L'empire avorté

Russie,

SEMAINE DU JEUDI 06 Août 2009

http://hebdo.nouvelobs.com/hebdo/parution/p2335/articles/a406523-.html

Cest le rêve des maîtres du Kremlin : rebâtir I empire russe à l'image de l'ex-URSS. Et la guerre de l'été dernier en Géorgie a sans doute constitué la première phase de ce projet troublant. Malgré quelques succès apparents - comme le retour dans le giron de Moscou de l'Abkhazie et de l'Ossétie du Sud -, l'idée d'une nouvelle Grande Russie fait long feu

C'était un plan grandiose - et secret. A la fin de l'été dernier, exalté par sa victoire contre la Géorgie et par le prix très élevé des hydrocarbures, Poutine a projeté ni plus ni moins de reconstituer l'empire russe. Comment ? «Son idée, raconte un important officiel russe, était de créer une sorte d'Union soviétique bis. D'abord à quatre : la Russie, h Biélorussie, ainsi que l'Abkhazie et l'Ossétie, les deux régions géorgiennes séparatistes que Moscou venait d'envahir et de reconnaître.» Et après ? «Poutine pensait que par la suite d'autres territoires de l'ex-URSS rejoindraient cette union. Volontairement ou sous V«amicale» pression du Kremlin.»
Pour mener à bien ce grand dessein - que le maître de la Russie mijote sous une forme ou sous une autre depuis des années -, Poutine imagine une stratégie astucieuse. Après l'invasion de la Géorgie, qui a rappelé de très mauvais souvenirs en Europe, il ne veut pas effrayer davantage la communauté internationale. Il le dit à ses conseillers : l'opération doit se dérouler selon les règles de l'ONU II n'est donc pas question d'annexer purement et simplement les deux régions géorgiennes, bien qu'elles soient déjà, de fait, contrôlées par Moscou depuis le début des années 1990. Avant de fusionner - légalement - avec la Russie, l'Abkhazie et l'Ossétie du Sud devront devenir juridiquement indépendantes, c'est-à-dire être reconnues comme telles par un grand nombre de pays. Ainsi, à l'instar de l'URSS, la nouvelle entité sera une union d'Etats souverains - sur le papier, en tout cas. Poutine est confiant : en y mettant beaucoup d'énergie, l'opération «reconnaissance» ne prendra que quelques semaines, quelques mois tout au plus, croit-il. Pour faciliter les choses, le maître de la Russie mobilise le vaste réseau diplomatique de son pays. «Son objectif était de convaincre une vingtaine de capitales de reconnaître l'indépendance de ces deux Etats fantoches», raconte l'officiel. Avec Medvedev, il consacre le début de l'automne à cette tâche. Le tandem s'adresse à la terre entière. A leurs interlocuteurs, les deux hommes brandissent le carnet de chèques de l'Etat russe, promettent des aides, des prêts - et menacent aussi, les leaders des ex-républiques soviétiques en particulier. Mais rien n'y fait : à part le président du Nicaragua, personne ne veut cautionner le coup de force diplomatico-militaire concocté au Kremlin. Pas même les amis fidèles de Moscou, tels les chefs d'Etat arménien ou kazakh. Tous ont peur que la reconnaissance de l'Ossétie du Sud et de l'Abkhazie ne déclenche une réaction en chaîne : la remise en question de l'intégrité territoriale des pays issus de l'ex- URSS, y compris le leur.

Seul le président biélorusse, l'autoritaire Alexandre Loukachenko, semble un temps hésiter. C'est que, pour le convaincre d'unir son pays à la Russie, Poutine lui propose une dot prestigieuse : la vice-présidence de la nouvelle Union. Mais, tout bien pesé, le Biélorusse, qui s'entend mal avec les maîtres du Kremlin et espère se rapprocher de l'Union européenne, préfère demeurer le premier dans son village. Si bien qu'à la fin de l'automne 2008 Poutine, dépité, doit se rendre à l'évidence : son plan grandiose a échoué. Il n'y aura pas d'URSS bis, l'Union à quatre ne verra pas le jour, pas tout de suite en tout cas.
Après ce fiasco, le «leader national» va-t-il tourner la page ? Renoncer à l'empire, à l'«étranger proche», comme on dit à Moscou ? Au contraire. «Il pense que c'est là, dans la sphère d'Influence russe«et non dans la globalisation, que se joue l'avenir de son pays, sa place dans le monde de l'après-crise, explique le politologue Fiodor Loukianov. Voilà pourquoi Medvedev et lui ont fait de la reconquête de l'étranger proche la priorité des priorités en 2009.» Mais, là encore, leurs espoirs seront déçus. Quoi qu'ils entreprennent ou presque, ils se heurteront à la résistance des autorités locales, très méfiantes à l'égard des ambitions néo-impériales de Moscou et désormais attirées par la Chine, les Etats-Unis et même, surprise, l'Europe. En février, le Kremlin convoque les membres de l'Organisation du Traité de Sécurité collective (OTSC), une alliance militaire qui regroupe sept anciennes républiques soviétiques. Moscou, toujours à son idée de contrôle, voudrait la transformer en une «mini-Otan». Les Russes proposent la création d'une force de réaction rapide de 20000 hommes dont le QG serait à Moscou et qui, en cas de crise, pourrait se déployer sur le territoire des Etats signataires. Tous les présents acceptent l'idée et décident de se revoir en juin pour finaliser l'ambitieux projet.

Au même moment, le Kirghizistan annonce la fermeture prochaine de la base américaine de Manas. Pour le Pentagone, le revers est très sérieux : c'est par cet aéroport militaire que transite depuis 2001 une grande partie des soldats et du fret de l'Otan vers l'Afghanistan. Le Kremlin, qui entend faire reculer l'influence américaine en Asie centrale, a payé sa victoire au prix fort : un prêt de 2 milliards de dollars et un don de 150 millions au gouvernement kirghiz.
Sur le plan politique aussi, Moscou semble, au printemps 2009, marquer des points. Ses ennemis déclarés dans la CEI sont en grave difficulté. Le président ukrainien, le prooccidental Viktor Iouchtchenko, se retrouve seul face à son Premier ministre, Ioulia Timochenko, et au leader prorusse Viktor Ianoukovitch. Les nouveaux alliés exigent ensemble sa démission. Quant au Géorgien Saakachvili, le chouchou de Bush, il est, lui aux prises avec des manifestations quotidiennes dans lesquelles on exige son départ. Moscou n'y est pas pour rien. «Dans ces pays, nous aidons l'opposition prorusse en sous-main, dit le député du parti Russie unie Sergueï Markov. Nous finançons sans le dire une ONG à Kiev. Et nous donnons un peu d'argent à certains opposants géorgiens via des intermédiaires.»
Mais ces victoires politiques et diplomatiques ne sont pour la plupart qu'apparentes - «des simulacres», dit un diplomate occidental. Car dès la fin du printemps les rêves de reconquête s'écroulent l'un après l'autre. D'abord, les proaméricains ne perdent pas la partie, ni en Géorgie ni en Ukraine. Saakachvili, dont le Kremlin annonçait le renversement, mate les manifestations; à Kiev, Iouchtchenko parvient, malgré sa faiblesse persistante, à détruire l'alliance Timochenko- Ianoukovitch. Et puis les espoirs des Russes sont douchés par la visite, fin juillet, du vice- président des Etats-Unis dans ces deux pays symboles de la compétition russo-américaine dans l'ex-empire soviétique. Certes, Joe Biden n'apporte un soutien inconditionnel ni à Saakachvili ni à Iouchtchenko. A la différence de Bush, il ne les présente pas comme des parangons de démocratie et ne leur promet pas une adhésion imminente à l'Otan. Mais à Moscou on espérait que l'administration Obama abandonnerait purement et simplement ses deux protégés afin d'apaiser le Kremlin et de s'assurer son soutien dans d'autres dossiers (le nucléaire iranien en particulier). Est-ce pour cela que la tension monte à nouveau entre la Russie et la Géorgie, après une série d'incidents frontaliers ? Moscou vient de mettre sévèrement en garde Tbilissi, qu'il accuse d'avoir fait tirer au mortier sur Tskhinvali, la capitale de l'Ossétie du Sud.
En Asie centrale aussi, le match russo- américain tourne à l'avantage de Washington. Le 23 juin, le président kirghiz annonce que, réflexion faite, le Pentagone pourra conserver sa base de Manas, dont la fermeture a été si chèrement monnayée par le Kremlin. Par quel miracle ? La Maison-Blanche a accepté de quadrupler son loyer et de verser des dizaines de millions de dollars aux autorités en place. Et puis Barack Obama a écrit de sa main une lettre qui a flatté le président kirghiz.
Autre désillusion : le projet d'une force de réaction rapide est compromis. Le 14 juin, deux pays «frères» annoncent qu'ils n'en veulent plus : l'Ouzbékistan, qui redoute que cette force ne soit employée sur son sol, et la Biélorussie, qui cherche à se rapprocher de l'Union européenne. Moscou devra démarrer son «Otan russe» avec 7000 hommes, au lieu des 20000 prévus, et avec seulement l'Arménie, le Kazakhstan et le Kirghizistan.
Encore un fiasco. Il y en aura bientôt un autre, potentiellement le plus désastreux d'entre tous pour le pouvoir russe car il concerne l'approvisionnement de l'Europe en gaz, c'est-à-dire la principale source de revenus - et de puissance - de la Russie. De quoi s'agit-il ? Depuis des années, le Kremlin fait tout pour empêcher les pays producteurs limitrophes de la mer Caspienne de livrer leur gaz à l'Europe sans passer par la Russie. Moscou entend ainsi contrôler au plus près le marché européen. Dans ce bras de fer énergétique, la bête noire de la Russie s'appelle Nabucco : un projet de gazoduc dont le tracé a été conçu par la Commission de Bruxelles justement pour contourner le territoire russe.
Le 30 juin, le Kremlin croyait avoir porté un coup mortel à Nabucco : après des mois de négociations, l'Azerbaïdjan annonce qu'il vendra une partie de son gaz à destination de l'Europe via la Russie. Seulement voilà, le 10 juillet, le Turkménistan, qui possède d'immenses réserves, annonce, lui, qu'il est prêt à alimenter Nabucco en grandes quantités. A Moscou, c'est un tremblement de terre. Certes, la décision turkmène, que le Kremlin va tout faire pour renverser, ne «viabilise» pas à elle seule le projet de ce gazoduc «antirusse». Mais elle est une sérieuse défaite pour le Kremlin, qui se montre chaque jour de plus en plus incapable de contrôler l'Asie centrale.
Après ces déboires en série, Poutine a-t-il changé de stratégie et cherché un autre destin à la Russie ? Au contraire, il s'entête. «C'est la fuite en avant», affirme notre source au Kremlin. La preuve : à la surprise générale, il vient de faire savoir que Moscou quittait les négociations de l'OMC (qui durent, il est vrai, depuis seize ans). Poutine renonce donc à l'intégration de la Russie dans la globalisation. Pour faire quoi à la place ? Une union douanière avec la Biélorussie et le Kazakhstan. Sans doute un nouvel avatar de son projet grandiose.


De la Révolution d'Octobre à la crise géorgienne

Avant la révolution, la Russie impériale s'étirait sur 22 millions de kilomètres carrés. Son territoire englobait, outre la Fédération de Russie d'aujourd'hui, les pays baltes, la Biélorussie, l'Ukraine, une partie de la Pologne, la Moldavie, le Caucase, la Finlande et ce qui sera l'Asie centrale soviétique. A sa création, en 1922, l'URSS conserve les mêmes frontières, aux notables exceptions de l'est de la Pologne et des pays baltes, devenus indépendants mais que, grâce au pacte germano-soviétique, Staline annexera en 1940. Après 1991, la Russie ne comprend plus que 17 millions de kilomètres carrés. Les 14 autres républiques soviétiques deviennent des Etats souverains.Toutes, sauf les pays baltes, créent une sorte de Commonwealth russe, la Communauté des Etats indépendants (la CEI), que, un an après la guerre contre la Russie, la Géorgie va quitter définitivement ce mois-ci.



Vincent Jauvert
Le Nouvel Observateur

Moscow's Troubles in the Caucasus

By Uwe Klussmann and Matthias Schepp

The ongoing ethnic and political tensions between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea are becoming a threat to the leadership in Moscow. Although the Kremlin garnered respect as a result of its war with Georgia one year ago, the situation remains explosive in other parts of the Caucasus.

The old man has tea served to his guests. A hot wind blows off the Caspian Sea into his apartment above Makhachkala, the capital of the Republic of Dagestan. To the south lie the slopes of the Caucasus, the mountain range between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, a region hotly contested by major powers for centuries. Ali Aliyev, not wanting his guests to feel uncomfortable, closes the window and turns on the air conditioner.

The 77-year-old is better known by his artist's and war name Adallo. In one of the wistful poems for which he is known, he writes: "Alone in the festival of life, I smile at everything that touches my heart." The poet has a long beard, as white as the shirt he is wearing, and the seam of his gray trousers rests on his bare feet.

 

"I can only laugh when I hear that some call me the bin Laden of the Caucasus," he says, as he digs for an international list of wanted terrorists, which includes both his name and that of the founder of the al-Qaida terrorist network, who is currently in hiding. "I can't even read Arabic." In Moscow, he is considered the chief ideologue of radical Islam within Russian terroritory -- a dangerous troublemaker.

In the 1990s, Adallo joined Chechen leader Shamil Basayev's underground movement in the nearby mountains. Basayev was so ruthless he would even take hostages in hospitals, just as his collaborators would later take children hostage at a school in Beslan. Adallo has been under house arrest since he returned to Dagestan from exile in Turkey. His views are apparently unchanged: He still believes that an act of terror like the one that was committed in Beslan in 2004 -- in which, in addition to the 31 terrorists, 334 schoolchildren, parents, teachers and soldiers died -- is justified. "The Russians have killed far more innocent people in their war against Chechnya," he says.

The Dream of an Islamic Caucasus

Adallo is considered the intellectual father of the men who dream of an Islamic Caucasus, of a caliphate under the rule of Sharia law that would stretch across the region's current borders. Underground fighters in the region are now killing representatives of the government on a daily basis, while Moscow fights back just as brutally.

These are the incidents that occurred last week alone: On Sunday, a suicide bomber killed himself and six others in front of a concert hall in the Chechen capital Grozny; the next day, police shot eight suspected terrorists in a forest near Makhachkala; on Tuesday, four rebels died in a battle in the southern Chechen mountains, and that evening a bomb exploded near the house of the mayor of Magas, the capital of the Republic of Ingushetia.

In the first five months of this year, the Caucasus has already seen more than 300 attacks, in which 75 police officers and 48 civilians died. The authorities, for their part, have "liquidated 112 bandits," as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced.

The region is "one of the Kremlin's biggest problems," Alexei Malashenko, a security expert with the Moscow Carnegie Center warned lasted Wednesday. On the same day Gennady Saizev, the former head of the Alpha Group counterterrorism unit, said that violence is "increasingly threatening the entire nation."

From Adallo's perspective, when someone armed with a submachine gun forces his way into your apartment, you should be allowed to defend yourself with an ax. The apartment, in his metaphor, is the Caucasus, and Russia the intruder. He mentions former French President Charles de Gaulle, who he says was his favorite Western politician, because he gave Algeria its independence, but only after his country had waged a brutal colonial war. "Here in the Caucasus, the train has also left the station for the Russians."

A Tinderbox in the EU's Backyard

It has been a year since Moscow waged a war in the region -- against Georgia. The conflict focused the world's attention on the volatile Caucasus region once again. It was a war over South Ossetia, a small separatist republic that declared its independence in 1991 and over which Tbilisi was attempting to regain control. Russia crushed the Georgian army in the five-day war. But what does the victory mean for the rest of the region?

 

DER SPIEGEL

Caption: Sau

For Russia, it has meant dealing with pressure coming from two sides. In Russia's Caucasus republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya, Moscow is now under more pressure than ever to prove itself as a peacekeeping power that can guarantee security, create prosperity and rein in Islamists. But it must also increase its attractiveness for the countries south of the Caucasus range, so that Armenia, currently its most loyal ally in the region, and oil-rich Azerbaijan, which has managed to walk a fine line between Moscow and Washington, do not follow in Georgia's footsteps and fall under American influence.

Nowhere in the world are so many conflicts raging in such a small region than in the Caucasus, where roughly 40 ethnic groups speaking 50 different languages come together in an area about the size of Sweden. The region is home to only 26 million people, and yet they are separated by a total of 3,500 kilometers (2,180 miles) of borders, some of them contested.

Six wars have raged in the Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union, making it the most dangerous region in proximity to the European Union.

It is precisely through the Caucasus that gas coming from Central Asia and Azerbaijan is expected to flow to Europe one day, bypassing Russia. The pipeline is less than 100 kilometers from the border of South Ossetia, the bone of contention in the most recent war, in a region where Moscow's tanks are now stationed.

All of these factors contribute to a general sense of nervousness among the major powers when it comes to the Caucasus. Russian President Medvedev had hardly finished meeting with US President Barack Obama in Moscow in early July before he demonstratively hurried off to South Ossetia. A short time later, US Vice President Joe Biden met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi to assure him of Washington's support. At the same time, the United States sent the USS Stout, a destroyer, to the Georgian coast, while Russia amassed 8,500 troops for a military exercise dubbed "Caucasus 2009."

"No One Can Sleep Soundly Here Anymore"

This raises the question of who will control the Caucasus in the future. The West? The Russians? Islam?

With its speedy victory over Georgia last year, Moscow garnered respect in the region, where strength is seen as the highest virtue, and where in fact it has almost cult-like status. Russia has gained two protectorates, the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and yet its actions elsewhere in the region have created a credibility problem. Even though the Kremlin has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, it continues to suppress similar separatist movements at home. In the case of Chechnya, Moscow's ventures have come at the cost of two wars and more than 100,000 presumed dead.

"Just take a look around in Dagestan and in the Caucasus," says Adallo, the poet, in Makhachkala. "No one can sleep soundly here anymore, neither the people nor those in the government."

Eight weeks ago, a sniper shot Dagestan's interior minister in the heart while he was attending a wedding. He was reputed to have participated directly in the torture of underground fighters, and after he was killed Moscow praised him as a "Russian hero." The mayor of Makhachkala, also a man with a dubious reputation, has survived 15 attempts on his life, and he now runs the lively coastal city from a wheelchair.

A new concrete road runs from Makhachkala into the mountains southwest of the city, enabling Russian tanks and Dagestani police patrols to move more quickly as they hunt down insurgents. There are an estimated 1,000 rebels in this region alone, men who have been unable to find jobs in the Caucasus and, while looking for work in neighboring Russia, are consistently referred to as "black asses," or second-class citizens. Such discrimination only fuels the spirit of resistance among the combative people of the mountains.

 

Russia's Poorhouse

Troops from the Russian Interior Ministry and the FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence agency, have surrounded the village of Gubden, and checkpoints dot nearby roads. Indignant local residents produce photos of the bodies of two men that show the signs of horrific torture. Meanwhile, the evening news on the government-run television station reports that the two were underground fighters killed in a gun battle with police.

The killings may have been an act of revenge for an incident that happened a few days earlier, when police were ambushed and shot to death. It is difficult to differentiate between victims and perpetrators in the Caucasus. Some underground fighters behave like common criminals when they demand protection money from local residents. The police and intelligence agents, on the other hand, have not shied away from killing innocent people so that they can report successes to Moscow in the hunt for terrorists.

A Heavy Burden on the Kremlin's Budget

On the surface Achulgo, a mountain stronghold perched at 2,100 meters (6,890 feet) above sea level, seems peaceful enough. An elderly woman is selling postcards depicting a likeness of Imam Shamil, who is still revered as a hero by the mountain peoples today. Shamil resisted the Russian army in the 19th century, when Moscow subjugated the Caucasus. In 1855, the war of conquest consumed one-sixth of the budget of czarist Russia, costing Moscow more than it cost the British to subjugate India.

The region still places a heavy burden on the Kremlin's budget today. Moscow has established a garrison for 3,000 soldiers in the town of Botlikh, in a valley near the border with Chechnya and Georgia. In the town square, the face of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is displayed on a poster that promises gas and electricity to local residents. Both services have in fact been provided, and yet the town's 11,000 residents are still unhappy. The garrison takes up pastureland they need for their cows and, worse yet, the Russians threaten traditional customs. One of the town elders complains bitterly about the wives of Russian officers, who do their shopping in the local market "wearing short skirts or men's clothing." By men's clothing he means trousers.

The affluence local residents had anticipated, on the other hand, has yet to materialize. During the Soviet era, Botlikh was known for its apricots. Today, however, the town's small juice factory is shuttered, its business ruined by the high cost of shipping products to Russian cities. The Kremlin spends billions in aid on the Caucasus, and Moscow covers 80 percent of Dagestan's national budget. The Caucasus is Russia's poorhouse.

It is a 1,300-kilometer journey from Dagestan to Abkhazia, on the western flank of the mountain chain, along the M29 transit road. The cities along the way illustrate the waning influence of the central government in Moscow. Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen dictator installed by Putin, has built the largest mosque in the Caucasus in the capital Grozny. His word is law, and he rules the republic as if Chechnya were an independent country. It was in Chechnya that activist Natalya Estemirova sought to expose the human rights violations of the Kadyrov regime -- until she was murdered last month.

The "Côte d'Azur of the Soviet Union"

Ingushetian President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was severely injured in a bomb attack in June near the capital Magas. The Russian security forces there have barricaded themselves behind a 10-meter fence meant to protect against rebel grenade attacks. Farther along the road, near Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, is Beslan, the site of the 2004 hostage crisis. The only city in the region with an air of hope about it is the Black Sea resort Sochi, the future site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

It is a three-hour drive from Sochi to Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, which Moscow now treats as an independent country, but only to irritate Tbilisi. In the government building, a white Stalin-era structure surrounded by palm trees and renovated hotels, a stocky man with a high forehead says that he feels wedged "between the little empire of Georgia and the big empire of Russia." Stanislav Lakoba is the coordinator of security services in the Abkhazian government. A historian, he is viewed with suspicion in Moscow for having written several books in which he refutes the Russian version of history, according to which Abkhazia joined the czardom "voluntarily" in 1810.

Lakoba has long been considered a mastermind of the Abkhazian independence movement. Unlike the bitterly poor South Ossetians, who want to be united with North Ossetia on the Russian side of the border, the idea of real independence appeals to many of Abkhazia's 200,000 residents. A critical press there finds fault with Moscow's dominant role in the 220-kilometer coastal strip, which, as the "Côte d'Azur of the Soviet Union," once attracted 2 million tourists a year.

Since Lakoba's boss, Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh, announced his support for a plan to allow foreigners to buy local real estate, the threat of a fire sale to Russians has been the main topic of conversation in the city's cafés. "We could soon end up like the Indians, who sold Manhattan for cheap necklaces," warns the editor-in-chief of a local daily newspaper.

In his book "The History of Abkhazia," Lakoba describes how his homeland was afflicted by forced displacement, punitive expeditions and bloody ethnic cleansing, sometimes initiated by Moscow and sometimes by Tbilisi. One of the victims was Lakoba's great-uncle Nestor. He was the leader of the Abkhaz Autonomous Republic when Georgian Communist leader Lavrentiy Beria poisoned him in Tbilisi in 1936, simultaneously poisoning the relationship between Abkhazians and Georgians.

Lakoba sums up the policies of the Bolsheviks' predecessors when he writes: "Czarism needed Abkhazia without Abkhazians." But which Abkhazia needs Putinism today? Russia's strongman, who wants to prevent NATO barracks on Georgian soil from encroaching on his summer home in Sochi, treats Abkhazia and South Ossetia as his pawn against foreign influence. Lakoba, on the other hand, envisions Abkhazia as a "small, neutral and cosmopolitan state."

Vestiges of a Civil War

The road to the impoverished provincial city of Gali, 70 kilometers south of Sukhumi, is lined with burned-out houses, vestiges of the 1990s civil war. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgian national guard and paramilitary units attacked Abkhazia, which was seeking independence and was supported in its effort by Moscow. The conflict claimed the lives of 8,000 soldiers and civilians on both sides and forced 240,000 people to flee Abkhazia.

Because of that civil war, not even the smallest political faction can imagine reintegration into Georgia today. The "territorial integrity of Georgia" demanded by Americans and Europeans is currently nothing but an empty phrase.

A road dotted with deep potholes, with more oxen on it than people, leads from Gali to the border between Abkhazia and Georgia. At the border checkpoint, uniformed Abkhazians serve in rusty metal huts, reinforced by Russian FSB border guards living in gray tents surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.

German prisoners of war built the bridge spanning the Inguri River into Georgia proper after World War II. The murky water flows between the warring Caucasus republics. Georgian villages on the opposite bank shimmer, mirage-like, in the sweltering early afternoon heat.

A hunched-over, 80-year-old woman wearing oversized rubber boots is trudging toward the bridge. She lives in a village on the Abkhazian side and is returning from a hospital stay in the nearby Georgian city of Zugdidi. The woman is too poor to pay the fare of one Lari, or about 42 cents, to cross the bridge on a horse-drawn cart. But then help arrives, as a convoy of four white, armor-clad jeeps flying the blue flag of the European Union slowly approaches the bridge. An officer from Lithuania gets out of one of the jeeps, speaks to the woman and gives her the Lari.

Since a Russian veto in the United Nations Security Council barred UN troops from patrolling in Abkhazia, and since the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), yielding to pressure from the Russians, abandoned its missions in Georgia proper, Abkhazia and Ossetia, the EU has been providing the only international observers in the crisis-stricken region. The EU contingent patrolling the 170-kilometer Georgian border with Abkhazia consists of 69 men from 13 nations, including 22 Germans.

Carsten Frommann, a blonde senior police detective from the eastern German city of Dessau who has already served in Sudan, gives the order for the convoy to continue along its route. "In case of frontal attack, all vehicles are to drive in reverse, in case of an attack at the center, the vehicles at the front should move forward and the ones at the back should move backward," he recommends, before the group reaches the "dirty triangle," a few square kilometers along the border zone where smugglers have been causing trouble lately.

Since June, the EU observers have referred to the area as the "bloody triangle." In one incident, a mine exploded, killing the driver of the mission's ambulance. But everything is going smoothly today, with the exception of a small incident in Paluri, a village of 1,000 inhabitants, where an angry crowd forces the convoy to come to a standstill. The villagers have been without electricity for one-and-a-half months. "There are those here who would like us to be in charge," says Wolfram Hoffmann, a retired colonel in the German military, the Bundeswehr.

 

What Has Russia Gained from the War?

Just past the Georgian border crossing, along the Inguri River, there is a large billboard depicting a likeness of Georgian President Saakashvili, wearing a pinstriped suit and a red tie, and the slogan: "We are Uniting Georgia." Saakashvili, who came to power in Georgia's Rose Revolution in 2003, has reinvigorated the Georgian economy through privatization and with the help of foreign aid money.

He has built roads, curbed police corruption and ensured a relatively reliable supply of power, water and gas. But none of this counts at the moment. Since his attempt to reintegrate South Ossetia by force failed, his opponents have taken to calling him "Mikheil the Destroyer." Nevertheless, his decline in popularity has not brought him down yet -- despite Moscow's fervent hopes that it would -- because the West continues to support him and the opposition is deeply divided.

What has Russia gained from the 2008 war in Georgia? It has secured control over two small pieces of territory in the southern Caucasus, with a combined land area slightly larger than Jamaica and recognized only by Nicaragua. Much of the remaining southern Caucasus, with its natural resources and energy corridors, is choosing its own path, while lawlessness in the northern Caucasus becomes more and more pervasive by the day. "The Kremlin hasn't the slightest idea what to do next in this region," says Moscow political scientist Malashenko.

It is only on the Armenian border with Turkey, in the village of Lusarat at the foot of snow-covered Mt. Ararat, that the farmers appreciate the Russians, referring to them as "brothers who protect us." Moscow's troops are protecting the Armenian border, and Russia is training Armenian officers and supplying the country with almost all of the natural gas it needs. It owns the pipelines in Armenia, most of the country's power plants, the largest mobile network operator and even the government-run savings banks.

But 80 percent of Armenia's exports pass through Georgia. Because of the Russian-Georgian war, the government in Yerevan has recognized how economically isolated the mountainous country is, prompting it to cautiously approach reconciliation with archenemy Turkey. It has also moved forward with plans to reopen the border with Azerbaijan, closed since the 1993 war between the two countries. If that happens, a new bridge could be built across the river that forms the border at Lusarat, opening up a new point of entry for tourists and trade.

A village resident sits at a table in the shade of an apple tree. Whenever he receives a call on his mobile phone, he hears a curt voice, instead of the standard ring tone, that says: "Comrade, pick up the phone. Stalin wants to talk to you." The humble outpost of Lusarat is all that is left, on the border with a NATO country, to bear witness to the empire of the former Soviet dictator, a native Georgian. Every year, on a day set aside to honor the border troops, the villagers embrace the Russian soldiers and bring them apricots and apples.

If Moscow had its way, every village in the Caucasus would be like Lusarat. But not even at the Kremlin does anyone believe that the past can repeat itself.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.

URL:

• http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,640252,0...

Russia's economy

A new sick man

Jun 4th 2009 | CHELYABINSK
From The Economist print edition

The crisis is dire, but that does not mean that the Kremlin is about to lose control. On the contrary

TASS

 

ON A recent Friday night the beau monde of Chelyabinsk, the industrial armpit of Russia known during the war as Tankograd, drove out to the edge of town for the gala opening of a new Mercedes dealership. Inside the neon-lit avtosalon, half-naked dancers covered in silver paint and goosebumps greeted the city’s dressed-up business elite. Girls in sparkling skirts tap-danced. A Vladimir Putin lookalike promised “support”. The extravaganza concluded with the guests posing for cameras inside the latest Mercedes, which was unveiled by two long-legged beauties in short black dresses.

Chelyabinsk’s gala epitomises the ups and downs of the Russian economy. It was conceived a year ago when the oil price was more than $100 a barrel, the economy was growing by 8% a year and real incomes were rising twice as fast. A construction boom speckled the dreary industrial landscape with new hotels, office towers, restaurants and luxury shops. But by the time the showroom opened the oil price was down to $50, the economy had shrunk by 9.5% year on year in the first quarter of 2009, and industrial output had tumbled by almost 15%. The pace and scale of this contraction are severe even by Russian standards (see chart 1). Yet the impact on the country has so far been limited. It has neither shaken the government nor sparked industrial riots. Valery Gartung, owner of the Mercedes dealership and a member of Russia’s parliament, is taking the crisis in his stride. “I would not start building it now. But I could not stop halfway either.”

This latest exhibit of Russia’s conspicuous wealth is actually sited in Kopeisk, a mining town next to Chelyabinsk where the last mine was shut down in March. Kopeisk’s wooden houses are sagging and surrounded by litter; young men drink heavily and chase moonshine with ice-cream. A prison, a cemetery and defunct mines are the landmarks by which people give directions. “Russia is a country of contrasts,” says Mr Gartung, philosophically.

Two hours before the opening of his Mercedes dealership, Mr Gartung walks through the old forge-and-press factory where he started as a worker and which he has turned into a family business. Its main customer is a truck plant owned by Oleg Deripaska, one of the most indebted Russian tycoons. In the past few months the factory’s output has fallen by half, as have workers’ salaries. From outside the factory looks dreary and doomed. Yet shortly before the crisis it received an international standard certificate that allows it to supply any international firm. Mr Gartung’s son, who runs the factory, has installed new machinery. Mr Gartung calculates that he has two years to cut his dependence on the Russian market. He already has a contract with ZF, a maker of car-transmission systems, and is talking to Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company.

This transformation of Soviet state plants into private firms run by young MBA graduates is perhaps the biggest achievement of the Russian economy over the past two decades. It is far from complete. But it has probably gone far enough to pull businesses like Mr Gartung’s through the crisis.

 

Credit crunchski

The immediate problem for Russian businesses, small and big, is lack of credit. Despite massive injections of liquidity into the banking system, loans are hard to come by. Andrei Bukreyev, a shrewd entrepreneur who heads Chelyabinsk’s local small-business association, used to make money by converting military machinery into oil and gas equipment. His new venture involves setting up a barter system. This form of trade, which flourished in the 1990s, has come back with a vengeance. The Chelyabinsk tractor plant was recently offered 3.5m roubles-worth of condensed milk for one of its bulldozers. Apparently the deal fell through because the milk had passed its sell-by date.

The severity of the credit crunch is the price Russia is paying for failing to develop its own financial markets and to tame inflation. The two are connected: ordinary Russians feel life is too short and uncertain to put money into pension funds or insurance companies, and prefer to spend it as quickly as possible. “Nobody in Russia plans for more than two years ahead,” says Peter Aven of Alfa Bank.

The crisis has been compounded in Russia by the economy’s past overheating. Although a big chunk of oil revenues was channelled into a stabilisation fund, large state firms and many private ones borrowed heavily from foreign creditors, amassing nearly $500 billion of external debt. Most of the foreign money that flowed to Russia took the form of loans rather than direct investment, which would have required a more hospitable investment climate. To make things worse, the government increased its public spending by nearly 40%. Inevitably the economy, which is constrained by crumbling infrastructure, a dwindling workforce and pervasive corruption, could not absorb this amount of money. Inflation soared to nearly 15%.

Before the crisis, Russia’s historically high inflation barely affected firms’ borrowing costs. Russian companies and banks financed themselves abroad and interest rates were below the rate of domestic inflation. When the rouble was strong, the exchange rate mattered much more than domestic interest rates, and the central bank targeted the exchange rate rather than inflation. The strong rouble was seen as a proxy for Mr Putin’s success; but as Rory MacFarquhar, an economist at Goldman Sachs, points out, it was a currency play and not a store of value.

When foreign credit dried up and the oil price fell, Russia was caught out. After weeks of vainly trying to defend the rouble and bleeding billions of dollars of foreign reserves, the government realised that devaluation was inevitable. Yet instead of letting the rouble float, 21 tiny steps were taken, allowing the rouble to depreciate gradually until it had lost 30% of its value. This may have stopped a run on the banks and shielded Mr Putin’s image, but it was harmful to the economy, argues Sergei Guriev, the head of Russia’s New Economic School. Instead of lending to businesses, banks used the money the central bank was supplying to boost liquidity to speculate against the rouble, making billions in profits and putting more pressure on the central bank to devalue.

To prevent a massive outflow of capital, the central bank put up its interest rates—just at the time when other central banks, trying to boost their countries’ economies, were cutting them. When foreign creditors stopped lending, Russian borrowers turned to the central bank for financing, and the domestic interest rates began to matter. For many Russian firms the cost of money has gone up from 8% to 25%, making capital prohibitively expensive. The economy, deprived of cheap money, has begun to choke.

The government has been pouring money into the economy with one hand and taking it out with the other, argues Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, an economist at Troika Dialog, a bank. So although Russia’s anti-crisis fiscal package of 10% of GDP is one of the biggest in the world, he says, it has also proved one of the least effective.

Another reason banks are slow to lend is that most have only a vague idea of how much bad debt they have, and therefore how much capital they will need. Pessimistic forecasts say that the share of non-performing loans could reach 20%. The government is prepared to recapitalise the banks, but has not yet looked properly at their books.

 

A coat of silver paint

In the past few weeks credit has started to trickle through and inflation has come down slightly, helped by a rising rouble. But bringing inflation down to single-digit figures and keeping it there, as well as clearing up the banking system, requires political will. The government’s crisis programme is full of the right words—modernisation, competition, responsible spending, the evils of populism. But to implement even half of this programme would require dismantling Russia’s political system.

During the boom years Vladimir Putin, then president, took full credit for the rising commodity prices and cheap credit that spurred economic growth. The gradual destruction of Russia’s institutions and democratic freedoms, however imperfect, seemed to have little bearing on the boom. But the crisis has laid bare the flaws of Russia’s politics, which has failed to diversify the economy, create a domestic financial market or build institutions. The Russian economy is today more dependent on oil and gas than it was even ten years ago. Corruption, an old vice, has become the norm. The Kremlin’s policies have choked competition, both political and economic.

Since October 2004 the Kremlin has been appointing governors, rather than letting voters elect them. It then takes away the lion’s share of their taxes and sends some back as subsidies. This works when there is plenty of money sloshing around, but not when it is scarce and decisions need to be made fast. “We need more freedom because we know how to support our local industry best,” says one official in Chelyabinsk.

The Kremlin fears (often reasonably) that money will be stolen by local bosses. Such is the level of corruption that many of its decisions never get through the system. But it has only itself to blame. By cancelling regional elections, it has killed any competition for better governance.

To contain social discontent, the Kremlin puts heavy pressure on regional governments and firms not to lay off people or close plants, even if they are dinosaurs. A vast partly state-owned Chelyabinsk tractor plant, which narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 1998 and is run by its former Communist boss, looks like the site of an industrial horror film. It has 20,000 workers and few orders. Outside an idle workshop, against a backdrop of rusty pipes, several elderly women are taking part in a government-funded public-works scheme. They are painting the crumbling kerbs with silver paint.

State interference does much to hold back Russia’s productivity. As many Russian developers know, few projects can go ahead without kickbacks to local authorities or utilities. In many cities the mayor is also the main developer. It is common, too, for police to extract bribes from retailers. “The system rewards not the ones who are most effective, but the ones who are better connected,” says Andrei Chertov, a businessman in Chelyabinsk. “We don’t need more help from the government: we need less interference.”

This is a view supported by a recent study by McKinsey, a consultancy. It looked into five sectors of the Russian economy and found that, although productivity has improved over the past decade, it is still only 26% of American levels. Bureaucracy and corruption are stifling it. It takes six times as long to obtain construction permits in Russia as in Sweden and, despite cheaper labour and land, the cost of building a distribution centre is a third more expensive than in London, according to McKinsey. When profit margins were 25%, construction firms could afford to pay off bureaucrats. Now they cannot.

Much of Russia’s growth over the past decade was achieved by using existing capacity more efficiently. But this slack has now been taken up. The present anti-crisis measures are often geared more towards subsidising the inefficient. A prime example is Avtovaz, Russia’s infamous Lada-maker, which has been losing market share to foreign producers. Mr Putin has given it a cheque for 25 billion roubles and promised to pay for transporting Lada cars through six time-zones to Russia’s far east, where most people long ago ditched Ladas for second-hand Japanese cars. When Mr Putin raised import tariffs for what has become the staple of the local economy, the people of Vladivostok took to the streets. To suppress the protests the Kremlin had to fly in riot police from Moscow.

 

Weaker oligarchs, stronger state

In total the government promised more money to Avtovaz, which employs 100,000 people, than to the millions of unemployed across the country. The closure of Avtovaz would lead to social unrest, argued Russia’s finance minister, Alexei Kudrin. But this is not the only reason for the government’s help. Avtovaz is owned by Rostekhnologii (Russian Technologies), a powerful state military and industrial corporation headed by Sergei Chemezov, an old friend of Mr Putin. The proliferation of these opaque quasi-state structures is one of the most alarming signs that a corporatist state is emerging.

Last year Mr Chemezov lobbied successfully for the inclusion of 500 companies in his corporation—a covert privatisation, says Mr Kudrin. Many of them are heavily indebted and unprofitable, so Russian Technologies is asking the government for help. While many private firms are struggling to get credit, Russian Technologies has struck a deal with the country’s largest state banks: they will simplify lending to Russian Technologies and restructure the debt of its companies. In return, Russian Technologies will advise the banks how to manage private assets that could fall into their hands. It may then buy some of these assets.

It is already eyeing Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest nickel producer and a centrepiece of the 1990s loans-for-shares schemes. Some 40% of Norilsk’s shares are mortgaged to state banks, and Russian Technologies has already nominated its representative to Norilsk’s board. This could lead to a reversal of the 1990s loans-for-shares deals. Then, the cash-strapped government gave shares in natural-resource companies to a group of oligarchs in return for loans. Now the cash-strapped oligarchs could be forced to give up control in return for state loans.

Although some tycoons have already mortgaged their stakes, no large companies have changed hands. Sceptics say the reason for this may not be the Kremlin’s faith in the free market and private ownership, but the state’s reluctance to take on the firms’ foreign debts. The Kremlin had feared at first that strategic assets would fall into foreign hands. In fact, foreign banks have scant appetite for owning Russian industrial assets and not much choice but to restructure the firms’ debt. Once the process is complete, there may be little to stop Russian state corporations from taking over the most attractive assets. This could result in a massive transfer of property towards monopolistic quasi-state conglomerates controlled by a narrow group of the Kremlin’s friends.

The political fallout from the crisis is now the most hotly debated subject among Moscow pundits. A few months ago, Russia’s liberals predicted mass protests across the country in the spring. Towns dominated by just one factory or industry—there are more than 400 of these—would be the first to erupt. This prediction has so far been wrong, just as it was wrong during the 1998 financial crisis and, before then, in the early 1990s. A few protests have occurred, some even featuring anti-Putin slogans; but with the exception of Vladivostok, they have been small.

TASS

Struggling but not about to riot, yet

 

The main reason for this is that Russians, who have lived through many crises, are tolerant and adaptable and do not expect much from their government. For many, the crisis which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has never ended; this is simply another nasty turn. Unless the authorities push people too far, as they did in Vladivostok, mass protests seem unlikely. But Mr Putin, who remains the most important man in Russia, is also extremely adaptable and has trodden carefully. He has not threatened large companies recently and has shown kindness to small ones.

Andrei Illarionov, a former economic adviser to Mr Putin who is now one of his fiercest critics, argues that, despite its weak institutions, the all-embracing corruption and distorted competition, the Russian economy more or less works. It has low taxes and liberal regulations, which allow private firms to survive and make profits, even after paying bribes. Moreover, Russia’s hostile environment has forged strong survival instincts in Russian businessmen such as Mr Gartung. For all the threats and bullying, Russian entrepreneurs will continue do business for as long as the state physically lets them.

With reserves running at $400 billion, Russia has enough cash to finance its budget deficit. Yet much will depend on the price of oil and gas. Russia’s budget is calculated on an oil price of $41 a barrel. Anything above that figure means the deficit will be less and the reserves higher. A recent rise in the oil price to nearly $70 has calmed the nerves of Russian elites, pushed up the rouble and sparked a rally in the stockmarket. Kirill Rogov of the Russian Institute of Economy in Transition says that such a price may not be enough to spur rapid economic growth, but it is enough to preserve the current political system and lull Russia into stagnation.

If the oil price again falls to $30, however, things might look very different. With less money to spread among friends, the fight between clans will intensify. A poorer Russia will not be a friendlier one. To hold on to power, the Kremlin may try to use the idea of an external threat to mobilise the country. But with most institutions consumed by corrosion, it may have to resort to harder repression.

La flotte militaire construit une base en Abkhazie

29 juin, Courrier international

Le 25 juin, le commandant en chef de la flotte militaire russe Vladimir Vyssotski a annoncé le début de la construction d’une base militaire de la flotte de la mer Noire russe à Otchamtchira, en Abkhazie. Sa mise en service est prévue pour 2012. Tbilissi proteste et affirme que la Russie “réalise ainsi son vieux rêve, qui n’est qu’une agression ouverte [contre la Géorgie]”, écrit le site d’information géorgien Abkhazeti.info. Selon Vladimir Vyssotski, compte tenu de la profondeur insuffisante de la baie d’Otchamtchira, la base “n’accueillera pas de grands bâtiments”, mais simplement “quelques groupes tactiques” et “de petits navires”. Et, en aucun cas, elle ne pourra remplacer la base russe de Sébastopol, en Crimée.

Néanmoins, des travaux d’aménagement de la baie pourraient permettre de résoudre en partie ce problème. “A l’époque soviétique, Otchamtchira accueillait des navires garde-côtes”, rappelle Abkhazeti.info. “Puis, en 1996, les Russes s’en sont retirés à la demande de la Géorgie, et ont installé cette flottille à Kaspiisk, au Daghestan. Enfin, en octobre 2008 [à la suite de la reconnaissance de l’indépendance de l’Abkhazie et de l’Ossétie du Sud par Moscou, en août 2008], le président séparatiste abkhaze Sergueï Bagapch a proposé à la Russie de revenir à Otchamtchira."

Les Etats-Unis sauvent leur base militaire de Manas, au Kirghizstan

LE MONDE | 23.06.09 | 15h22 • Mis à jour le 23.06.09 | 15h22
MANAS (KIRGHIZSTAN) ENVOYÉE SPÉCIALE

e colonel américain Blaine Holt vivait, jusqu'au lundi 22 juin, des journées étranges. Commandant de la 376e aile expéditionnaire aérienne qui assure, à partir du Kirghizstan, d'importants approvisionnements de l'OTAN en Afghanistan, il flottait dans l'incertitude la plus totale. Ses quelque mille hommes allaient-ils devoir plier bagage de la base de Manas avant le mois d'août et quitter ces contrées d'Asie centrale où les Etats-Unis ont pris pied en 2001 lors du renversement du régime taliban à Kaboul ?

La réponse est tombée : c'est non. Lundi, les Etats-Unis et le Kirghizstan sont parvenus à un accord permettant de préserver Manas, base aérienne cruciale pour les opérations en Afghanistan. Ce tournant constitue un revers pour la Russie, qui avait obtenu en février que le président kirghize ordonne l'évacuation par les Américains, sous un délai de 180 jours. Moscou avait offert en échange une aide financière de 2 milliards de dollars au Kirghizstan.

Le "sauvetage" de Manas représente un succès pour l'administration de Barack Obama, qui a érigé l'Afghanistan en front "numéro un" de la guerre contre le terrorisme djihadiste. Dans le cadre du renfort des troupes américaines (21 000 hommes supplémentaires à déployer d'ici la fin de l'année), la base jouait un rôle considérable.

D'intenses tractations se déroulaient ces dernières semaines pour tenter de préserver ce point d'appui stratégique sur la "route du Nord" qui permet, à partir des territoires de l'ex-URSS, d'envoyer en Afghanistan d'énormes quantités de matériel et de carburant pour les troupes combattant les talibans. Une route qui offre une alternative stratégique à celle du Sud, passant par le Pakistan, pays instable.

Le président Obama et son homologue afghan avaient chacun écrit une lettre au dirigeant kirghize, Kourmanbek Bakiev, pour l'inciter à revenir sur sa décision de fermeture. Washington était aussi discrètement entré en pourparlers sur le montant de nouveaux versements financiers.

Mais un acteur relativement inattendu a aussi joué un rôle. La France menait, en effet, ces derniers jours, une mission de bons offices en Asie centrale. L'émissaire spécial de Nicolas Sarkozy pour l'Afghanistan et le Pakistan, Pierre Lellouche, qui effectue une tournée dans la région, s'était entretenu dimanche avec le président kirghize. Les consultations étaient également étroites avec le représentant spécial de M. Obama pour l'"AfPak", Richard Holbrooke.

Les Kirghizes semblaient sensibles à une implication européenne. La France est, pour sa part, concernée au premier chef par le sort de Manas, puisqu'elle entretient depuis 2001 sur cette base un détachement (33 militaires aujourd'hui) chargé d'assurer les opérations d'un avion ravitailleur C-135 soutenant l'ensemble des bombardiers et des appareils de renseignements survolant en permanence le théâtre des opérations en Afghanistan.

Le nouvel accord entre les Etats-Unis et le Kirghizstan devait être rapidement validé - peut-être mardi - par le Parlement de la République ex-soviétique dont le jeu diplomatique a consisté, ces dernières années, à jouer de la rivalité entre Washington et Moscou en Asie centrale pour faire monter les enchères. Il comporte, selon nos informations, trois volets principaux, reflétant les doléances kirghizes ayant mené en février à l'annonce de l'éviction des Américains.

Washington devrait nouer un "partenariat" plus large avec le Kirghizstan et doubler la somme versée pour l'utilisation de Manas (elle sera portée à près de 150 millions de dollars). Des discussions pourraient s'engager pour aboutir à un accord sur le statut des forces américaines stationnées dans le pays, comme en Irak.

La mort d'un Kirghize, voilà deux ans, abattu par des gardes américains alors qu'il s'était aventuré dans le périmètre de sécurité de la base, était brandie par le pouvoir local comme une illustration du "peu de considération" que les Etats-Unis réservaient au pays.

"Bienvenue sur la frontière de la liberté", dit un panneau à l'entrée des bureaux du commandant Holt, à Manas. La base étale sous un soleil de plomb ses rangées de baraquements en préfabriqué, blancs et sans fenêtres. Cantine, salles de sports et jeux vidéos, hangars volumineux, centre de renseignements. L'étendue des installations, qui peuvent accueillir jusqu'à 5 000 hommes, donne la mesure de l'importance de la base pour l'opération militaire qui se poursuit plus au sud.

C'est, dit le colonel Holt, "le premier point d'entrée pour nos troupes se rendant en Afghanistan, et le premier point de sortie". Des dizaines de milliers de soldats américains ont transité ici. C'est de Manas que l'armée américaine fait décoller ses gros avions ravitailleurs KC-135 vers l'Afghanistan. Pour des raisons logistiques (longueur de la piste, situation géographique), elle était difficilement remplaçable.

Le pouvoir kirghize a donc opéré un virage à 180 degrés. En février, il avait cédé aux pressions que la Russie exerçait depuis des mois, arc-boutée sur sa logique de reprise de contrôle des territoires de l'ex-URSS. Le Kirghizstan, dont l'économie va à vau-l'eau - victime notamment du pillage auquel se livre la famille du président Bakiev -, était particulièrement vulnérable.

En 2005, Moscou avait poussé l'Ouzbékistan voisin à expulser les militaires américains basés à Khanabad. Récemment, les régimes de la région se sont employés à retrouver une marge de manoeuvre. Moscou et Washington se sont en outre engagés dans de grandes discussions stratégiques à l'approche du voyage de M. Obama, prévu début juillet.

L'Ouzbékistan envisage désormais d'élargir sa coopération avec Washington, en développant le site de Termez, par lequel transitent de longs convois de camions, avec notamment une partie du combustible destiné aux forces de l'OTAN.

Natalie Nougayrède
Des groupes talibans remontent vers l'Asie centrale

L'actuelle offensive de l'armée pakistanaise contre les groupes djihadistes dans les zones tribales qui bordent l'Afghanistan pourrait pousser des groupes talibans vers l' Asie centrale menaçant ainsi les routes d'approvisionnement de l'OTAN en Afghanistan.

Des groupes extrémistes armés ont été signalés ces dernières semaines dans la région de Kunduz, au nord de l'Afghanistan, près de la frontière tadjike par laquelle passent de nombreux convois. Certains auraient même pénétré au Tadjikistan, selon des services de renseignement occidentaux, et se sont heurtés à l'armée tadjike.

Le point de passage de Termez-Hairaton entre l'Ouzbékistan et l'Afghanistan, autre voie de transit pour le ravitaillement de l'OTAN, est également très exposé, faisant de la "route du nord", selon les analystes, une zone aussi vulnérable aux attaques djihadistes que le col de Khyber, au Pakistan.

Russia and the West: a liberal view

Lilia Shevtsova, 3 - 11 - 2008

| | | | | | | |

Relations between Russia and the West should be analysed in a broader context, believes Lilia Shevtsova. She asks some very hard-hitting questions about Russia today on both the international and the domestic stage, not least of her fellow ‘respected colleagues' in the field of foreign policy.Lilia Shevtsova tells us why Russia acts so often to the detriment of her own reputation in her role on the international stage, and why this detriment is regarded by some as a triumph.

The Polit.ru and Open Democracy discussion of issues of international relations has inspired me to offer another view. I should like to consider the relations between Russia and the West, but in the context of civilisational norms and standards.  It seems to me that outside this context and without considering the link between foreign and domestic policy, it is difficult, or even impossible, to explain the logic of Russia's behaviour on the international stage, and the state of her relations with the world.  The link is essential for an understanding of why Russia acts so often to the detriment of her own reputation in her role on the international stage, and why this detriment is regarded by some as a triumph.

Foreign policy as a means of protecting the System

Over the last few years in Russia we have seen, as Sergei Karaganov rightly noted, the "rapid ascent of foreign policy".   But how does it manifest itself? Primarily in the actions of Moscow towards containing the West, in the attempts to stop the movement of new independent nations towards Europe, and in the Kremlin's constant striving to give a negative response to any initiatives or actions by the West.

What is the goal of this doctrine, which can be defined as the "Doctrine of Putin-Medvedev-Lavrov", named after its main architects and chief  propagandist, who also occasionally speaks as a foreign policy ideologist? The goal is clear - to create conditions in which the current system in Russia can be preserved and reproduce itself, and to achieve its legitimization by the international community. This is the goal of the foreign policy efforts of any country. Applied to Russia, it involves legitimizing a system, which is based on a regime of personalised power and a bureaucratic model of capitalism which survives by the sale of raw material resources.

In recent years, the role of foreign policy in the strengthening of the Russian system has increased dramatically, which is evidence of the inadequacy of its internal resources   By portraying their corporate interests as the national interests of Russia, the Russian elite has succeeded in using foreign policy to form a consensus which includes even critics of the regime. Patriotism, focused on the idea of finding an enemy and opposing the hostile surroundings, has proved to be a very successful, although not a new, idea of consolidation.

The Kremlin has tried out different models for looking after its international interests. During Boris Yeltsin's presidency and early on in Putin's term, the political class tried to incorporate Russia into the framework of the Western community, but with its own "rules", hoping that Russia would be included in the "West" without dissolving in it, i.e. without adopting Western standards, in short without assimilation. This attempt was doomed to fail - what civilization would agree to incorporate a foreign body which would destroy it from within?  The "colour revolutions" of 2004-2005 came as a shock to the Kremlin and compelled the Russian political class to seek a new survival model by distancing itself from the West, while at the same time containing it.  Explaining Russia's new position, Sergei Lavrov put forward the idea of an international "trio" - the USA, the EU and Russia, which could "steer the world boat".

President Dmitry Medvedev made his contribution to the Russian doctrine of foreign policy when he spoke about Russia's sphere of "privileged interests".   His elaboration made everything clear: this is a kind of post-modernism which includes a return to the Yalta order and balance of power, but Russia and the West are partners (on the issues that Moscow considers to be of common interest), and the West will not intervene in the internal affairs of Russia and its sphere of influence. In short, the world is offered a return to traditional geopolitics, but without the value vector. This is the "de-ideologisation of international relations" which Dmitry Medvedev talks about.

However, there is no unity in the Kremlin about how to present the differences between Russia and the West, if Lavrov considers it appropriate to say that "value systems and models of development" are at the heart of the competition between Russia and the West, forgetting to clarify what it is that Russia can offer the world.   Essentially, the Russian ruling group is trying to combine the incompatible in the sphere of foreign policy.  They want to be with the West and against it at the same time, i.e. the things they do within the country, mixing absolute rule and elections, the market and the advantages of administrative office. In practice, this means trying to have a selective partnership with the West while preserving standards of development in Russian society, which are alien to the West. Moreover, by trying to maintain within the country the status quo guaranteeing the power of the bureaucratic corporation, the Kremlin is attempting to review the status quo established on the world stage after the fall of the USSR.

What we have here is a survival model for a political class which tries to enjoy the benefits of the Western world, and integrates into it on a personal level very successfully, but at the same time rejects its principles. This model of relationships works on the principle that pragmatism is everything and principles are nothing. Moscow may defend the integrity of Serbia until it is blue in the face, but at the same time undermine the integrity of Georgia and threaten to split Ukraine. Russia may take part in the G8 and the Russia-NATO Council, but at the same time consider the West, and above all the USA, to be its enemies.

It must be admitted that the Russian ruling group is very successful in implementing its doctrine of being "with the West and against it".  By exploiting the disorientation of the Western world and the cynicism of Western leaders who are inclined to double standards, the Kremlin has been able to turn the West into a factor of life in Russia, putting it at the heart of the political regime and facilitating its continuation. Caught out unawares by the initiatives of the Russian ruling group, Western society has, unexpectedly for itself, become the guarantor of the survival of the Russian moneyed interest class, the raw model of capitalism and authoritarian power, which is founded on anti-Western rhetoric. The Kremlin has managed to use liberal-democratic civilization to support an anti-liberal phenomenon which has begun to have a destructive effect on the West itself, not only threatening its geopolitical interests, but corrupting its business and political class. The co-opting of representatives of the Western political class is not only limited to the recruitment of former Chancellor Schroeder, who has become a functionary of Gazprom. The Russian elite have numerous ways of testing the puritanism and moral stability of the Western elite, and compelling it to work in their own interests.

On the Western view of Russia and the West

Without claiming to make a comprehensive analysis of Western experts' views on Russia and the relations between the West and Russia, I will try to single out the most interesting or popular points of view. What do Western analysts say about the causes of the cooling in relations between Russia and the West? Serious experts understand the essence of the matter, as we see in the two brilliant essays by Sir Roderic Lyne ("Reading Russia, Rewiring the West", "Russia and the West: is confrontation inevitable?"). Among the reasons for the cooling in relations, Sir Roderic mentions the rift of values between Russia and the West, and of course he is right. At the same time, let us ask ourselves another question: how is it that even China, which is openly authoritarian, can have relations with the West that are successful, sometimes even achieving partnership status?  This means it is not simply that society is differently regulated, or that there is absolute rule.  How the absolute rule is effected is also important.  The Chinese elite solves this problem and the task of advancing China by embracing the West and gentle integration into the international community. The Russian elite has returned to great power nationalism, which involves a somewhat different method both of the preservation of power and the organization of society. Great power nationalism  implies not only absolute rule, but expansionism and reliance on force to justify this rule.  It also includes creating an image of Russia as a besieged fortress, which does not mean integration with, but rather rejection of, the Western world.

There are many commentators in the West who have fallen under the influence of the thesis that is actively promoted by Kremlin experts as an explanation of Russian aggression.  This is the so-called "humiliation of Russia" in the 1990s, now portrayed as a justification for the inevitability of "revenge" and "retribution". Even Thomas Graham, one of the leading experts on Russia in Washington and until recently George W. Bush's advisor on Russia, has fallen into this trap. But allow me to ask the people who talk about the "humiliation" of Russia, why is it only now that the Russian elite has remembered its "humiliation" ? Why did it not mention this humiliation in 2002, say, when Putin and Bush were talking about their partnership? And if our Western friends are so worried about the well-being of the Russian nation, then why don't they advise representatives of the Russian elite to use a more effective way of overcoming this humiliation - by building a prosperous society, and not by restoring spheres of influence?

There are many commentators in the West, particularly in Europe, who emphatically blame the West for the crisis in relations with Russia.  They criticise the West, and especially America, of course, for NATO expansion, the Kosovo precedent, for the "colour revolutions" organised by the West, and for the ABMs in Poland and the Czech Republic. However, they evidently do not give any thought to why the West's concern corresponds so surprisingly to the accusations of the Kremlin.  Perhaps the anti-Americanism of Western critics of Western policy towards Russia will prove to be stronger than suspicion of the Russian elite. Perhaps they are afraid of offending Russia, without being able to distinguish between Russian society and the Russian elite. In this case,  Russia's well-wishers in the West should be reminded that,  by supporting the Kremlin's arguments, they are voluntarily offering assistance to the ruling class, which uses anti-Western, and especially anti-American, rhetoric to preserve a regime which cares nothing about Russia. Ultimately, these "friends of Russia" are doing the same as the Western politicians and experts who call for the isolation of Russia - they are helping the authoritarian regime solve the problems of its own preservation.

But at the same time, the West really does have a share of responsibility for the state of relations with Russia and the course she has taken.   The West's focus on personal relations with the Kremlin, the wish for stability in Russia at any price and the desire to use Russia as a raw materials resource only facilitate the continuation of an anti-Western system in Russia.

Two more popular views among Western analysts may be identified, again, by strange coincidence, the favourite arguments of pro-Kremlin experts. The first is that "Russia is not ready for democracy". Yes, the political thinking of Russians is still divided, and contains mutually exclusive values. But a large number of Russians are already prepared to move towards a freer and more competitive society. Surveys among the Russian elite of the second rank show that 45.5% also support the ideas of liberal democracy. The question is only when the democratically-minded groups will be motivated to consolidate. Upholding the myth that Russians are not ready for democracy only hinders this process.

The second favourite thesis of Western analysts is that democracy in Russia will come after capitalism, which is the determining factor. The development of civilisation would appear to have proved the truth of this Marxist thesis. But Russia, from all appearances, disproves this axiom. Here the development of capitalism and swift economic growth is accompanied by a move not towards democracy, but in the opposite direction. Although how can this be called capitalism, if the economy is intertwined with the regime? The middle class, in which supporters of the "capitalism first" theory place their hopes, also does not show any desire for innovation, but supports the authoritarian regime and nationalist ideology. And this is no surprise: the Russian middle class is to a large extent a group that services the state and state corporations. In short, Russia's development, and particularly the fact that its capitalism cannot cope with the growing crisis, shows that here the "determining factor" is after all policy and the reform of the state.

And finally, the last and most important thing. The West has yet to go beyond the boundaries of Realpolitik in relations with Moscow - the policy of emphasis on interests, essentially taking standards and principles outside its dealings with Russia. Western political circles over the last ten years have taken a stance of standing back and passive observation, as if to say: "Let's watch them muddling along. The main thing is to solve our problems jointly with them." One of the most prominent "realists", Robert Blackwill, has formulated the credo of the USA in relations with Russia: "The USA has problems, above all with Iran. So we need to have good relations with Russia. Any criticism of Moscow and ‘our concern about their democracy' will affect our cooperation on Iran." But Washington's attempts to make a deal with Moscow on Iran, or any other deal in exchange for refraining from criticising Moscow, all came to nothing.  The "old" Europeans adopted a similar policy towards Russia, but this also did not help them avoid a cooling in relations with Moscow, and unconcealed mocking disdain towards Europe and Brussels from the Russian elite. Poor Sarkozy was given a very clear understanding of the Kremlin's level of respect  during his attempts to implement the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan. In a word, it was while the  "realists" in Western politics were in control that relations between the West and Russia collapsed, and the confrontation between Russia and the USA began.

Today the West is once more thinking about its Russian policy model. Steven Sestanovich in the latest issue of "Foreign Affairs" proposes the following formula for US policy towards Russia: "selective engagement and selective containment". However, this formula does not make it clear whether the West is able to assist in the transformation of Russia. Without this transformation, the West will have ever fewer opportunities for "engagement" with Russia. And there will be no transformation of Russia either if the West continues to stand on the shore, wondering whether the country will sink or swim...

In his turn, Roderic Lyne proposes a model which includes an element of conditionality: "we need to keep means of encouragement and possibilities of partnership ready in case Russia begins to move towards modernization in future." This model includes an element of Western support for the modernization of Russia. But the devil is in the detail - and it all depends how the West understands "conditionality", and whether this model will work without the policy of "containing" the traditionalism of the Russian elite. I repeat: the West has many ways of influencing this elite, whose members have many personal contacts and ties in the West. We should ask ourselves why the West is not trying to do this yet.

Ultimately, in its approach to Russia the West will have to choose between the paradigms advanced by the eternal antagonists, Kissinger and Brzezinski. The former is welcome in Moscow and is a partner of the Russia authorities in the formation of relations with America. The latter is persona non grata in the Kremlin, and virtually considered Russia's greatest enemy.  Kissinger, who follows his beloved Realpolitik, about which the people at the Kremlin feel the same, argues that "attempts to influence the political evolution of Russia should not be overdone". Incidentally, there is one argument which supporters of Realpolitik like to use - they love quoting George Kennan, who did not believe that the Russians were ready for democracy.

Brzezinski, on the contrary, suggests the West should "create the external conditions" which will enable the Kremlin too to understand "democracy is in its interests". At present, the West prefers to listen to Kissinger, as if they haven't noticed that Kissingerism has already led them into a dead end.

After Dmitry Medvedev was elected president, the West waited, hoping for a change in rhetoric, and greater Kremlin desire to negotiate on questions which cause mutual irritation. But these hopes disappeared after the Caucasian war in August 2008 and if anyone in the West still has them, they are people with no understanding of the logic of Russian power. For in order to look strong in the eyes of the elite and society, Medvedev must continue the previous policy of getting the country "off its knees" - whatever his personal views on Russia and the world. This is also the logic of power which forces the master of the Kremlin to put a cordon around Russia. The global financial crisis has forced Moscow to tone down its anti-Western rhetoric. But its systemic sources remain.

Russian experts on Russia and the West

I shall try to respond to the ideas of a number of Russian analysts who are outstanding experts working in the field of foreign policy. They are Alexei Arbatov, Sergey Karaganov, Fyodor Lukaynov and Dmitry Trenin. These experts influence the perception of Russia and Russian policy both in Russia and the West, and so their views are worthy of attention. There are many subtle observations in their arguments with which one cannot disagree. But there is also an idea running through these arguments, which I would like to dispute in the format of a friendly and respectful polemic.

The general thrust of the statements by these authors is the following: relations between Russia and the West are bad, and the blame for this lies primarily (or conclusively) with the West, above all the USA. What exactly is the West to blame for?  Expansion into the sphere of Russia's legitimate interests, ideologisation of its attitude towards Russia (the West is trying to teach us democracy - L.S.).   Our respected authors, to a greater or lesser degree, cannot endure NATO, believing it to be a relict of the cold war, and one of the main tools for restarting it. The expansion of NATO, as Arbatov put it, is the "original sin", from which all the problems between Russia and the West stem.  Karaganov even suggests that "recently our country has become the target for a Western attack."

These accusations, however, give rise to a number of questions. Firstly, the authors turn Russia into a passive object of Western influence, which is forcing our country into a corner. Does this mean they deny that Russia has become an independent entity in international relations? If so, how about the assertions of Russia's  "foreign policy rise", and the aspiration to rule the world as part of a "trio" together with the USA and the EU? All right then, we'll agree that the West dreams only of weakening Russia. But why does the West want a weak, and certainly a damaged, angry and aggressive Russia, rattling its nuclear weapons? Are they all suicidal in the West? Secondly, why do the authors consider that Western civilization coming closer to Russia is a threat, and not a benefit for Russian society? Don't they think that we can learn something from a more developed and prosperous community?

As for NATO being Russia's main enemy, here too I have some questions for my colleagues. If NATO is a mortal enemy, why does Russia cooperate with its enemy on the Russia-NATO Council? I would also like my colleagues to explain to us why NATO is more dangerous than nuclear Iran and China on the Russian border. I would refer the reader, and also our experts, to the articles of General Vladimir Dvorkin, who conclusively proves that NATO (and also ABMs, he adds) do not present any military threat to Russia, and that harping on about this threat is just "horror stories and fairytales for dilettantes here and abroad." But NATO, says Dvorkin, represents for the regime a threat to its concept of civilisation, as it provides its members with an opportunity to connect with European civilization.

So this is what the problem turns out to be. The expansion of NATO and its approach to the borders of Russia is really a threat for our elite, because it means that Russia is girdled by a belt of democratic states which may be a bad example for Russian citizens. I would advise the experts who are particularly concerned about NATO and its expansion to talk to General Dvorkin on this topic.

Some of our experts are convinced that the West is trying to "undermine the modernization of Russia". In fact, Alexander Auzan, a respectable liberal expert,  accuses the West of undermining modernisation in Russia in a lecture published on Polit.ru. But if the West has already disrupted modernisation, then that means that President Medvedev's modernisation program is a complete bluff! And if the West can undermine reform in Russia so easily, then this is further proof that Putin was not able to make Russia a sovereign country. In that case, our leaders, and our experts with them, have no grounds to consider Russia a "world centre". And finally, why does the West need to undermine Russian modernisation, if this means that traditionalist forces remain in power, or perhaps even more anti-Western forces come to power?

Where do our experts see the solution? In agreeing new rules for the relationship between Russia and the West with the West taking account of Russia's demands. This idea is formulated most clearly by Dmitry Trenin: The West should build relations with Russia on Russia's terms, "achieve an acceptable balance of mutual concessions, and not be guided by certain normative principles such as the presence or absence of democratic reforms". In other words, the West should base its policy towards Russia on interests, not values. But if this "agreement is not reached, then the inertia of the diplomacy of force and the heat of anti-Western rhetoric will push Russia... to confrontation". A reply to these arguments has already been given above: Realpolitik did not prevent the confrontation between Russia and the West. Neither Bush nor other Western leaders even tried to teach Russia democracy. But this did not help mutual understanding. Furthermore, the ideas of the Kremlin and Western capitals about "common interests" sometimes turned out to be diametrically opposed. Perhaps this proves that interests do actually arise out of the values which it is proposed we should forget? And if the West follows the advice of our experts and forgets about the problem of values in relations with Russia, might this mean that the gulf between Russia and the West only increases?

According to Lukyanov, "the only correct (!) policy is to build up our own strength" in order to oppose the "hostile external environment" In an article in the Washington Post, Arbatov goes even further and explains how this strength can be used, based on a policy of "an eye for an eye" in relation to the USA.  "What is allowed for the USA will be allowed for Russia". This means that if American ships enter the Black Sea, Russian ships will enter the Caribbean. If the Americans build bases around Russia, Russia will do the same in Latin America. Before we agree with our belligerent experts, let's think about what this means: Russia with its GDP of $1.3 trillion will have to deal with the USA which has a GDP of $13 trillion and a military budget of around $600 billion (the Russian military budget is 25 times less).  How do our experts see the result of the Russian "symmetrical" response in this situation?  How should Russia continue to "build up forces" at present, when the country is in a state of crisis? Or perhaps  our respected experts simply want to frighten the West, and all this rhetoric is not serious? But if it's not serious, it is a chance for our Western colleagues to use Russia for sarcasm practice,  which is what many of them are doing. If the West does take this rhetoric seriously, it will respond with an arms race which Russia will not be able to win. Or haven't our colleagues thought this through?

Incidentally, our authors don't want to look like propagandists, and they evidently realize the strength of their arguments. It is not for nothing that Karaganov, in the same article, praises "authoritarian capitalism" (in Russia - LS), and talks of its readiness in the struggle for "moral supremacy"(!), but at the same time is forced to admit that "the majority of factors which have determined the achievements of Russia are fraught with serious problems in the long-term". Then what our chances in the struggle for supremacy? Lukyanov, who recently told us about "building up our forces", is now worried about how to avoid an "unnecessary confrontation" with the USA. But "building up forces" is the path towards confrontation, and if it needs to be avoided, then why build them up? Isn't it time to advise the regime to think about changing their policy?

Our experts often struggle with logic, often without any visible success. Arbatov proposes a "strategic line of Russian policy" towards the Ukraine - "to bring about a swift and decisive change in the attitude of the Ukrainian political elite towards NATO as the guarantor of its territorial integrity and sovereignty, and towards Russia as the threat to these values." I should be very interested to know how Russia intends to do this after the war with Georgia. It is unclear how an authoritarian state might offer guarantees to a country which is attempting, if not always successfully, to build democracy. And we should remember that we are discussing a country where all the elites, even Viktor Yanukovich, Rinat Akhmetov and the entire Donbass group, aspire to join Europe.

And one more thing: all our respected experts always speak on behalf of Russia: "Russia will not permit", "Russia proposes a deal" etc. I should like to clarify on behalf of which Russia they are speaking. Whose interests do they represent exactly? Are they sure that society and the vast majority of the elite thinks the same way they do? I would recommend them to familiarize themselves with the results of a survey of the population and the elite, including the studies by Mikhail Afanasiev and Andrei Melvill. These studies show that in both society and the Russian elite, there are ideas about the West, and about how Russia should build relations with the West, which are very different from the ideas which our experts present as the "voice of Russia".

Essentially, our authors, in offering us a Russian version of Realpolitik, are trying to prove to the West and to Russia that there is a need for new international rules of play. This means rules which would allow today's Russia with its corrupt authorities and "petrol" economy to survive and reproduce itself in comfort. In a word, we are dealing with an attempt to set out and rationalize a protective doctrine, which aims to protect an anti-liberal and anti-Western system. The respected colleagues know full well what kind of system this is, and the principles it works on.

But now let's think: will the arguments of our protectors help in the understanding of how Russia moves and its relations with the West? Probably not, as they only take account of the interests of the ruling group, and not even all of the elite, let alone Russian society. If these arguments are accepted, will they help to build more stable relations between Russia and the West? Probably not, as the self-preservation of this system requires the rejection of the West as an alien civilization. Will the protective doctrine help the modernization of Russia? Once again, no, for it has the goal of protecting a traditional state which rejects reforms.

And at the same time, debate with representatives of the protective school in our community of experts is beneficial, as it helps to formulate the liberal positions for Russian statehood on the international stage. We will continue this debate, and I hope that the colleagues I have argued with today will join the re-evaluation process.

Quand Moscou fait sa com'

LE MONDE | 17.02.09 | 14h11 • Mis à jour le 17.02.09 | 14h11

u mois de janvier, la note de téléphone a été salée à GPlus Europe. Plusieurs dizaines de fois par jour, au pic de la crise gazière entre l'Ukraine et la Russie, les experts de cette société de relations publiques basée à Londres et Bruxelles ont été en ligne avec le Kremlin et le siège du gouvernement à Moscou. A l'autre bout du fil, devant leurs ordinateurs, s'affairaient les plus hauts responsables russes chargés de la communication auprès de Dmitri Medvedev et de Vladimir Poutine. Leur objectif : être réactifs ; dénoncer la responsabilité de Kiev dans le contentieux ; alimenter la presse mondiale. C'est fait : la Russie est entrée dans l'ère des "PR", les public relations.

"Auparavant, en période de crise, les Russes avaient tendance à se replier en disant "personne ne nous aime", explique Tim Price, un des cinquante experts de GPlus Europe. Maintenant, ils n'arrêtent pas de s'exprimer. Avant Noël déjà, les dirigeants de Gazprom étaient venus en Europe pour prévenir qu'il existait un différend avec l'Ukraine, qui allait finir par poser de gros problèmes." Depuis, les communiqués, les conférences de presse de Gazprom et des responsables politiques russes se sont succédé à une cadence quotidienne.

Les "PR" ne peuvent pas faire de miracle : impossible de maquiller la brutalité en bonne volonté, la culture de l'opacité en transparence. Selon un sondage réalisé dans 21 pays auprès de 13 000 personnes par GlobeScan pour la BBC, l'image de la Russie s'est sérieusement dégradée en 2008 (42 % d'opinions négatives, +8 % en un an). Mais dans cette crise gazière, les importateurs européens du gaz n'ont pas tenu Moscou pour unique responsable de la crise. Grâce à une meilleure maîtrise de la communication, les autorités russes ont souligné le désordre politique en Ukraine ; sur le plan intérieur, ils ont aussi pu passer sous silence, dans les journaux télévisés préparés sous la dictée, les secousses sociales de la crise économique.

Et pour parler aux médias occidentaux, qui de mieux que d'anciens journalistes ? L'équipe de GPlus Europe, spécialisée dans les questions européennes, regroupe de nombreuses signatures : Bernard Volker, ancien pilier du service international de TF1 ; Philippe Lemaître, correspondant du Monde à Bruxelles pendant trente-cinq ans ; Angus Roxburgh, ancien correspondant du Sunday Times et de la BBC à Moscou, puis à Bruxelles ; John Wyles, dix-huit ans au Financial Times ; Michael Tscherny, qui a commencé sa carrière bruxelloise au quotidien Agence Europe ; Nigel Gardner, à l'origine journaliste et producteur sur la BBC, cofondateur de l'agence GPlus fin 2000 avec Peter Guilford. Celui-ci a été correspondant du Times à Bruxelles pendant trois ans, avant de faire carrière dans les instances communautaires.

Lors de ce nouveau conflit avec l'Ukraine, la priorité du pouvoir russe a été de ne pas renouveler les erreurs de la première crise du gaz, début 2006. "Il y avait beaucoup de manques à l'époque, reconnaît Dmitri Peskov, chef du service de presse du premier ministre, Vladimir Poutine. On avait sous-estimé la nécessité d'éclaircir ce qui se passait."

La Russie avait brutalement coupé l'approvisionnement de l'Ukraine, sans effort d'explication à l'attention des Européens. Kiev avait alors plié en quelques jours et accepté de nouveaux tarifs, mais l'image du régime de Vladimir Poutine avait été sérieusement écornée. "A l'époque, Gazprom avait un vrai problème à gérer, mais la perception de ce problème à l'étranger le préoccupait moins", se souvient Tom Blackwell, vice-président et chef du bureau à Moscou de la firme PBN, qui travaillait alors pour Gazprom.

Pour la Russie, cette affaire était tombée au plus mauvais moment, à quelques mois de la tenue inédite du sommet du G8, à Saint-Pétersbourg, qui devait symboliser le grand retour du pays sur la scène internationale. Pour faire de ce sommet une réussite médiatique, le Kremlin avait décidé de s'engager avec les firmes Ketchum - chargée de l'Amérique du Nord et du Japon - et GPlus Europe, qui appartiennent toutes deux au géant du secteur, Omnicom Group. Le contrat - renouvelé par la suite - s'élevait à plusieurs millions de dollars. A cette époque, Gazprom choisit le même prestataire pour sa communication que le gouvernement russe. On peut y voir une recherche de coordination avec le pouvoir exécutif, mais surtout une preuve supplémentaire que le géant gazier est un outil majeur de la politique étrangère russe.

Cette prise de conscience des autorités s'est enracinée dans le traumatisme des "révolutions de couleur", en 2003 et 2004, qui ont emporté les régimes ukrainien et géorgien. A l'époque, les télévisions russes clamaient que les habitants de ces pays avaient été manipulés. Leur ton fiévreux n'avait d'égal que l'effarement du Kremlin, pris au dépourvu par ces mouvements pacifiques et démocratiques. Dans le discours officiel, relayé par des experts zélés et des télévisions aux ordres, une sorte de front ennemi s'est constitué au fil des ans : il a agrégé la CIA et son homologue britannique le MI6, le philanthrope George Soros, l'opposant et ex-champion des échecs Garry Kasparov, les ONG, sans parler des Ukrainiens et des Géorgiens, ces anciens frères devenus les chevaux de Troie des intérêts étrangers. Tous voulaient empêcher le redressement de la Russie, stipulait la doxa officielle.

Pour le pouvoir russe, la guerre éclair d'août 2008 contre la Géorgie a été un test - au bilan contrasté - de la communication moderne dans un conflit ultra-médiatisé. "Moscou a tiré les leçons de la guerre d'août 2008 en Géorgie, assure Kirill Babaïev, vice-président de la société de télécommunications Altimo et spécialiste des relations publiques. Les premiers jours du conflit, la Russie avait perdu la bataille de la communication car aucun contact n'était admis avec les journalistes étrangers, tandis que les membres du gouvernement géorgien étaient en direct, 24 heures sur 24."

Au cours de ce mois d'août sous haute tension, GPlus Europe pour les Russes, l'agence Aspect pour les Géorgiens, ont inondé les adresses e-mail des journalistes étrangers. Chacun prétendait s'en tenir aux faits. La chronologie minute par minute des premières heures du conflit, le 7 août, a fait l'objet d'un affrontement particulièrement disputé entre spécialistes de la communication. "Au début, on a prétendu que les Russes gagnaient la bataille des "PR", puis que c'était les Géorgiens, affirme Tim Price, à GPlus Europe. Mais en septembre, les dirigeants géorgiens ont concédé qu'ils avaient perdu cette bataille sur un point clé : tout le monde estimait que c'était eux qui avaient commencé la guerre."

Côté géorgien, un observateur privilégié retient surtout le contraste du début de crise. "Pendant les premiers jours du conflit, nous avons eu une couverture médiatique très positive, dit-il. Les dirigeants étaient très disponibles, nous privilégiions les médias internationaux anglophones, tandis que les Russes étaient très fermés, ne communiquant que par les agences officielles."

Le recours aux firmes de relations publiques s'est généralisé dans les structures du pouvoir, mais aussi dans les grands groupes industriels. Avec leurs conseillers occidentaux, ils s'efforcent d'offrir un profil présentable à d'éventuels investisseurs et de modifier l'image persistante de l'économie russe : droits de propriété non garantis, absence de transparence actionnariale, système bancaire non réformé, etc. A Moscou, les cabinets de "PR" ont prospéré, ces dernières années. "En réalité, il y a une dizaine de compagnies sérieuses, affirme Kirill Babaïev, chez Altimo. Les autres, qui ne s'occupent que d'un ou deux clients, risquent de disparaître avec la crise."

Mais ces boîtes de "PR" ne constituent pas le seul outil choisi par Moscou pour améliorer son image. "C'est un travail constant, résume Dmitri Peskov, au gouvernement. Comme sur un vélo, il faut tout le temps pédaler pour ne pas tomber." Les autorités ont développé plusieurs initiatives, conçues en miroir aux Etats-Unis. En 2005, la Russie a décidé de lancer, à destination de l'auditoire mondial, la chaîne Russia Today, pour proposer le point de vue moscovite sur l'actualité. Pas de raison de laisser le champ libre à CNN et à la BBC ; pourtant, cette offre alternative reste de faible qualité. Autre initiative : en juin 2007, Vladimir Poutine a signé un décret créant la Fondation Russki Mir. Son objectif : "La popularisation de la langue russe et la diffusion du riche héritage culturel de la Russie dans le monde." La fondation dispose d'un budget de 20 millions de dollars.

Début 2008, enfin, a été lancé à Paris l'Institut de la démocratie et de la coopération. Voulu par Vladimir Poutine, il est dirigé par Natalia Narotchnitskaïa, ancienne députée nationaliste du parti Rodina. Pour l'heure, les activités de l'institut n'ont guère recueilli d'écho. Son objectif, encore lointain : imposer une version russe des fameux think thanks américains, comme Cato Institute ou Brookings Institution, et sortir la Russie du banc des accusés, en matière de droits de l'homme.

"Nous voulons travailler par exemple sur les droits des minorités en Europe, la question de la souveraineté, ou encore sur la mission européenne au Kosovo", explique Mme Narotchnitskaïa, qui espère "un dialogue profond sur les valeurs, et non sur de simples clichés". Les clichés, c'est le produit des médias. Et les médias, dit-elle, "c'est un outil fondamental de manipulation des masses. L'interprétation des faits est donc essentielle".

Piotr Smolar
Article paru dans l'édition du 18.02.09

Better Not To Tease “Philatelists”

Politics

In case of cold war Russia would fail much faster than the USSR did

 

Declaring recognition of independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, President Dmitry Medvedev explained that we are afraid of nothing, including the cold war perspective. In case the European partners calm down, that’s great. And if they choose a confrontation scenario, well, we have lived under different conditions, and we shall be able to go through it. This is what Medvedev said. The West also seems to be ready. It’s for the first time after the Soviet Union collapsed that the EU leaders are to consider their options of opposing Moscow, including possible sanctions.

The task is no easy, of course. To take a serious decision, the EU needs to have consent of all its members. The Congress in Washington also needs to consider and pass special bills and amendments so that to prepare an adequate response, like it was in soviet times. However, if this process gets started, it would not be possible to stop it. If the western states agree that actions by Russia in Georgia are “absolutely unacceptable” as it was defined by the German chancellor Angela Merkel, then the pressure and sanctions would be increasing on all fronts.

Moscow is sure that in case we challenge America openly the rest of the world can’t wait our intrusion on Georgia to affirm at last the desired world multi-polarity. The other popular scenario was explained by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to an astonished CNN correspondent: allegedly, the ruling in the US Republicans have undertaken this story of war with Georgia so that to enable their man to pass as a successor to George Bush.

Awakening of our daydreamers may be rather rude. The uncoordinated before West has united amazingly, while the “pitiful” NATO, compared by our Dmitry Rogozin with a philatelist society, has sent to the Black Sea a multinational squadron with the purpose of maneuvering and bringing humanitarian aid to Georgia. Incidentally, the squadron is rather small, according to NATO scale; it’s about over ten units, which is a couple per cent of their aggregate naval force. However, even this number is much stronger than our today’s remnants of the previous Black Sea Fleet.

Maybe, our leaders have forgotten that last time our country went very hardly through the cold war: the USSR collapsed and broke into pieces. After 2001 NATO has not proved to be an effective organization for struggle with Islamic terrorism. However, it was originally designed for restraining the USSR, and there is no need to invent something new. Russian intrusion on Georgia, refusal to keep the promise of quick withdrawal of the troops, given to French President, factual annexation of Abkhazia and the South Ossetia, the threat by Medvedev to make similar striking blows in case our citizens and peacemakers get endangered – all that has obviously returned a military threat to Europe from the East. And NATO is getting quickly the sense and the goal, having found a usual enemy.

Recognition of independence of the separatist Georgian regions is not only illegal in the western terms; it’s also amoral and unfair. The fake referendums about independence taken in Abkhazia and the South Ossetia cannot matter much and cannot be an expression of people’s will, as the Georgian part of population did not take part in it. Being a majority in Abkhazia, Georgians were banished by Abkhazians whose share in population was only 20%. From the European point of view, under such conditions, recognition of independence means a monstrous infringement on human rights of more than 300,000 innocent Georgians who were banished forever from their native land with just a couple of decrees signed. It would be silly expecting that after that the West can calm down and put up easily.

Today, closing ranks against Russia are left and right, realists and idealists, old and new Europe, neutral Scandinavia, America and Japan. The hope of the Kremlin’s chiefs for the multi-polar world turned out to be vain. China, Iran and Russia’s allies in ODKB and CIS decided to stay aloof and see Moscow deal with consequences alone. Actually, for those countries it is advantageous that the West now will be driving at Russia and so giving less attention to their own actions. Last week, the effort by Russia for peaceful arrangement of the conflict was apparently supported at the Shanghai Organization for Cooperation’s meeting in Dushanbe. However, with a Chinese presentation, it was confirmed officially the principal of the territorial integrity of Georgia, which is an obvious condemnation of recognition of sovereignty of Abkhazia and the South Ossetia.

Political isolation of Russia is becoming a fact. Now, on this basis the US and the leading western powers can build a financial-economic and technological isolation, at the same time creating various military threats, making us stretch out our scarce resources, wasting it in useless attempts of reanimation of military industrial complex, striving for technological, food and other kinds of self-sufficiencies. Similar strategy ruined the USSR, while the Russian Federation can be handled with even easier.

One may expect embargo for arms supply, which would undermine significantly our weapons export to India and Arabic states in the Persian Gulf, also making impossible our own rearmament. Russia is no USSR. We buy thermal imagers from France for export and for domestic needs. We buy weapons, electronic components and special materials from the US and Europe. A system of export control over high-tech equipment and double-purpose technologies might be restored, which would make it impossible any attempts of modernization of the country and development of innovative economy.

Naturally, like it was in the ‘80s with the USSR, Russia would be allowed providing the West with gas, oil and other kinds of natural resources. With the absence of other buyers (alternative pipe-lines are not constructed towards the East), Russia will have to deliver it as the money will be needed for buying food and other kinds of import. Besides, our bosses get their main personal money out of exporting the raw materials. Russia is not a WTO member, so any country can easily suppress our export, not related to gas and oil, with huge dues. Confrontation with the West would inevitably make Russia an oil and gas appendage to the West.

While our troops got stuck in Georgia and Northern Caucasus, there would be no opportunity to undertake something in the Crimea, even in case our fleet got blocked and ousted from Sevastopol. And the situation is aggravating too in Ingushetia and other places in the North Caucasus, where spread rebel underground activities are going on. As this underground is Islamic one, so far Georgians and the West have not helped them. And now, like it was in times of our occupation in Afghanistan, a temporary tactical anti-Russian alliance by Islam followers and democrats might be formed.

Over the course of a new cold war in the Black Sea water and in other places, the occasions of direct opposition by the military forces of the West and Russia might occur, though, no party would wish escalation. Instead, the West will be rendering a massive economic, financial and military aid to Georgia. Caucasus may become the field of indirect collision of another cold war, like it was about Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola and Ethiopia. The Georgian Army that has retained its main force, will be equipped with new tanks, anti-aircraft means, jet fighters and bombers, and high precise weapons. Starting from next year one may expect beginning of the large-scale subversive and partisan activities meant against Russian forces in the buffer zones in Georgia, Abkhazia and Ossetia. In response, Russia will have to increase the capacity of our garrisons in Transcaucasia spending more forces and means on strategically unpromising opposition in the Eurasian back of beyond.

The final price for “independent” Abkhazia and Ossetia and for another cold war would be final impoverishment and devastation of the Russian native lands. Well, the leaders would not notice that. Sitting in their state residences, they are ready to go through our troubles.

Pavel Felgengauer
observer of the Novaya Gazeta

04.09.2008

Tchétchénie : enquête sur un crime d'Etat

LE MONDE | 22.01.09 | 14h49 • Mis à jour le 22.01.09 | 20h24

umar Israïlov se savait menacé. Sept mois avant son assassinat par balles le 13 janvier, en pleine rue à Vienne, en Autriche, ce jeune réfugié tchétchène âgé de 27 ans, ancien combattant de la guérilla contre les forces russes, avait reçu, fin mai 2008, une étrange visite.

Arrivé de Grozny, un certain Artour Kourmakaev lui explique qu'il travaille pour Ramzan Kadyrov, le président de la Tchétchénie (Fédération de Russie), installé au pouvoir par le Kremlin dans la foulée de la guerre. L'émissaire est tour à tour enjôleur et menaçant. Il offre de l'argent. Il explique qu'il est chargé de convaincre Oumar de rentrer en Tchétchénie, et surtout de renoncer à la plainte qu'il a déposée auprès de la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme (CEDH) pour torture.

Dans cette plainte, le jeune réfugié a décrit qu'il avait été torturé à l'électricité par Ramzan Kadyrov, en 2003, dans une des geôles que celui-ci entretient en Tchétchénie. Si Oumar n'obtempère pas, dit l'émissaire, il lui arrivera malheur, et la vie des membres de sa famille restés en Tchétchénie sera, elle aussi, en danger. Oumar ne cède pas. Il demande une protection spéciale aux autorités autrichiennes, à titre de témoin. Il a déjà obtenu l'asile. Mais la protection lui est refusée.

Quelques jours plus tard, voyant que les intimidations n'aboutissent pas, l'émissaire se ravise. Il a reçu entre-temps l'ordre de Ramzan Kadyrov d'éliminer Israïlov purement et simplement. La consigne d'assassinat a été donnée sur son téléphone portable, le 9 juin 2008, par Ramzan Kadyrov lui-même : "On n'a plus besoin d'Israïlov."

Cet épisode a été relaté par Artour Kourmakaev lui-même aux enquêteurs du Bureau autrichien pour l'action antiterroriste, auxquels il a révélé l'affaire. Pourquoi se confie-t-il ainsi ? Parce qu'il est convaincu que s'il rentre en Tchétchénie sans avoir accompli sa mission de tueur, sa peau ne vaudra pas cher. En échange de ses informations, il demande à son tour à pouvoir bénéficier d'un programme de protection.

Artour Kourmakaev raconte aux policiers autrichiens que, depuis six mois, il "travaille dans un nouveau département, chargé de ramener au pays des Tchétchènes expatriés", une officine pilotée par "le bras droit" de Ramzan Kadyrov, un certain "Timour, surnommé "Seigneur"".

Dans sa déposition, dont Le Monde a pris connaissance, il lève le voile sur l'envers du décor de la "normalisation" en Tchétchénie. Il décrit un système de terreur, de menaces et de chantage, qui s'exporte même au-delà des frontières de la Russie.

En un mot, Artour Kourmakaev affirme qu'il existe un programme de traque et de rapatriement forcé vers la Russie de Tchétchènes réfugiés en Europe, doublé d'une entreprise d'élimination physique de plusieurs centaines de personnes.

"J'ai vu, raconte-t-il, dans la résidence de Ramzan Kadyrov, dans la ville de Goudermès, une liste qui contenait environ 5 000 noms de Tchétchènes. Toutes ces personnes ont soit combattu contre Kadyrov, soit attiré sur elles, d'une façon ou d'une autre, une attention défavorable. Trois cents de ces 5 000 sur la liste doivent mourir. Ces personnes sont des ennemis que Kadyrov déteste. Ces personnes n'ont pas le droit de rentrer en Tchétchénie. Un nouveau département est mis en place pour ces 300 personnes, et d'autres, qui doivent être tuées. Le département va résoudre cette "question", et il est placé directement sous les ordres du président (tchétchène), comme l'est mon département. Ceux de Moscou (une allusion probable au pouvoir russe) ne savent rien, et ne devraient rien savoir, de ces départements. A ma connaissance, environ 50 des 300 sur la liste se trouvent en Autriche. Toutes ces personnes sont donc en grand danger."

Plus tard, dans des circonstances non élucidées, Artour Kourmakaev quitte l'Autriche. Il a eu le temps cependant de répéter aux enquêteurs qu'il était chargé de contraindre Oumar Israïlov, "par tous les moyens", d'annuler sa démarche auprès de la CEDH, et de recourir au meurtre si nécessaire pour éliminer un témoin gênant. Il dit que ce n'est pas un cas isolé. "Je connais un cas où une personne a été de force rapatriée de Pologne vers la Tchétchénie."

Oumar Israïlov était en effet un témoin particulièrement compromettant pour Ramzan Kadyrov, l'homme qui tient la Tchétchénie sous sa férule depuis environ quatre ans et qui s'était vu décerner par Vladimir Poutine en 2004 la plus haute distinction de la Fédération de Russie, la médaille du "Héros russe". Capturé en avril 2003 par les hommes de Kadyrov alors qu'il cherchait des ravitaillements pour la guérilla antirusse, Oumar Israïlov est détenu et maltraité pendant trois mois. Conduit vers une "base sportive" de Ramzan Kadyrov, dans la localité de Tsenteroï, qui sert de centre de torture, il est aussi témoin d'exécutions sommaires de détenus.



ORDRES D'EXÉCUTIONS



Il est passé à tabac, parfois accroché à des barres dans un gymnase, parfois brûlé par une tige métallique chauffée à blanc, appliquée derrière le genou et sous des doigts de pied. "Kadyrov était présent lors de mes interrogatoires. Il participait, il me rouait de coups environ trois fois par semaine", raconte Oumar dans le dossier transmis à la CEDH. Un jour il fait attacher Oumar à un appareil de musculation, des fils électriques placés sur une oreille et un doigt. "Kadyrov a alors tourné la manivelle et m'a électrocuté. J'ai senti une douleur terrible dans ma tête et ma main. Je ne peux pas vraiment trouver les mots pour décrire cette douleur. Je ne pouvais pas rester assis. Le courant me soulevait. Kadyrov rigolait devant ma réaction. Il a répété cette procédure plusieurs fois. Il venait toujours le soir (...) Il riait en frappant. C'est un sadique."

Au bout de trois mois, Oumar est contraint de rejoindre les milices du dirigeant tchétchène, selon un processus de recrutement forcé qui est au coeur de la "tchétchénisation" du conflit prônée par Moscou. Il assiste à des séances de torture de combattants tchétchènes, et à des assassinats. "J'ai vu à de nombreuses reprises comment les commandants du SB (le service d'ordre dirigé à l'époque par Kadyrov), Ramzan Kadyrov et ses confidents, tels que son frère Zelimkhan, humiliaient et torturaient des prisonniers, et en exécutaient. (...) J'ai entendu Kadyrov donner des ordres d'exécutions." Les corps étaient enterrés dans le cimetière de Gazavat, à la lisière de Tsenteroï, un des nombreux charniers que compte la Tchétchénie.

En avril 2004, Oumar Israïlov décide de s'enfuir avec son épouse et ses enfants, vers Kislovodsk, dans le sud de la Russie, puis Moscou, puis la Pologne, par des filières clandestines. Ne se sentant pas en sécurité en Pologne - "il y a eu là-bas des incidents où les gens étaient capturés" -, il se rend en Autriche. Son père et sa belle-soeur restés en Tchétchénie sont aussitôt faits prisonniers par les hommes de Kadyrov et torturés. Ils seront relâchés au bout de dix mois.

Lorsque Oumar dépose, avec l'aide d'ONG occidentales, une plainte auprès de la CEDH, les autorités russes réagissent en lançant à son encontre, en 2007, un mandat d'arrêt international et une demande d'extradition, pour "appartenance à une organisation terroriste".

Le 13 janvier 2009, un groupe d'hommes ouvre le feu sur Oumar, alors qu'il sort d'une épicerie près de chez lui, à Vienne. "Je n'ai aucun doute, a déclaré son père deux jours plus tard, que mon fils a payé de sa vie ses efforts pour obtenir que justice soit faite."

Natalie Nougayrède
Article paru dans l'édition du 23.01.09

Les illusions dangereuses de l'armée russe, par Laurent Zecchini

Analyse
LE MONDE | 15.11.08 | 13h49 • Mis à jour le 15.11.08 | 13h49

our pressantes que soient les guerres d'Afghanistan et d'Irak et la crise économique internationale, une autre urgence diplomatique attend Barack Obama : la réparation de la relation russo-américaine. Car si la guerre froide s'est achevée il y a dix-sept ans, si son fondement idéologique a disparu, ses armements et ses rivalités perdurent. Vladimir Poutine n'avait pas tort de souligner, en février 2007 à Munich, qu'"elle a laissé derrière elle des munitions qui n'ont pas encore explosé".

Les défis stratégiques entre les Etats-Unis et la Russie ont été dangereusement laissés en jachère. C'est notamment le cas du traité Start de 1991 sur la réduction des armes stratégiques, qui arrive à échéance le 5 décembre 2009. Au-delà, c'est l'inconnu. Or Start, rappelle l'expert l'américain Daryl Kimball, directeur de l'Arms Control Association, apporte une "prévisibilité et une transparence" indispensables. Start-II et Start-III ont été rendus caducs par le traité SORT (réduction des arsenaux nucléaires stratégiques) de 2002, qui fixe l'objectif d'une fourchette d'armes déployées se situant entre 1 700 et 2 200 têtes nucléaires d'ici à fin 2012.

Mais SORT n'est pas un garde-fou : il ne limite ni les vecteurs ni le nombre de têtes nucléaires stockées et ne prévoit aucun mécanisme de vérification. L'offre de Washington, le 6 novembre, d'une reprise des pourparlers stratégiques n'est pas convaincante : les deux parties savent que rien de significatif ne sera accompli avec une administration Bush décrédibilisée. Celle de M. Obama ne disposera que d'un temps très court avant l'échéance de 2009, d'autant qu'elle devra négocier avec un partenaire russe plus imprévisible, enhardi par une nouvelle aisance financière, dangereusement illusionné par sa facile victoire, en août, contre les troupes géorgiennes.

La reprise des vols de bombardiers stratégiques, le retour de la marine russe en Méditerranée, ses manoeuvres en Atlantique, dans l'Arctique et les Caraïbes, les essais de missiles stratégiques, la menace de déployer des missiles Iskander à Kaliningrad, la progression du budget de la défense, une politique offensive d'exportation des armements avec la Syrie, l'Algérie, l'Iran et le Venezuela... autant de manifestations illustrant un désir de revanche, de statut et de puissance.

Le projet américain d'installer des sites de la défense antimissile en Pologne et en République tchèque n'est pas seulement un prétexte saisi par le Kremlin : fruit des réflexions des stratèges néoconservateurs de Washington, il couronne une stratégie d'élargissement de l'Alliance atlantique aux marches de la Russie, que celle-ci a quelques raisons d'assimiler à cette vieille recette de la guerre froide, l'"endiguement". Vue de Moscou, la guerre de Géorgie aura eu le mérite de refroidir l'enthousiasme des Européens à accueillir la Géorgie et l'Ukraine dans l'OTAN. A choisir, la Russie préfère être de nouveau crainte dans son glacis, que retrouver des relations harmonieuses avec l'Occident qui, estime-t-elle, ne lui ont valu qu'une succession d'humiliations.

Elle veut y mettre un terme : c'est le sens de sa démonstration guerrière d'août. Celle-ci est ambiguë : si elle a fouetté la fierté militaire retrouvée des généraux russes, elle a aussi confirmé les profondes carences de son armée. Le Blitzkrieg mené par la 58e armée russe dans le Caucase mérite qu'on s'y attarde. Si la coordination des troupes russes s'est relativement bien faite, c'est parce que ses unités sortaient de l'exercice Caucase 08, qui s'est déroulé en juillet, selon un scénario semblable à la percée vers Tbilissi.

UNE CORRUPTION MASSIVE

Avec une quinzaine de bâtiments, la flotte russe de la mer Noire a mis facilement en pièces la marine d'opérette géorgienne, mais, incapable de détruire l'artillerie adverse, l'aviation russe a révélé son faible taux de préparation opérationnelle. L'armée russe a cependant fait la preuve de sa capacité à mobiliser quelque 20 000 hommes en quarante-huit heures, pour une action d'envergure au-delà de ses frontières. "La leçon aura été retenue dans la région, souligne Isabelle Facon, de la Fondation pour la recherche stratégique, et c'est là l'essentiel pour Moscou." Pourtant, si la Russie est redevenue un danger pour la sécurité européenne, cela ne veut pas dire qu'elle est en passe de retrouver sa puissance d'antan.

Les crédits militaires ont beaucoup progressé depuis dix ans, mais guère plus que le budget de l'Etat, dopé par les ressources pétrolières et gazières. Avec quelque 30 milliards de dollars, le budget militaire russe ne représente que 1/20e de celui des Etats-Unis. Un plan de modernisation a été lancé, qui profite essentiellement aux forces nucléaires et, plus généralement, aux systèmes d'armes qui, comme au temps de l'ex-URSS, incarnent un statut de grande puissance : missiles balistiques, sous-marins nucléaires et porte-avions.

Les effectifs de l'armée russe ont été largement réduits (de 2,7 millions de soldats en 1992 à environ 1 million en 2008), autant pour se doter de régiments professionnalisés, que pour s'adapter à une inquiétante évolution démographique. Et si le service militaire est passé de dix-huit à douze mois, c'est avant tout dans l'espoir de réduire le taux d'insoumis et de déserteurs. Les conditions de vie des soldats russes restent frustes : la pratique du diedovchina (bizutage violent) ne faiblit pas plus que l'abus généralisé d'alcool. Les soldes ont été doublées, mais surtout au profit des troupes d'élite, les Spetsnaz. En dépit de purges et d'une reprise en main par le ministre de la défense, Anatoli Serdioukov, l'armée russe reste un trou noir qui engloutit, par une corruption massive, une partie importante des crédits, au détriment du taux d'entraînement des forces, dramatiquement bas.

Sur le plan de la doctrine, la Russie tire les leçons de ce qu'elle appelle la "remilitarisation des relations internationales", qu'elle attribue aux Etats-Unis. Sur le plan diplomatique, elle hésite entre sa nostalgie de la guerre froide, qui lui donnait le sentiment d'une fausse parité stratégique avec Washington, et la vision d'un monde multipolaire ayant l'avantage de relativiser la suprématie américaine. Sur le plan militaire, elle ne semble pas avoir tiré les leçons d'une funeste course aux armements stratégiques, pas plus que celles d'un aventurisme régional. Ce sont ces illusions de puissance qui en font un partenaire incertain et inquiétant pour Barack Obama.