Nov 2, 2022
« Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.” When a fresh-faced Vladimir Putin made those comments back in 2000, Russia had only recently lost its Soviet Empire and endured a series of violent conflicts within the borders of the Federation, most notably in Chechnya. Just like the rest of Europe lost its colonies in the latter half of the 20th century, Russia was forced then to lose large chunks of its imperial Soviet possessions. But over the last two decades, Vladimir Putin nonetheless managed to maintain a strong influence network in his “near abroad,” making Russia a central actor in the politics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Yet the increasingly costly and unsuccessful “special military operation” in Ukraine considerably undermines Russia’s might and clout. As a result, a series of border conflicts and uprisings sprang up in the former USSR, from the reheated conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan to the skirmishes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Our two guests this week are veteran Russian analysts. Angela Stent is a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings and professor emerita of government and foreign service at Georgetown. She’s a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia and the author of Putin’s World: Russia against the West and with the Rest (2019) and is about to be republished with an extra chapter on the war in Ukraine. Mark Galeotti is a political scientist specialized in Russian security affairs and the director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence. He is an Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He’s also publishing later this week Putin’s Wars, from Chechnya to Ukraine (2022) which should be another incredibly timely read. For our Patreon section, our two experts took an in-depth dive into the Russian Federation itself. War and the ramping up of conscription sparked some major tensions within ethnic minority groups which could upset the balance of power within the nominally federal Federation of Russia. We also had a conversation on Russian imperialism, modern Russian nationalism and whether Russia sees itself as a former colonial power. If you want to listen to this Patreon-exclusive conversation and get plenty of additional content, you can subscribe for as little as the price of a sandwich a month. On to the show!
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