that perceptions of respect should not hold sway in the decision-making processes. Therein lies the paradox of Rosatom: the corporation is co-opted for geopolitical gain when Russia’s great power status is disrespected. This nebulous concept is difficult to reconcile with the realpolitik that often drives Russian policy.

The combination of pragmatism and idealism is a well-trodden path for Russian actors in international affairs. Just like Gazprom, Rosatom has shown an ability both to cooperate and coerce. By combining tangible goals with the soft-power offensive led by the memoranda of understanding, the corporation has demonstrated three of the most pertinent concepts to have characterized Russia’s international engagement in the last decade: pragmatism, speed of response, and zero-sum thinking.

The weaponization of Rosatom also allowed the Kremlin to avoid other, riskier methods of retaliation: another gas crisis in Ukraine would have angered Russia’s downstream energy customers, while open military conflict with Turkish forces would have trod dangerously close towards NATO’s Article V commitments. At the same time, Rosatom itself appears to be deployed in a restrained manner. The Akkuyu nuclear plant was not cancelled, but suspended; the corporation’s chief refused to suspend deliveries of fuel to Ukraine. It appears Moscow is unwilling to exceed the boundaries.

One thing seems to be clear: any component of the Russian state may be co-opted for political reasons. Even a corporation which argues fervently that it does not pursue political aims may be obliged to do so. If Russia views state-controlled assets as a potential weapon, it holds a vast array of policy tools at its disposal – and Rosatom may be the tip of the iceberg.

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© Daniel Biskup

Stalin still sells. In Moscow-based independent pollster Levada Center’s latest representative survey on the ten most outstanding personalities “of all times and all nations,” published at the end of June, 38 percent of 1600 respondents in Russia included Stalin in their lists. Putin and Pushkin were each named by 34 percent, followed closely by Lenin. The first non-Russian name on the list was the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, mentioned by 9 percent of interviewees.

Although the Levada Center frequently publishes surveys on all kinds of sociological topics, the results of this particular poll gained broad media coverage – and not only in Russia, but abroad as well as it seems to provide further proof that Stalin has been rehabilitated in post-Soviet Russian society.

It is, indeed, obvious that the role of Stalin has at least been re-evaluated in Russia during the presidential terms of Vladimir Putin; look at the “Putin interviews” between the Russian president and American film director Oliver Stone which were aired in mid-June. In the course of these interviews, the Russian president admitted that Stalin was a difficult historical figure, but warned against the “excessive demonization” that he sees as one of the ways to “attack the Soviet Union and Russia.”

Characteristic Ambivalence

The underlying ambivalence of this statement has become characteristic of the politics surrounding the history of Stalin and the period of Stalinist dictatorship. For more than ten years, patriotism, heroism, and pride have been major parts of Russia’s official historical narrative, particularly in connection with the Soviet victory against fascism in World War II. The victorious narrative is an important common national denominator and a strong force of national unity. In other words, while Russian society is deeply divided in many respects, the outstanding contribution of the Red Army to the liberation of Europe from fascism is something most people in Russia can agree on. It is as part of this victorious “patriotic” narrative that Stalin’s image as political and military leader of the USSR has been increasingly positive among the population since the start of the millennium.

Stalin has also become more present in Russian public life. A number of monuments, museums, streets, and even metro stations have been dedicated to the dictator in different regions of the Russian Federation in recent years; the most recent case was a plaque at Moscow Juridical University to commemorate a speech given by Stalin in 1924.

Nevertheless, it would be far too easy to simply state that Stalin has been rehabilitated. Stalinism has left Russian society (and societies in the post-Soviet space) deeply traumatized. But while other parts of the former USSR developed academic, political, and social means of coming to terms with this particular inheritance, Russia still lacks juridical, social, and academic processes.

The legacy of Stalinism is deeply rooted in family memories and private archives, as almost every Russian family was affected by Stalinist terror in one way or the other. Due to the work of civil society organizations such as the Moscow-based International Memorial, a tremendous amount of sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) has been preserved, documented, and published. Every year on October 29, the national day to commemorate the victims of political repression, thousands of citizens cue in front of the Lubyanka, the former KGB headquarters and prison, now home of the FSB. They join MEMORIAL for the public reading of 30,000 names of Muscovites who became victims of Stalin’s “Great Purge” in 1937-38. This is just one example that shows how great the need within Russian society to commemorate the victims of Stalinism still is.

The Russian government is very much aware of this need, and tries to meet it with its own peculiar – and ambivalent – approach to Stalin. While Stalin on the one hand is celebrated as the victorious political and military leader of the country during World War II, the government also initiated and supports projects such as the GULAG Museum in Moscow and a monument to the victims of political repression set to be erected in the capital at the end of 2017. Memorial has been involved in a governmental commission to prepare the monument, even while the Russian Ministry of Justice in October 2016 included the organization in its list of so-called “foreign agents” under the new, repressive Russian NGO legislation. Ambivalence is the buzzword.

Dangers Remaining

What does all this mean for the debate about the potential “re-Stalinization” of Russia? Is it much ado about nothing? Well, not exactly, and not really; there are some dangers that remain.

First, the more the official historical narrative emphasizes the “positive” role of Stalin, the more likely it is that the memories of victimhood and suffering will be pushed back once more into the private sphere. This will deepen the gap between “official” and “private” memory, and thus the distrust in politicians. Potentially, a new era of “whisperers” – to borrow a term from British historian Orlando Figes’ major study on private life under Stalinism – could emerge.

Second, as long as the official historical narrative does not support any public discourse about either the perpetrators or supporters of Stalinism, no process of historical reconciliation can happen within Russian society. When Memorial published a list of 41,000 employees working for the KGB predecessor NKVD 1935-39 in December 2016, it produced a heated debate in politics and media, including the demand for legal consequences – to be leveled against Memorial. It shows how controversial the issue of perpetrators and bystanders still is almost 65 years after Stalin’s death and more than 25 years after the end of the Soviet Union.

Finally, the longer the ambivalent approach toward Stalin and Stalinism remains part of Russia’s politics of history, the more unlikely it is that Russian society will move on with important and necessary steps of internal modernization. It might seem easier to present Stalin as a hero and a leader of victorious battles against various “others” and “external enemies.” But in the long run, Russia will only be able to take its appropriate place in the 21^st century when it comes to terms with the dark and painful sides of its own history.

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