Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia

Russia’s insistence that the In-Betweens and the Central Asians constitute its sphere of influence, or its zone of ‘privileged interests’ as Dmitry Medvedev put it, is as devoid of meaning as the fervent Western refutation of it. What exactly are privileged interests? Is the privilege asserted absolute, relative or at the margin? Is Russia truly claiming that it alone will have final say in the area, and would its writ be only over national security or also over domestic government, social policy and so forth? Are the ways the Kremlin chooses to exercise its influence not as important as the fact of influence itself? What would Moscow presume to do about the preferences of the states in this ‘sphere’, and especially those that have since 1991 sought alternative partnerships to balance against the regional hegemon? Even if Western leaders were to shed their qualms and seek a grand bargain with Russia, can any deal that might result really function if it does not take these countries’ views into account?

Breaking the taboo on open-ended, precondition-free dialogue on the regional order is the essential first step if we are to mitigate the ruinous geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-ideational competition and end the Russia–West confrontation that has reached such dangerous levels in recent years. For the West, allowing the ghosts of Yalta to stand in the way of such a conversation with Russia is negligent and in the final analysis self-defeating. For Moscow, it is untenable to expect that its neighbours can be forever excluded from a dialogue that will have direct implications for them.

Holding such talks in the current atmosphere of mistrust, mutual recrimination and fear-mongering will require a significant investment of political capital. And the process of moving beyond current adversarial approaches to the region and finding common ground will take time. For this process to succeed, all parties would also have to scale back their maximalist objectives and be prepared for compromises that will leave no one fully satisfied. The West needs to cease holding out for Russia to surrender and accept its terms. Russia must stop pining for the good old days of great-power politics, be it the Big Three of 1945 or the Concert of Europe of 1815–1914, and accept that its neighbours will have to have a say in any agreement that affects them. The neighbours should stop seeking national salvation from without, and recognise that it will be up to them, first and foremost, to bring about their countries’ security and well-being.

If such talks ever take place, they could consider new institutional arrangements for the In-Betweens that would serve as a bridge between the Euro-Atlantic institutions and their Russia-led counterparts.[61] Such an agreement would go a long way toward moving past the negative-sum game by both diminishing great-power rivalry in the region and alleviating some of the challenges faced by the In-Betweens. The following is a preliminary list of criteria the new arrangements would have to meet in order to do so:

• They must be acceptable to all concerned parties.

• Priority should be given for the foreseeable future to economic growth, reform and modernisation in the In-Between countries. The states in question should be allowed to pursue ties with both the EU and the EEU as they see fit, permitting multi-directional integration rather than insisting on obligations that make it impossible.

• Parties to the negotiations should pledge to seek mutual agreement before pursuing any change to the region’s institutional architecture, and should commit to regular, inclusive consultations. This would rule out attempts to make unilateral changes to the status quo.

• All parties must recommit to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from the use of force in dispute resolution. As part of this process, Russia would commit to withdraw its military from areas where sovereignty is not disputed by any party, such as Transnistria and the Donbas, in the fullness of time.

• Rather than make the negotiations contingent on resolution of territorial disputes, the arrangements themselves should create status-neutral humanitarian, security and economic measures in and around the conflict zones. The parties would provide for a guarantee of status neutrality – explicitly putting the core political disputes on the back-burner – so that these measures can be negotiated and implemented without crossing any state’s red lines. Countries with irreconcilable positions would be able to address practical issues affecting inhabitants of the frozen-conflict zones without ceding their positions. Such steps would at a minimum ease tensions and human suffering and might lay the foundation for a political settlement.