{"id":64905,"date":"2024-06-03T14:46:04","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T14:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/03\/in-former-soviet-states-a-tug-of-war-between-east-and-west-2\/"},"modified":"2024-06-03T14:46:04","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T14:46:04","slug":"in-former-soviet-states-a-tug-of-war-between-east-and-west-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/03\/in-former-soviet-states-a-tug-of-war-between-east-and-west-2\/","title":{"rendered":"In Former Soviet States, a Tug of War Between East and West"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/03\/multimedia\/03soviet-states-01-lfmk\/03soviet-states-01-lfmk-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"In Former Soviet States, a Tug of War Between East and West\" title=\"In Former Soviet States, a Tug of War Between East and West\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Georgia, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/30\/world\/europe\/georgia-foreign-agent-bill.html?searchResultPosition=4\" title=\"\">protesters<\/a> waving European Union flags have rallied against what they see as their pro-Russia leaders. Moldova\u2019s government is pushing to join the bloc, enraging citizens hoping for closer relations with Moscow. Armenia, too, has reached out to Europe, angered that Moscow, a longtime ally, is courting its enemy, Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Fueled in part by the Ukraine war, tensions have been mounting within some of the former lands of the Soviet Union, pitting those favoring closer relations with Russia against those orientated more toward Europe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many of those tensions predate the war, rooted in longstanding domestic struggles over power, money and other issues, but they have been amplified by geopolitics, with both Russia and the West pushing countries to choose a side.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Across the former Soviet Union \u201cthe whole context is now shaped by how the Ukraine war has radicalized competition between Russia and the West,\u201d said Gerard Toal, author of \u201cNear Abroad,\u201d a study of Russia\u2019s relations with former Soviet territories.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Fearful of losing influence, Moscow has issued blunt warnings to countries like Georgia and Moldova: Remember what happened in Ukraine. Without threatening to invade either country, it has pointed to the tumult and bloodshed that followed Ukraine\u2019s tilt toward the West after a popular revolt in 2014 ousted its pro-Russian president.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia is also hoping that recent successes on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine can help reverse the many setbacks it suffered to its prestige and influence in a string of former Soviet states earlier in the war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cRussian information campaigns have been fueling this idea that closer alignment with the West threatens a war that only Russia can win,\u201d said Nicu Popescu, the former foreign minister of Moldova. \u201cEverything depends on Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With the war\u2019s outcome looking increasingly uncertain, \u201cRussia is enjoying the West\u2019s discomfort,\u201d said Thomas de Waal, an expert on the former Soviet Union with Carnegie Europe, a research group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia has much ground to regain, and some of its losses may be irreversible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Distracted by the war and determined to expand relations with Azerbaijan, a rising energy power, Moscow last year alienated one of its closest allies, Armenia, by ordering Russian peacekeepers to stand aside when Azeri troops took over <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/09\/27\/world\/europe\/nagorno-karabakh-armenia-azerbaijan.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">Nagorno-Karabakh,<\/a> a disputed mountain enclave. Armenia later said it was considering applying to join the European Union and leaving a Moscow-led security pact.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Moldova has ramped up its efforts to join the European Union, which in 2022 granted it candidate status. Last week, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited Moldova to show American support for Ukraine and neighbors that could potentially be at risk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But even in Georgia \u2014 which was invaded by Russia in 2008, lost 20 percent of its territory to Moscow-backed separatists and harbors deep anti-Russian sentiments \u2014 a substantial minority still want to improve at least economic ties with Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is not because they like Russia but because they are afraid of Russia,\u201d said Koba Turmanidze, director of the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/crrc.ge\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Caucasus Research Resource Center,<\/a> a research group in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. de Waal of Carnegie Europe said that while Georgia wanted to stay out of the Ukraine conflict, \u201cIt sees that the war is blowing more in Russia\u2019s direction. It is tilting more toward Russia while trying to stay nonaligned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Georgian government, though officially striving to join the European Union, a goal <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.caucasusbarometer.org\/en\/nm2023ge\/JOINEU\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">widely supported<\/a> by the population, has used fear of Russian retaliation to justify its refusal to join European sanctions against Moscow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The governing party, Georgian Dream, Mr. Turmanidze said, would never say it is siding with Russia against Ukraine because \u201cthat would be political suicide,\u201d given public hostility to Moscow. But it has taken steps, notably a controversial <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/28\/world\/europe\/georgia-foreign-agents-law-passes.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">law on foreign influence<\/a> that set off weeks of street protests, that \u201care Russian in style,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Maintaining influence over former Soviet lands, has been a goal of Moscow since the early 1990s but was given new emphasis in a revised <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/russiaeu.ru\/en\/news\/concept-foreign-policy-russian-federation\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cforeign policy concept\u201d<\/a> signed by President Vladimir V. Putin last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The document committed Russia to preventing \u201ccolor revolutions,\u201d Moscow\u2019s term for popular uprisings \u201cand other attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of Russia\u2019s allies and partners\u201d and \u201cpreventing and countering unfriendly action of foreign states.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Casting recent street protests in Georgia as a replay of what, in Moscow\u2019s view, was a C.I.A.-orchestrated coup in 2014 in Ukraine, the Russian foreign ministry warned last week that the demonstrations in Tbilisi were \u201cjust like what happened in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And \u201clook how the situation is developing in Moldova,\u201d the ministry\u2019s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, added, referring to tensions there ahead of an October referendum on joining the European Union. Opinion is divided in Moldova between those who favor closer integration with Europe and those looking to Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis looks like the very scenario that was prepared by Western masters for Ukraine,\u201d Ms. Zakharova said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The 2014 street protests in Kyiv that toppled Ukraine\u2019s elected president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, were triggered by public outrage over his rejection of a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/11\/22\/world\/europe\/ukraine-refuses-to-free-ex-leader-raising-concerns-over-eu-talks.html\" title=\"\">trade and political deal<\/a> with the European Union that he had pledged to sign.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cRussia\u2019s general narrative is that there is a geopolitical conspiracy by the West to subvert the sovereignty of independent states,\u201d Mr. Toal said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The West, too, has its own Ukraine-framed story, one that Mr. Blinken recited last week in Moldova.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMoldovans are acutely aware that what happens in Ukraine matters not just to Ukrainians, but to Moldovans, too,\u201d Mr. Blinken said at a news conference with Moldova\u2019s president, Maia Sandu. Left unchallenged, he said, Russia \u201cwould not stop at Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A few weeks earlier, customs officers at Moldova\u2019s international airport found more than $1 million in cash in the luggage of some Russia-aligned politicians returning from Moscow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Popescu, who stepped down as Moldova\u2019s foreign minister in January and is now a fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the money was for financing political activities ahead of the October referendum and a presidential election at the same time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou are allowed to do politics, but you cannot bring in bags of cash from Russia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said the danger of a direct military intervention in Moldova by Moscow, a serious fear at the start of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has receded. But recent advances by Russian troops \u201care a worry,\u201d he added. \u201cThey are still a long way from us, but everything hinges on the outcome of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The war has become the organizing principle around which even narrow domestic disputes now revolve, turning domestic quarrels into high-stakes geopolitical confrontations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The recent tumult in Georgia over the foreign influence law was in many ways \u201ca local power struggle between different political networks,\u201d Mr. Toal said, but, the war turned it into a \u201cbattle shaped by geopolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But what protesters see as evidence of their government\u2019s shift away from the West toward Russia is, in the view of some analysts, a sign of narrower concerns ahead of an October election \u2014 like getting a Swiss bank to unfreeze billions of dollars belonging to the country\u2019s most powerful oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the Georgian Dream party.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Ivanishvili has been involved in a long dispute with Credit Suisse bank over his money. After winning several court cases and recovering some cash, the Ukraine war added a new hurdle with the 2022 freezing of $2.7 billion because of concerns over its potential Russian origin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His party believes that Washington forced the freezing of the money to try to get Georgia to side with the West against Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Whatever the truth, the financial blow made him more determined to confront his perceived domestic enemies whatever the cost, Mr. de Waal said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe is paranoid and thinks this is part of a worldwide conspiracy against him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/03\/world\/europe\/russia-georgia-moldova-ukraine-war.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Georgia, protesters waving European Union flags have rallied against what they see as their pro-Russia leaders. Moldova\u2019s government is pushing to join the bloc, enraging citizens hoping for closer relations with Moscow. Armenia, too, has reached out to Europe, angered that Moscow, a longtime ally, is courting its enemy, Azerbaijan. Fueled in part by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/03\/multimedia\/03soviet-states-01-lfmk\/03soviet-states-01-lfmk-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[863,28634,309,25103,3102,6501],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64907,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64905\/revisions\/64907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}