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How do you see the international political scene evolving after Russia's invasion of Ukraine? We are back to Cold War conditions.
The big issue at the moment is that we are facing a 'hot' war, which is feared to spread not only to neighbouring states but to generalise into a West/NATO-Russia confrontation. Nobody even wants to think about the possibility of a nuclear conflict. What is certainly the case is that no one can now ignore Moscow's security aspirations, as well as the fact that Putin is determined to implement his own sphere of influence by fire and iron. Obviously, no one initially seemed to believe that the Russian leader would act in the overt way that he did, and this will also lead to a revision of the way the Kremlin's behaviour is analysed.
Now, things are different from the past, where the balance of power between the US and the Soviet Union was a balance of terror between two almost equal hegemons, hence we had no direct conflict. Today, Russia's economy has shrunk, it is facing dynamism problems and China has emerged on the scene as the number two economy on our planet, soon expected to surpass the Americans in size. China has achieved something that the European Union, as the world's third economic giant, has not yet managed to do - to turn its economic surface into political and military power across the globe. Slowly but surely it is asserting itself as the rival of the United States. The Chinese economy is ten times larger than the Russian economy. It is easy to see what kind of dependence will be created in the Russian attempt to use China as a decoy to Western sanctions. With all that this implies. The well-known economist Paul Krugman rather correctly described the resulting relationship as one of dependency, of satrapy.
What do you think the next day will be like when the hostilities eventually end? Obviously things can't go back to the pre-22 February 2022 situation. What changes do you see taking place?
Following on from what we have already said, there will be a terrible reluctance to make Putin acceptable again as a leader within the international community. Even the Chinese seem to want to keep some distance from the Kremlin. Biden's description of Putin as a war criminal, the intervention of the International Court of Justice to bring an immediate halt to hostilities at the request of Ukraine, but also the strong reactions from European leaders who knew all too well what Soviet occupation meant and who now feel Russia's breath not only in Ukraine but also on their own necks, are consolidating a new perception of the authoritarian regime in Moscow. The outcry of world opinion has already classified the Russian leader as a pariah; at this level, the game of history is lost for Vladimir Putin.
Will Russia negotiate with Ukraine, or do you think that essentially the discussion will be with the US-EU, the West in general?
Lavrov's and Peskov's statements leave no doubt that the ultimate goal is not a negotiation with the Ukrainians but a discussion with the Americans. The Russian Foreign Minister referred to much more global issues that need to be settled, beyond the Ukrainian issue. At the same time, reference was made to the possibility of a visit by American officials to Moscow, without this being impossible , as the Russian side indicated, even if they have been sanctioned; cf. Biden, Blinken, Pesky.
The Russian invasion has forced the EU to take a fresh look at several open issues that have concerned it for years, such as its defence and security policy and its energy autonomy. Can an EU security system ignore the Russian factor? Do you see that there is now room for reaching a minimum understanding to find those solutions that will ensure benefits for all sides?
By necessity, an understanding must be found that may not definitively resolve the issues that arise with Russia, but at least settles them in a way that gives something to all sides. It has been shown that economic dependence between the two parties is not enough as a stabilising factor. With the invasion of Ukraine, Russia and the EU have each gone through their own Rubicon.
Moscow's moves for years in Ukraine have looked like orbital firing. Did the West underestimate President Putin's warnings?
First, the West relied on a rational assessment of Putin's capabilities but failed to include in the equation as a determining factor for his moves his thirst for revising things regionally in a way that upgrades himself and Russia's security aspirations. Second, we were all thinking the logical thing, clarifying it in our own way rather than the thinking that seems to underlie the Russian leader's decisions. We did not expect him to move so easily from the theory of assertion to practice at such a high cost. Third, we have to admit that the US, entering into the psychology of the undisputed winner of the Cold War, treated Russia with arrogance and conceit. It reneged on its initial promises with regard to NATO membership for the countries of the former Soviet bloc, probably not believing that Russia could ever recover and attempting the unthinkable - a military engagement to prove to friends and foes alike that it rightfully claimed its own sphere of influence in its "Near Abroad" and beyond. Fourth, the West's attitude towards Putin's previous pursuits was confused and gave the wrong signals. After the Bucharest Declaration in 2008 for future NATO membership of Georgia and Ukraine, what exactly was its reaction and what consequences did it create for Putin who invaded both these countries while they were supposedly under Western protection? Almost no reaction in 2008, lukewarm reactions in 2014 and suddenly we were wrongly surprised in 2022. While history teaches us that an invader is encouraged and not stopped or appeased when there are no costs or consequences. See. Hitler and Mussolini. Could Cyprus use its European status and its good relations with Moscow to play a role?
At the moment this does not seem to be the case. Dealing with the barrage of negative effects of Russian sanctions on the Cypriot economy will be our priority.
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