"The West, not Russia, needs a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan"
Igor Dmitriyev for Caliber.Az

INTERVIEWS  22 July 2022 - 15:06

In his interview with Caliber.Az, independent political analyst Igor Dmitriyev sorted out the roles of the leading geopolitical players in the Russia-Ukraine and Armenia-Azerbaijan conflicts.

- Everyone interprets the war in Ukraine in his own way. Some claim that Russia is at war with the West, others speak of a redistribution of the world order, and others say that Moscow intends to establish a leadership in Kyiv that is loyal to Russia. What do you think of all this?

- There are the second and the third, and among the reasons, I would mention the presidential elections in 2024. Vladimir Putin's physical condition requires thinking about a successor, and each of the "Kremlin towers" has its own point of view on this issue. Their mutual rancor has been growing every year, and the war provides a great opportunity for someone to drown his intra-Kremlin rivals.

However, Russia's war against Ukraine began not this year, but back in 2014. Only then it was local, in Donbas, and now the Kremlin has decided to turn it into a full-scale war. It is now clear that the "war party" has been preparing for this all the years since the Minsk agreements were signed in 2015. For this purpose, three myths have been introduced on federal TV channels and in Russian society in general. The first was about an alleged "Nazi Ukraine, where Russians are oppressed." The second was that Russia was "the only victor of Nazism in 1945" and could happily "repeat" that war. The third is about "the greatness of the Russian Empire" and that Ukraine is supposedly "an artificial state, there is no such nation at all."

Eight years of daily brainwashing were enough to make a new Russia out of these three puzzles. I recently sent to my Russian pro-war acquaintances most part of Hitler's speech of September 01, 1939, the day of the attack on Poland - just changing some place names ("Poland, Germany, Danzig corridor, oppression of Germans" by "Ukraine, Russia, corridor to the Crimea, oppression of Russians"). And none of my recipients understood the change, thinking that this article was written by some Russian top politician. Because of the exact same false talking points.

In a recent speech, Putin compared himself to Peter the Great, arguing that Russia is also reclaiming its historical lands and changing the "unjust" world order. But we should keep in mind that since Hitler, no state in Europe has tried to annex the territory of another country by force. Moscow behaves as if it is in the 18th and 19th centuries - forward into the past. The defeat of the Russian Federation would benefit it, as well as the defeat in the Crimean War of the 1850s - after that, reforms and the flourishing of the industry began in the country... And Ukrainians are fighting heroically, selflessly defending their land and the independence of their country - there is nothing to add here.

- Do you think the West is helping Ukraine enough and how do you see Britain's aid for Ukraine after Boris Johnson's resignation?

- Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, addressed the US Congress - talking about her country's tragedy and need for support in the form of arms supplies. And I remembered how in 1942 another Ukrainian, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, addressed the US Congress - also with a story about how her country needed help, military help in the fight against the fascists who attacked her country. A direct analogy. At that time, lend-lease aid from the US and Britain to the USSR amounted to about 20,000 planes, almost 20,000 tanks and APCs, etc. In 2008, in terms of prices, this amounted to 520 billion dollars! At that time, these deliveries played a decisive role in the victory. Now, alas, the figures are quite different...

Of course, any military assistance to Ukraine is extremely useful. And yet there is too great a discrepancy between speeches about "great support" and actual deliveries of military equipment - especially from the leaders of the European Union. This has already become a topic of memes and parodies in Ukrainian society. I, for example, remember this one: the heads of Germany, France, and Italy returning on the train from Kyiv, ordering tea from the conductor, and she replies: "Sure, I'll bring it right away - tea in October, and sugar by the end of the year, but stir it quietly, or you'll make Putin angry."

Until recently, Germany did not transfer a single piece of heavy weapons to Ukraine, and only recently have deliveries finally started - with a batch of German howitzers. It seems that the West did not expect such heroic resistance from Ukraine and therefore was in no hurry to transfer offensive weapons to it - so that they would not fall into the hands of the Russian Armed Forces. Only when the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to foil the Russian blitzkrieg plan and defeat the Russian Armed Forces near Kharkiv, Kyiv and Chernihiv did the West gradually begin to supply military equipment. And the US, for example, only recently supplied the AFU with several rocket launchers Himars, which in a couple of weeks managed to bomb dozens of ammunition depots and a number of command and control posts of the Russian Armed Forces throughout the occupied territories of Ukraine. Now the US promises to transfer another batch of these MLRSs. However, as Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said the other day, the Ukrainians need 50 Himars to stop the Russian military offensive, and 100 to successfully launch a counteroffensive.

The leaders in active aid to Ukraine with military equipment during the months of the war were Britain, Poland, and the Baltic states - alas, the latter cannot boast large stocks of them. It is these countries, as well as Türkiye (for the Bayraktars) and the United States (for the Javelins) that have become the favorites of Ukrainian society. I hope that Boris Johnson's resignation from the post of British Prime Minister, caused by domestic political reasons, will not change this country's position towards Ukraine. The more so because right now the best chance of becoming the new Prime Minister representing the ruling Conservatives is given to the head of the Foreign Ministry Liz Truss - and she speaks quite sharply against Russia and supports Ukraine.

- Are the anti-Russian sanctions effective enough?

- On the one hand, the withdrawal of many Western companies from the Russian market has badly affected Russian industry, which was largely based on imported components. The RF Ministry of Finance has been forced to make drastic cuts in the budget: by $30 bln during the next three years at the expense of almost all state programs. In May, car production dropped by 97%, buses by 77%, diesel locomotives by 63%, glass by 61%, washing machines by 59%, refrigerators by 58%, freight cars by 52%, and electric motors by 50%.

On the other hand, the opponents of the war had expected a much greater effect. Although six packages of sanctions were adopted, the budget revenues of the Russian Federation from exports have even increased compared to the same period last year! The reason is that there is still no embargo on oil and gas supplies from Russia, its main source of income. The ban on gas is not even considered. Oil was supposed to be included in the most recent, sixth sanctions package. In the end, it was decided that the ban on oil transportation by tankers would only come in six months, and on petroleum products in eight months! That is, by the time the war in Ukraine might be over.

It is not even planned to ban the traffic of oil through the pipeline; it continues to flow into Europe from Russia via Hungary. Another part is now exported through India, where it is refined into fuel in refineries or blended with other oil and then shipped to the EU and the US. After the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian oil imports to India increased tenfold; fuel shipments from India to Europe increased by a third, and to the US by 43% compared to the previous quarter. Do you see the chain?

Now about gas. Gas exports from Russia have brought in twice as much budget revenue during the war as during the same period before it. The reason is the significant increase in gas prices on world markets. At the same time, the Kremlin has now sharply reduced its supplies to Europe, using the gas to blackmail the West. But Europe wants to get out of this dependence, and here Azerbaijan will play a big role, I hope. After recently signing a memorandum on energy partnership between the EU and Azerbaijan, it is planned to gradually increase gas traffic through the Southern Pipeline by 2.5 times. In addition, there are agreements on additional gas supplies to Europe and from Qatar, Algeria, and the UAE.

- To what extent do you think the hostility toward Russians around the world after February 24 is fair?

- Let me start by saying that normal people all over the world distinguish between the concepts of "ethnos," "country," and "state" - they mean different things. I myself am half Russian, and I have a sharply negative attitude towards the current Russian state and its barbaric aggression against Ukraine. And I demonstrate this by wearing a yellow and blue paper bracelet on my arm. And that's why I meet the negativity in my address here only from the supporters of Putin, who, unfortunately, can be met in Baku as well.

I hear the same from my acquaintances in Türkiye, Georgia, and western countries. Those Russians, who are against the war, are treated normally. Alas, even in the West there are many Russians who do not hide their joy over it, support Putin's course and generally behave like typical imperialists. In Russia, these great-power chauvinists now feel they are the masters of the situation. Their time has finally come - for those who are used to meekly enduring poverty, enormous social inequality, constant humiliation by their superiors, and the phantom pain of the collapse of the former empire, which they say "everyone in the world was afraid of." Now Putin is giving them the illusion of its return - and it doesn't matter that there is still dismal poverty in the house and yard, or that the villages in Ukraine are much more well-kept than the dilapidated Russian villages. But sitting on a lumpy couch in front of a half-empty refrigerator, they can happily yell: "Now we'll take Kyiv, and then we'll hit Poland and others - why have they all lost their fear?!"

It has nothing to do with ethnicity. The largest ethnic minority in the Russian Federation - millions of Ukrainians - support Putin's actions in the same way as the Tatars, Bashkirs, Caucasians, Yakuts, etc. who grew up in Russia. Russia's skillful propaganda is turning the Russian nation into a zombie. It is not for nothing that the letter Z, which stands for zombies in Hollywood blockbusters, has become the symbol of the current war in Ukraine. Z-ideology has even captured a fair share of the youth. Denunciations multiply: children denounce teachers who try to secretly tell them the truth about the war in Ukraine, a wife sends a denunciation to her husband, a mother to her son, a husband to his wife, a schoolgirl to her neighbor's grandmother who put up anti-war leaflets - all of these are real cases. It is difficult and dangerous for a normal person to live in this atmosphere.

Dreams about the rebirth of a "great Russian empire", the cult of a "strong leader", a totalitarian ideology with a ban on alternative opinions, contempt and lack of empathy for the people of other countries if they do not want to bow to Russia, reliance on military traditions like a perverted cult of victory in WWII - these are all signs of fascism. And it is contagious. That's why I think a boycott of its bearers is justified.

One more thing. There is no "abolition of Russian culture" that the Kremlin propagandists lament. The only ones being boycotted are those "cultural figures" who are smeared with supporting the war or at least tacitly participating in it. Real Russian culture has always been against its own state - Radishchev, Chaadayev, Lermontov, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, Platonov, Zinoviev, Grebenshchikov, Makarevich... And this Russian culture was, is, and will be revered in all countries of the world.

- What do you think of Russia's position on the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement, whose side (Baku or Yerevan) is Moscow on today?

- Azerbaijan is now at the epicenter of European and, more broadly, global politics. The problems which are being solved over the last month in the South Caucasus, define not only the situation in the region but also the geopolitical scenario on half of the Eurasian continent... It so happened that in my biography, there were three countries: Azerbaijan, where I was born and spent my youth; Ukrainian Donetsk, where I spent part of my childhood until the age of 11; Russia, where I lived for a quarter of a century and became a specialist and a professional. Therefore, I see a direct parallel between Karabakh, Donbas, as well as Transnistria, and South Ossetia. All these separatist entities were created in the interests of Moscow and with one goal - to deploy Russian "peacekeepers" there and to have with their help a lever of constant pressure on the country of their stay, be it Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia.

It's very simple, therefore - the Kremlin was not and will not be interested in the real settlement of the Karabakh conflict. After all, in this case, the RPC (Russian Peacekeeping Contingent in Karabakh) will simply not be needed. The other day the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev accused the RPC of non-fulfillment of its obligations on withdrawal of Armenian illegal armed units from the territory of Azerbaijan. And official Yerevan also drags out the implementation of the agreement on the unblocking of transport communications, I think, under the Kremlin's pressure. There are no other supporters of delaying the signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan now among those powers involved in the process. Armenian militarist positions have lost support from the West. And this gives real optimism.

The fact is that the war in Ukraine has also changed the geopolitical situation in the South Caucasus. In previous years, Armenia felt the support of the United States and France, where the influence of the Armenian diaspora was strong. And this gave it the strength to confront Azerbaijan. But now the Western powers have a more important goal than looking back at the Armenians - they need to get Europe out of the Russian gas dependence. Hence, as I said, the signing of the memorandum on strategic energy partnership between the EU and Azerbaijan, according to which gas traffic through the Southern Pipeline will grow by 2.5 times. And this requires political stability in the South Caucasus - that is, a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan. The West, Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and Armenia need it, which will also have its own economic dividends from it. Who is not interested in it? Obviously, only the Kremlin, whose gas diktat in Europe will be broken.

Hence the riots that raged in Yerevan. They were openly supported by the Russian Federation, where the influential and wealthy Armenian diaspora financed the "Karabakh clan." The attempt to overthrow Nikol Pashinyan was predictably defeated - there are few crazy people in Armenian society who want another war against Azerbaijan. But the Kremlin still has trump cards to play, such as the Russian military base in Gyumri, hence the continuing pressure on Pashinyan.

The visits of CIA Director William Burns to Yerevan and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov to NATO headquarters were also logical - because the Kremlin is objectively interested in destabilizing the situation in the South Caucasus in order to continue trying to keep it under its control. This may be another point of the trilateral talks in Tehran between the heads of Iran, Türkiye, and Russia for the Kremlin. However, I remain a historical optimist and believe that good, progress cannot be stopped - which means that the peace treaty will be signed and implemented for the benefit of not only the South Caucasus but also many other countries.

Caliber.Az