Sergey Karaganov: "We returned to the XIX century"

The dean of the Faculty of World Economy and the World Policy of the Higher School, the honorary chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, whose reports, as they write in the West, lie down to Putin, about the goals that the Russian government sets himself for themselves

Sergey Karaganov as amended. April 16, 2014 /Photo: Lena Avdeeva

In one of the recent interviews, speaking of the situation with the Crimea and Ukraine as a whole, you said: “Russia has nothing to lose” and “Putin will fight to the end.” What did you mean? To what "end" Putin will fight?

If you decide to stop the advance of the West to the East, if you counteract the West policy, moreover, with rather rigid methods, including Crimea, then you must understand that you cannot lose in this situation. Having crossed the Rubicon, it is clear that the return road is no longer there, you need to fight to the end in order to get the world on honorary conditions.

And what will happen?

In the optimum - after a long period of confrontation, we agree on the end of the Cold War in Europe and the new soft section of Europe, in which, relatively speaking, Ukraine becomes the land of joint development, which, by the way, Russia proposed.

Plans for Ukraine

“Land of joint development” - a sovereign country?

The Ukrainian elite has proved its inability to ensure the sovereignty of Ukraine.

23 years of independence ...

And every year the control of the country worsened, and each of the next generation of leaders became worse than the previous one, more thief and less capable. At first there were still the remnants of the Soviet bureaucracy, then Yushchenko with Tymoshenko - a sharp fall, then a wonderful Yanukovych came, and now another group of people of the same quality and plan. In Ukraine, the state -forming elite has not developed, and the country, apparently, is necessary for external management. It would be better that this external management is jointly provided to Europe and Russia.

Can you give an example of a sovereign country that would go to such external management?

A large number of countries, including the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, included in the EU, went to significant elements of external management: obeying the laws, rules, borrowing money under certain conditions. This does not mean that commissars should sit, relatively speaking, on Khreshchatyk, but the rules should be determined, including some external players so that Ukraine can develop. And Ukraine cannot develop in a situation where Russia and the West are fighting for it and when the whole Ukrainian elite, stealing and despising its population, wins the time for theft, fluctuating between Russia and the West, pulling out money from there or from here. See: 23 years ago, Belarus was almost no more poor in the country in the size of GDP per capita than Ukraine. And now, Ukraine has half of GDP for the population of the population than even not very well -controlled Belarus. Ukraine was one of the richest republics of the Soviet Union, now it is one of the poorest republics, except, of course, Tajikistan and the like.

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In the optimum - after a long period of confrontation, we agree on the end of the Cold War in Europe and the new soft section of Europe, in which, relatively speaking, Ukraine becomes the land of joint development

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Neither peace, no war

Are we already at war?

We are in a state of political war - so far, fortunately, only political.

Do you assume that this can go to military operations?

No, I hope it will not go to the military: fortunately, the Lord God awarded us with nuclear weapons, which restrains people from actions to which they regularly resorted, especially Europeans. Europeans became famous in the history of mankind by the fact that twice in one generation unleashed world wars. I do not believe the Europeans, to myself too - we are also Europeans.

Speaking about the ongoing Cold War, do you mean the expansion of NATO east?

I affirmed all these years that the West, having proclaimed the end of the Cold War, continued it in velvet gloves and that there was an unfinished war in Europe: after all, there was no real peace treaty. In another way, this can be called Versailles policy in velvet gloves, when the territories were not taken directly, but zones of influence, markets were selected, because NATO was advanced contrary to all the protests, calls and requests of Russian leaders, managers, experts. Both in the 1990s, and in the 2000s, I said many times to Western politicians and experts: “Do you really understand that sooner or later you will have to finish Russia, or will you receive a reverse blow?” So they received, but, however, we also got our own.

However, the annexation of Crimea and the current creeping occupation of the East of Ukraine show that those leaders of the former Soviet republics were right, who strove to NATO - as a protection from aggression by Russia.

Neither Ukraine nor Georgia have a chance to join NATO, since they had and have safety problems. Including with Russia.

The goals of Russia

Will Belarus follow Ukraine? Kazakhstan? Or just Transnistria?

Further territorial acquisitions are meaningless. I think that Russia has three goals. First: to ensure that Ukraine would never be in NATO or in the European Union. The second: after the completion of the crisis, nevertheless, to sign a peace treaty with Europe, which Russia proposed repeatedly signed in the 1990s. This can happen in 5-10 years. Note that Russia even offered a formal entry into NATO, and Putin spoke about this at the beginning of his reign. Accordingly, the entire configuration of European security would have changed, a single field would be. The third goal - perhaps it is in the heads of some people - to grab the territory. But I think that such a goal is not worth it on the agenda of real policy.

Ukraine as the state will remain?

I hope.

Within today's borders?

I hope. Why ruin him? But, again, now we are in a situation of high uncertainty. After all, a black swan, an unforeseen disaster - and that’s all. There may be some large provocation, something exploded-and went away. And this despite the fact that we have an absolutely incompetent leadership in Kyiv: this is some kind of “wedding in Malinovka”. Farce. But this farce is played on the verge of tragedy.

What Russia has done in relation to Crimea contradicts, of course, to some agreements. But the boundaries have already changed repeatedly

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Today, many quote your performance of the beginning of the nineties, in which you said that someday Russia uses Russian diasporas in the former republics of the USSR to strengthen its sphere of influence on the territory of the former Soviet empire. Someone called it "Doctrine Karaganov." Am I quoting you correctly?

Yes. Just let me tell you how it was. There was some conference where everyone was worried about what would happen to the Russians in the former republics-they would be humiliated, they would suffer and so on. I said: “We must look at the Russians not as a passive, but as an asset. They will become Jews of these countries, they will be more energetic and educated and will become a source of power of Russia. ” There was not a single word that you need to invade them to protect them to neighboring countries. That's exactly what I said. All.

After that there was an amazing story. The young state Estonia was looking for an explanation of its own policy. Some boy or girl found this statement of mine and wrote: “Doctrine Karaganova” and the then president of Estonia Mary-he died, because I can tell it-he acts with a huge speech, which is then discussed everywhere, and I become a famous person in the Baltic countries: even parliamentary hearings on the “doctrine of Karaganov” were held. I was silent because I did not want to offend the Estonians: in short, the "doctrine of Karaganov" sucked out of a finger.

So did you talk about the role of Russian diasporas or not?

I only said that they would be a source of our strength and that we can rely on them.

The protection of their national minorities, or in general, is always one of the cornerstones of world politics.

Protection - yes. But it is not the use of them for the purpose of territorial expansion: this is what the Nazis did, since the Germans between the two world wars were the largest divided people in Europe.

In human history, it has always been so and always will be like that, I hope, while humanity is alive and while we adhere to traditional values: they do not surrender their own.

So, there are no post -war boundaries? There is no Yalta agreement?

Eat. And what Russia has done in relation to Crimea contradicts, of course, some agreements. But the borders have already changed repeatedly. And on the other hand, we have done as our Western partners have done for the past 20 years, who consistently destroyed international law.

Example?

Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya.

From Saddam and Gaddafi to Kyiv

Has Iraq became part of the United States of America?

There was an attack under a false pretext. Connection is the following question. Kosovo was torn off.

Kosovo proclaimed independence, but no one was attached to anyone.

And in our country, Crimea became the territorial district of the Russian Federation. We slightly moved away from the previously proposed scenarios. A little bit, but everything else is absolutely the same. Pandora's box was opened in Yugoslavia.

In Yugoslavia there was a civil war, ethnic cleaning, concentration camps for Muslims, violence against women in advance, thousands of dead civilians, including Kosovo, Stolypinsky wagons for the Albanians ... Comparison with the Crimea in your way adequately?

In favor of Crimea - from the point of view of morality and law: we have not allowed development according to the Yugoslav version. And on the other hand, I can say that Crimea is a lever of Russian domestic policy.

It is completely clear that all the players of the world arena, now participating in this conflict, were at a dead end: Europe could not get out of its crisis, Russia did not know what to do with itself, the USA too ... Everyone was looking for external impulses ...

... to resolve internal problems.

Or to distract from internal problems. Remember Libya: the same tasks, a small victorious war, as a result of which they simply produced the country and turned not just into Failed stats (failed state), but into the Failed State group.

There was a civil war in Libya, and in power there was an international terrorist, by order of which a plane with more than two innocent people was blown up. Remember Lokerby?

I do not feel the slightest sympathy for Gaddafi, in addition, I remind you that Gaddafi voluntarily abandoned the nuclear program. Gaddafi was forgiven, presidents came to him. Yes, he was an international terrorist, but almost all the leaders of young states have monstrous crimes. Or almost everything.

Gaddafi, Saddam, who poisoned his fellow citizens with gas and sent political opponents to Chana with sulfuric acid, capturing Kuwait in 1990-this is all the antipodes of the West, it is impossible to even compare with Ukraine. When, at what point in Ukraine became a unfriendly country to us?

Ukraine has never been an unfriendly country and, probably, will not be. Let's see, in Kyiv everything will change again ...

Returning to Saddam: by the way, he was supported by the US Union when Iraq fought with Iran, and he used chemical weapons in full - both against Iran and against his Kurds. It is a shame that the Soviet Union and America supported Saddam Hussein. History is a rather nasty thing. Saddam, of course, was disgusting, but what came after Saddam was even worse, hundreds of thousands of victims. It is clear that there will no longer be a peaceful Iraq. And Miloshevich, who was bombed and then soldered in prison, was, generally speaking, the favorite of the West. He was called Yugoslavsky Gorbachev. Yugoslavia was a rather decent country, but at some point Milosevich suffered to protect the national shrines of the Serbs, a massacre began. And it began with this.

Do you really believe that there were only Bandera people on the Maidan?

No, the Maidan was wonderful intelligent people who were tired of their rulers to death. Then there appeared militants who threw the Molotov cocktails, and for some reason they were not demolished. And most people protested against the disgusting thieves' monstrous regime, which humiliated them there for 20 years. This, I repeat, was a way to survive this incompetent elite, which, from Kravchuk to Yanukovych, continuously traded and received some handouts, or from Russia, mostly from Russia, sometimes from the West, to ensure its survival and the ability to steal further. Now it is already known that Russia subsidized Ukraine for a total of somewhere for $ 250 billion-over 20 years.

The story with the Crimea is a pre -thought -out plan!

Don't know. I think, somewhere since the fall of last year, preparations were underway for an acute confrontation. In the West, only negative ones began to write about Russia. This has never happened, even during the Cold War, except for the episode, the eighty -third year, when we shot down a South Korean plane.

The second is cold

And this negative was not associated with the tightening of the regime within the country? With the adoption of laws on the principle of “what else to ban”, with the Wacchanalia of the Antija campaign and the declaration of conservative values?

Obviously, a steep turn in Western politics in relation to Russia was preparing. This caused a response. And now we have entered the confrontation mode, this is the second cold war, of course. The Cold War had three elements: ideological, military and geopolitical, that is, the struggle for influence in a foreign territory. Now this third element is openly declared. The fact is that the West, having won the enchantingly, as it seemed to him, the Cold War, then did not make the necessary repairs in his system and began to lose everything - American failures are obvious to everyone. Hence, and a shift of competition in the ideological side, in the information sphere, where the West always has a prevailing position. But Russia, which, by 2007, crawled out of the post -revolutionary crisis - its elites, and the liberal and anti -liberal, suddenly failed, could not offer a viable development strategy: they screamed, cursed, stole, and could not offer anything. We were at a dead end. It is clear that in five years we will be weaker economically, and now, while we are still at a relative peak, we decided that we need to replay the situation, otherwise we will be weaker.

As an ideology - “Russia is not Europe”?

Well, of course, no. “Russia is not Europe” is nonsense. Russia, of course, is special Europe, even with elements of its own civilization, but the European code is sewn inside.

Russia will try to become the leader of the anti -liberal world: the leader of the majority against the liberal minority

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Turn to the east?

We began to turn slowly, but it was necessary 15 years ago. But I am afraid that because of the new Cold War with the West, we will distract from the economic discovery to the east. And of course, China sharply intensified due to the confrontation of Russia and the West, which means that it will be more difficult for us.

Putin in May goes on a visit to China. They say that he will finally open Russia for a large Chinese business, which he had previously feared. But there is no way out: we need investments to replace the Western, which, due to sanctions, will leave Russia. On a direct line, he just said that China in a dozen years will become an economic power No. 1. And what role was prepared by Russia?

Russia will try to become the leader of the anti -liberal world: the leader of the majority of humanity against the liberal minority. It will turn out or not is difficult to say. As for China, now, it seems, we will be strategic allies, and I do not exclude that we will be forced to go to more preferential conditions in our trade transactions. So far they are not terrible, but what will happen in 10-15 years, I do not know.

Sorokin’s “Oprichnik” becomes a reality?

There is already some element of the oprichnina. And it will be. Because the elite, which could not ensure movement and development, she will be forced to resort to other measures in addition to endless spells.

You once said that the world on a new round of technology is returning to history. Where, in which century?

In the XIX, XVIII century.

In the era of permanent wars?

Certainly. True, I repeat, there will be no big war. Nuclear weapons are given to us so that we do not destroy ourselves. But there is a renationalization of world politics. Just because we were in the European world, and Europeans wanted to overcome their history for the last 30–40 years and partially overcame it, it seemed to us that everything would be so. But Asia rose. Africa rose. The Middle East is very bad there.

One of the evil, from my point of view, jokes of history lies in the fact that when Chancellor Merkel said that Putin is in a different reality - having, obviously, that Europe, which overcame nationalism, who made a bet on a soft force, on the right, lives in the new world. She was, alas, not right. This is not President Putin, but the Chancellor Merkel is out of reality, she does not see that her world, firstly, staggering, cracking at all seams, and secondly, this is a very small world. This is 5-10% of humanity, and the other world is 90–95%.

Who is the allies now?

We have almost no direct allies. China, India, conditional Malaysia and most other countries would not like the defeat of the West. And in the West they would like the defeat of Russia to stop China. Russia now looks - at least in the eyes of the West - like an avant -garde, a combat avant -garde of the anti -Western. And this is a heavy burden.