Translated material
Small-town superpower
Superpowers don't behave like that. They openly use all political and economic tools to defend their interests and are not offended by their opponents for the same retaliatory actions.
For example, at a briefing in New York, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called not to politicize the situation with the unexpected cancellation by the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources of two positive environmental assessments of the grandiose oil and gas project Sakhalin-2. “With regard to this project, as you know, many obligations to ensure environmental conditions for its implementation were violated, not to mention the fact that some time ago the initial cost of the project was almost doubled,” the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry began to reason. . And he summed it up with a clear eye (more precisely, in this case with blue gas): “These are economic issues.” Although in Russia, anyone who follows the problem understands that the Ministry of Natural Resources is simply “squeezing out” the Dutch and Japanese shareholders of the project in favor of Gazprom.
Likewise, there was “no politics” in the transition to market prices in gas supplies to Ukraine after the collapse of the Kremlin protege Viktor Yanukovych in the Ukrainian presidential elections. In the ban on Georgian wines and Borjomi after the unfriendly pro-American President Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in Georgia. Finally, in the ban on Moldovan wines shortly after the Moldovan authorities refused the Russian settlement plan in Transnistria. No politics. Complete pesticides and herbicides, purely “economic” issues. But when the British Parliament decided not to allow Gazprom to buy a British company that delivers gas to household consumers, the Kremlin regarded this as a political decision. And when Lakshmi Mittal, having paid more, took over Arcelor from Severstal and Alexey Mordashov, the Russian elite again saw in this the political machinations of the West against our “sovereign democracy.”
But these are not even double standards, but banal untruths on every such occasion, which simply prevents Russia from realizing its geopolitical ambitions. Who will consider you a serious partner if you interpret the same decisions inside and outside the country in diametrically opposed ways? Yes, Gazprom swore and swore that it was increasing the price of gas for Ukraine several times solely based on market conditions, and not on the orders of the Kremlin to teach the “orange” Yushchenko a lesson. And they would even believe Gazprom, if only a year before Russia had not written off a billion dollars of gas debt to the Kuchma regime, if it had not promised all sorts of economic preferences in the event of Yanukovych’s presidency at a loss to the Russian economy itself.
Despite all the cynicism of global political and economic competition, a purely human rule still applies: “don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.” By deceiving investors in projects such as Sakhalin-2, Russia is deceiving itself. If we are squeezing foreigners out of Russian raw materials projects in favor of our own, by what right are we outraged by the British reluctance to make the same Gazprom a monopolist in the supply of gas to household consumers on the British market? Why do we not like the sale of the Ukrainian Krivorozhstal to the same Lakshmi Mittal, and not to Russian buyers? Why on earth should Arcelor refuse a more lucrative offer in order to merge with Severstal?
Russia has actively begun to use economic instruments as leverage in foreign policy. There is nothing reprehensible in this fact itself. Just don’t be offended when our opponents do the same. What they fought for, that’s what they ran into.