"We are not Russophobes, but there is a problem"

"Russia was able to relatively quickly overcome the consequences of the collapse of the USSR. And someone should resist the American hegemonic policy. It seems that Russia is the most natural candidate for the role of the US counterweight. Resisting Washington’s imperial policy, Russia will be able to find new allies in the world."

So 10 years ago, Jan Charnogursky said, a former dissident, in the early 90s-the Prime Minister of Slovakia, a conservative politician and chairman of the Slovak-Russian Society for a short time, who urged the authorities of this country to join the sanctions of the European Union against Russia. If in the last decade such views were not typical for the Central European politicians, now the picture is different. In recent years, the Kremlin managed to acquire in countries that once formed the satellites of the USSR, a number of influential allies-including, for example, the President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman and Viktor Orban Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Transers occur in public opinion. For example, in the same Slovakia, according to recent surveys, 27% of citizens advocate close cooperation with Russia, and only 7% for the same ties with the United States. At the same time, Slovaks as a whole are not ready to change the geopolitical orientation of their country: 54% of respondents support NATO membership, exactly half the way out of this union would like. At a hypothetical referendum, 68% of the inhabitants of Slovakia would vote against the exit from the EU, and only 19% would support Slovexit.

27% of citizens advocate close cooperation with Russia, and only 7% for the same ties with the United States

Analysts have been studying the phenomenon of Russian influence in Central and Eastern Europe for several years. There are usually several reasons. This is the dissatisfaction of the part of the population that the EU membership brought with it, and a certain nostalgia for more “stable” communist times, and, finally, the efforts of Moscow in the field of propaganda and attracting some political forces and public opinion to their side. The mechanisms here can be different - from the activation of intelligence activities to the misinformation campaign on the Internet.

"Vulnerability index" of Central European countries

Employees of a number of analytical centers from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic under the auspices of the Globsec Institute based in Bratislav decided to analyze and bring together all the circumstances associated with the Russian influence in the countries of the Vishegrad group (V4) . Thus, a study arose, the result of which was the "Vulneraability Index" index) of the four countries in relation to political, economic and information risk factors from the Kremlin. The index was calculated on a stobal scale. The more points a separate country scored, the higher, according to analysts, its vulnerability. As a result, Hungary and Slovakia (57 and 51 points, respectively) noticeably broke away from the Czech Republic (38) and Poland (30 points).

About how exactly the "vulnerability index" was calculated, what is its meaning and in which direction the policy and public opinion of the V4 countries are drifting, the analyst of the Globsec Institute, one of the authors of the study , Daniel Milo : Radio Liberty.

Daniel is cute

- How did you "distribute" points to individual countries? What was the method of calculating the "vulnerability index"?

- We have compiled a list of 40 questions in five different areas. The first is public opinion, here we proceeded from these surveys regarding the attitude of the population of a country to the European Union, NATO, Russia and the USA. The second region is a political scene. Here we evaluated the positions of the ruling and opposition parties in relation to Russia's policy. The third area is the media, the degree of their independence and how the Prochrevsky views are reflected in them. The fourth region is state security measures taken in relation to Russian political, economic and information influence. The fifth is the activities of public organizations in a given country, including those that serve as guides of Russian influence. The relevant questions were proposed by 38 experts in each of the five regions, in all four countries. They gave grades on a stobal scale. Thus, indexes were obtained in each of the five regions, after which we received the total Vulnerabsy Index by the method of comparing indicators for each country.

Hungary was the most vulnerable in several areas

- The worst index - 57 points - ended up with Hungary. Why? Is this a consequence of the "friendly" policy of the Victor Orban government against the Kremlin or other factors played a role?

- Hungary turned out to be the most vulnerable in several areas. Yes, the political scene also applies to them. As you correctly noticed, one of the factors is the friendly attitude of Orban and his Party “Fides” to the Kremlin, which manifests itself, in particular, in close economic relations, especially in the energy sector (the recently known contract with Russia is the most famous of the construction of the PAKSh nuclear power plant). Hungary is also characterized by the fact that the second most popular political force, the Nationalist Party "Yobbik", acts with even more pro -Russian positions than Fides. Its representatives openly supported the annexation of Crimea and participated as observers in the Crimean referendum in March 2014.

Participants in the anti -government protest in Budapest, April 2017

Another area where Hungary has the largest number of "vulnerability points" is security measures. Unlike other countries of the region, in Hungary there is not a single document issued by the government or special services, where Russian would be mentioned among factors threatening national security. At the same time, there is every reason to assume that Hungary is faced with "hybrid" threats no less than other countries of the region. Moreover, these threats are not at all affected by the National Security Strategy of Hungary and other documents of this kind. The third area, where Hungary also scored the most points, turned out to be a media sphere. The ruling party "Fides" put the Hungarian media market under its almost complete control. From the public media de facto became state-owned, they are completely in solidarity with the political line of the government. In this case, private media is increasingly under the control of business groups close to the government.

All Budapest is glued with posters condemning the "dictate of Brussels"

- At the same time, from the sociological calculations you give, it follows that the pro -Russian position of the Orban cabinet does not correspond to pro -Western moods prevailing in Hungarian society. How to explain this?

- Yes, this is a curious phenomenon. In Hungary, a positive attitude towards the European Union and NATO prevails - at the same time, within the framework of the campaign held by the campaign by the Budapest, is glued with posters, condemning the "dictatorship of Brussels." But it seems that these efforts are not very successful. The country's membership in the EU supports noticeably more than half of the Hungarians. Also, more than half of the respondents are in support of staying in NATO. One of the explanations is the fact that the Party Party represents no more than 30% of the Hungarian voters. Hungary has such a specificity: there is a high share of voters who do not go to the polls, because they do not see among the current parties those who would be considered their representatives. At the same time, when polls at public opinion, they express their views.

- Poland turned out to be the lowest "vulnerability index". What role did Polish-Russian relations traditionally played here?

Polish supporters of Euromaidan, 2014

- Yes, the historical experience of Poland makes it slightly vulnerable to any attempts to change the political orientation of this country to the West - to the USA, the European Union and NATO. At the same time, and this is emphasized in our study, and in Poland attempts to use some nationalist groups and associations are noted in the interests of the Kremlin policy. There it takes the form of bloating of hatred between Poland and Ukraine. As you know, in 2014, Poland played a significant role in supporting democratic forces in Ukraine, to some extent, this predetermined the success of the then revolutionary movement. But now in Poland, nationalist organizations have intensified that focus on historical insults that exist between Poland and Ukraine, in order to violate friendly relations between the two countries. In Poland, there are no prerequisites for the emergence of mass pro -Russian sentiments, but there are attempts to use the moods of anti -Ukrainian in the interests of the Kremlin policy.

-Is it possible to talk about any common threats for all countries of the Vishegrad four, or in each country there is its own set of factors?

There are no prerequisites for the appearance of mass pro -Russian sentiments in Poland

- This is one of our main conclusions: “points of vulnerability” each country has its own. For example, in Slovakia they are concentrated in the field of public opinion, where nostalgically Slavophile sentiments are strong in state security measures. In Poland, these are the activities of some public organizations, in Hungary are factors that we talked about above, and so on. That is, countermeasures should be unequal in every country.

- What is the practical goal of your Vulneraability Index ? Will you offer the results of your study by the political leadership of the four countries? What is this tool for whom is it intended?

-Our main goal was to create a kind of map of the region and offer it to analysts, political figures, mass media. V4 is often perceived as a region that has many common features and problems. To some extent, this is so, but we focused on national specifics-with regard to the Russian influence and ways of its strengthening. There are huge differences. We will try to bring the results of our study to the attention of politicians. It will be officially submitted at the Globsec conference on security issues at the end of May - so that a wide international community can get acquainted with it.

Mateusz Piscursorsky, leader of the Party "Change", accused by Poland authorities of espionage in favor of Russia

- You do not think that a study on Russian influence and the fight against it may be interpreted as an attempt to start something like “witch hunt”? After all, your conclusions can be interpreted so: any connections with Russia, interest, say, Russian culture, language and life in this country, can be interpreted as a threat to national security. Are you not afraid of intolerance?

- None of us who worked on this report are Russophobe. We clearly distinguish the current policy of Russia aimed at implementing certain geopolitical ambitions in Central Europe, attempts to achieve a change in the political orientation of our countries - and Russian culture, which is treated with great respect. As, say, we do not question the outstanding contribution of Russia - more precisely, the then Soviet Union - to the defeat of fascism. These are different things. The "vulnerability index" does not mean at all the desire to indicate any activity related to Russia as obviously negative. But there is a problem, and our task was to investigate the current influence of Russia on socio-political processes in the countries of the region in terms of security.