Divide in Eastern Europe

Collapse of the bipolar world system is increasingly moving away in time. There is a grown-up generation of those who do not particularly remember Europe divided into camps, or was born after the Cold War. These people actively replenish the elite of European countries, continue policy of their predecessors and bring new meanings to it. Intermingling ideas of the past and the future, eclecticism of values and worldviews have become hallmarks of the political processes in Eastern Europe. Not every expert – and we mean experts, not propagandists – will argue what is a guide for political leaders, diplomats or, finally, officials, in making decisions. Is it inertial logic of bloc thinking, own ideas about the welfare of society or a picture of a better future for themselves and their children? Variety of ideas and motives we mention is not at all for the sake of empty rhetoric. In the countries of Eastern Europe ‘divide’ – Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic States – the geopolitical context always acts as a factor of domestic policy, closely intertwining with pressing problems of state and society development. A rare election campaign in these countries goes without opposition of the West and the East, and in general appeals to geopolitics that seem to have been created to justify crises, legitimize unpopular decisions and miscalculations. The situation of modern Ukraine illustrates the case when geopolitics was successfully and timely imposed on society. Anyone who has had experience of communication with Ukrainians before the events of the so-called ‘Euromaidan’ will confirm that the degrading social and economic situation inside the country, widespread corruption and outright abuse by the bureaucracy have reached proportions in Ukraine of 2013 that are sufficient to radicalize public sentiment. This immediately refutes the thesis about exclusively foreign roots of protest and monopoly responsibility of the countries of Europe and the United States for the crisis, overthrow of the Viktor Yanukovych government and subsequent escalation of tension. It is also fair to note that Kiev is not the whole of Ukraine, and its South-East regions did not support the protest even in spite of the fatigue with consistent diseases of the state. It is also wrong to ignore that the EU and the US, at the very least, did not interfere with the reformatting of the Ukrainian elite and giving the protest an anti-Russian character as well. In our opinion, ‘Euromaidan’, sharp anti-Russian turn of Kiev and following conflict in the Donbas are a consequence of several consecutive processes that took place in Ukraine during the decades of independence. Following three shall be highlighted: - system-based work of the EU and the US with opinion leaders and nonprofit sector in Ukraine, a successful struggle for the minds, reconfiguration of the political, legal and educational system of the country; - degradation of Moscow’s policy in the Ukrainian direction, ignoring lessons of the ‘orange revolution’ in 2004, with insufficient interaction with Viktor Yanukovych’s team, ineffective direct financial injections into the financial system of Ukraine; - progressive decline of the country’s economy, growth of corruption and abuse of power without understandable prospects and development policy of the state. In 2013, these processes crossed the most successful way, and the ruling elite were replaced to meet demands of street protests. Unsurprisingly, that without any fundamental strategy, Moscow was able to counter with only spectacular but situational steps such as Russia’s integration of the Crimea and the tacit support of the separatist processes in Donetsk and Lugansk, which only exacerbated tensions. The official position and rhetoric of Russia on the Ukrainian issue since 2014 have not actually changed, despite rapid disruption of interstate ties in all spheres – this only confirms that there are still no strategies for Ukraine in the Kremlin. At the same time, slowed pace of rapprochement between Kiev and the European Union is most likely just an evidence of ‘toxicity’ of the Ukrainian dossier. Often, the possibility of the Ukrainian scenario is considered in regards to Belarus. As a rule, it happens in the pre-election period or when relations between Moscow and Minsk are aggravated as scheduled, in the latter case it looks like a demonstrative attempt to picture Alexander Lukashenko the future that awaits his country and him personally in the event of distancing from Russia. Despite comparative stability of the system created by the irreplaceable Belarusian leader, possibility of an ‘orange’ scenario in Belarus cannot be ruled out. The whole point is that any authoritarian regime, however successful it may be, is a priori vulnerable. People always want change for the better and the first thing that changes is that people are bored of during many years. An encouraging factor for Belarus is that Lukashenko did not establish a regime of personal government, but created a system of state power with motivated special services, an understandable strategy for development and countering potential threats. For this reason, in Belarus, the opposition and in general the sector of civil society that could ‘take to the streets’ is poorly developed – to an incomparably lesser degree than in Ukraine under Viktor Yanukovych. The main risk for the country is the period of power transfer, which may occur as early as next year. In this moment, the future of Belarus will depend precisely on motivation of key persons in the state administration system, and, again, on the position of Russia. It seems that in the interests of preserving internal and external stability of its closest ally, Moscow will try not to repeat the erroneous tactics of emotionally charged media reports about the situation, as it was with Ukraine, and to keep Belarus in its orbit of influence. The third Eastern Europe country, where the eclecticism of motives and interests of various groups of elites reaches its supreme is Moldova. For at least ten years, the population of this country has been artificially forced to make a geopolitical choice between East and West, and politicians actively use the dichotomy of ‘European values’ and ‘Russian threat’ to gain support from abroad. The power in the country is conditionally divided between two political forces – the Socialist Party, where the current president, Igor Dodon, is from, and the pro-European coalition that controls the government. The actual leader of the latter is Vlad Plahotniuc – the largest oligarch of Moldova, who is not accidentally called ‘coordinator’ in the country. He is the sole decision-making center and the actual leader of the Republic of Moldova. President Igor Dodon, in turn, is very limited in powers. For example, he does not have a real right of veto and in fact cannot influence government formation. However, he has not yet taken any real steps to strengthen the presidential vertical. For this reason, some experts suggest that Igor Dodon is satisfied with the occupied niche in the system of public administration and minimal responsibility for what is happening in the country, and therefore does not seek real power. The President of the Republic of Moldova, however, sometimes makes some demonstrative steps against the government’s policy. He has repeatedly refused to sign laws and approve appointments – in these cases the speaker of the parliament became acting head of state, who signed the documents. The pro-European government of Plahotniuc is the legal successor of the Alliance for European Integration, formed in 2009 after a color revolution and removal of Moldovan Communists, with the only difference that in nine years Vlad Plahotniuc neutralized political rival leaders and became the sole pro-European leader. Since then, the official policy of Moldova for rapprochement with the European Union remains unchanged, while the prime ministerial post and the parliamentary majority remain pro-European. Contacts with the West, issues of financial support through the EU and world funds, implementation of European projects are the monopoly of the Moldovan government. Igor Dodon presents himself as a supporter of friendship with Moscow. In Russia, the Moldovan leader is called ‘pro-Russian’ and forms an image of Putin’s personal friend – they have met eight times since Dodon became president. In addition to Vladimir Putin’s favour, Moscow sometimes gives Igor Dodon other bonuses, such as the status of Moldova as an observer in the Eurasian Economic Union, an amnesty for migrant workers and opening of markets for some Moldovan enterprises. Particular credibility to the Moldovan president is expressed in Moscow’s tolerance for the anti-Russian antics of the government – deportations of Russian officials and diplomats, threats against the peacekeeping contingent in Transdniestria, etc. Experts agree that Moscow’s benevolence is designed to help Igor Dodon and the Socialist Party to win the parliamentary majority in upcoming elections. Certainly, this is done with an eye on subsequent ‘Eurasian’ turn of Moldova. However, many people doubt genuineness of Igor Dodon’s goals. For example, another left-wing politician is the leader of Our Party, Renato Usaty, who directly accuses the Moldovan president of treaty relations with Vlad Plahotniuc. Usaty, by the way, is in an open conflict with the Moldovan oligarch number 1, because of that he was forced to leave Moldova. Usaty asserts that Dodon is a puppet of the Plahotniuc regime, which is needed to blind Moscow and absorb opposition around him, making it controlled and harmless. Both political camps of Moldova successfully use the geopolitical factor to earn points on the electoral field. All this can be multiplied by the long-standing traditions of nepotism in Moldovan politics, business interests and kinship ties – as a result, there will be a grim mixture, which Russia is trying to influence from one, and the US and the EU from another side. The latter objectively get better at this – Moldova has long been dependent on Western financial flows and is developing according to European standards. Russia has no levers of influence on the situation, and even Transdniestria can hardly be considered in this capacity. The unrecognized republic has long lived its own life, is not included in the Moldovan electoral processes and in fact seeks not only recognition of its independence, but also to be left in peace. The team of Transdniestrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky, who came to power after the presidential elections of late 2016, focuses on economic development, administrative reform and attraction of foreign investments. Judging by active contacts with both Moscow and European countries, the Transdniestrian leadership wants to achieve a mutually beneficial balance of economic cooperation with the East and West, as well as to distance itself as much as possible from any conflict stories in the region. The official guideline in the negotiations with Chisinau, declared by Krasnoselsky from the first days of his presidency, is a focus on socio-economic issues without discussing political settlement. To keep within this framework is a very ambitious task for the republic, whose statehood is directly linked to the geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the West. On the other hand, the Ukrainian crisis has seriously aggravated the situation of Transdniestria, which since 2014 is viewed in Kiev as a pro-Russian enclave and a potential troublemaker. The attempt to escape from politics and make friends with everyone in this sense looks logical. Transdniestria is the center of evenly applied equal powers of influence by Russia and Europe. On the one hand, Moscow provides a large-scale support to the unrecognized state in the form of free gas, peacekeeping operation, financial support for pensioners. The Kremlin, as can be seen, plays a guiding role for the foreign policy of the unrecognized republic – it has been so for many years. On the other hand, most of Transdniestria’s exports go to Europe. The Transdniestrian republic enjoys opportunities of the free trade zone agreement between Moldova and the EU and is actively working with Western business. Tiraspol regularly try to bring there various kinds of international organizations, and some of them already work in the PMR – for example, through the infrastructure projects of the United Nations Development Program. Up to now, both vectors of influence quite successfully counterbalanced each other, but the situation in the region started changing already from late 2017. To preserve economic and social stability, Tiraspol managed to come to an agreement with Chisinau on a number of issues that had previously been completely unpromising – restoration of telephone communications, neutral car number plates, so Transdniestrians can travel abroad, education and land. Russia’s response to this progress has been crumpled – Moscow, apparently, was not ready for it. At the same time, in the Kremlin, the issue of further financial support for the unrecognized republic has not been resolved in any way, and this is a direct risk of losing control over the developments around Transdniestria. Meanwhile, the population in the PMR itself is clearly tired of the uncertainty and expects, first of all, improvement in material wellfare. Geopolitical attitudes among the population of Transdniestria are not as decisive as in the first decades of independence.

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The situation in post-Soviet Eastern Europe is still characterized by a confrontation, in fact, this is inertia of the Cold War. Russia and the European Union are still struggling for influence in their border areas, but the geopolitical agenda among the population of these countries is gradually losing its relevance. In an era of universal access to information, people have the opportunity to compare their daily life with how people live ‘there’. Therefore, in the hierarchy of values the quality of life comes to the top for an ordinary man, and the basic public inquiry focuses on solving domestic problems. In this regard, readiness to offer mechanisms and resources in time to solve them will be a determining factor for success both for the elites of the ‘divide’ countries and for the larger actors claiming influence in the region. Since these solutions cannot be created on the patterns of the conflict rhetoric of the past, Eastern Europe can become a testing ground for new meanings and methods of policy making, which, perhaps, will lay the ground work under the new geopolitical architecture. RTA, 2018