Daily Archives: June 16, 2023

1. Putin says Russia positions nuclear bombs in Belarus as warning to West  Reuters
2. Ukraine war: Putin confirms first nuclear weapons moved to Belarus  BBC
3. Putin says Russia has sent first nuclear weapons to Belarus  The Hill

Read more from the original source:

Putin says Russia positions nuclear bombs in Belarus as warning to West - Reuters

Leopard 2 tanks are some of the most advanced and powerful military vehicles out there. Dozens have been provided by NATO countries to help Ukraine.

Did Russia recently destroy eight German-made Leopard tanks while Ukraine carries out a counteroffensive?

Thats what the Ministry of Defence in Moscow announced, claiming a grainy black-and-white video as proof.

Several silhouettes of vehicles can be seen, before a helicopter launches a missile that strikes them, causing an explosion. It's a direct hit! says a voice speaking in Russian.

Almost immediately after the video was posted, multiple Twitter users and military experts cast doubt on its authenticity.

Leopard 2 tanks are some of the most advanced and powerful military vehicles out there.

Multiple NATO countries began providing them to Ukraine earlier this year.

According to multiple analysts, the video posted by the Russian authorities is no Leopard 2.

These alleged 'tanks' turned out to be nothing more than just farming equipment.

As this Twitter user and military analysis account pointed out on Twitter, the silhouette of the destroyed vehicles in the video appears to more closely match a self-propelled sprayer used in agriculture.

"Even a semi-professional can clearly see that these are agricultural harvester and sprayer machines," he said.

A weapons expert on Twitter showed that the vehicle struck by the Russian missile has four wheels, while Leopard 2 tanks have continuous tracks like a bulldozer and are also low-lying.

Other elements that appear strange in the video are that these so-called tanks are both out in the open and stationary, which doesnt make sense strategically as these Leopard 2s are usually camouflaged behind trees and other vegetation.

In the longer version of the video that was posted by the Russian Ministry of Defence, one of the operators is heard saying Lets try this out on these, which could imply this was merely a military test.

Even prominent pro-Kremlin channels spotted this inconsistency, mocking this as a piece of propaganda.

A pro-Russian military blogger posted on Telegram saying "This is embarrassing, were at a loss for words. Sorry."

The boss of the mercenary Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has been clashing with Russias top military officials, mocked the Ministrys claim that Ukraines counteroffensive had been stopped.

Judging by the Defense Ministrys announcement we already defeated all European armies a long time ago, Prigozhin said via his press service, quipping that the war can now end because Russia has no one left to fight."

Read more from the original source:

Russia says it destroyed Leopard tanks, it turned out to be tractors - Euronews

Q: Short of an unconditional Russian withdrawal or a Ukrainian military victory, does the European Union have a peace plan for Ukraine that would be acceptable to both sides?

A: Look, everybody wants peace. Us too. And the ones who want peace the most are the Ukrainians. But what does peace mean? Peace is something more than "not war". We should not confuse the terms. If I want to stop the war, I know how to do it very quickly, in one week. I stop supporting Ukraine, stop sending arms to Ukraine and the war will stop because Ukraine will have to surrender. Would that mean peace? No. Peace is something more. Peace means to recognise the right of Ukraine to exist, to respect international borders, to arrange for war reparations and accountability from Russia. I understand at the moment, it's not very propitious for that because Russia wants to continue attacking Ukraine. So, yes, of course we want peace, but unhappily, we have to face a situation where the war will continue.

Q: Most countries in the world do not participate in the sanctions on Russia. A lot of the Global South has not even condemned Russia's invasion. Is this a problem? How do you explain it?

A: Altogether 146 countries have condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That's an important share of the world community. So, some, but not many, have not condemned the invasion. But what is true, and the question that I ask myself, is why the indignation that we feel in Europe against this invasion is not shared in the same way by several countries.

Some countries condemn Russia, but they don't follow up with sanctions. And they show some reluctance in making the distinction between the aggressor and the victim. Why is this? There are several reasons. For example, in Africa, there is a feeling of anti-colonialism. Some countries also feel that since Russia supported them during their fight for independence or against apartheid, they cannot go against it. In Latin America, there are still strong anti-imperialist sentiments and there is a feeling that things are not black and white - that NATO expansion was part of the problem.

I understand these considerations, but one thing is clear: there was no reason for Russia to attack Ukraine. There were no NATO troops in Ukraine and no negotiations for Ukraine to become a member of NATO. And it is not NATO that is trying to expand: it is that countries want to enter NATO. For example, Sweden and Finland have been neutral for years, but now, suddenly, they want to join NATO. Why? Because of Russia's behaviour. Because people perceive that they are being threatened, and the best guarantee against this threat is to become members of Nato.

Q: How do you respond to the view that while rich countries are readily willing to fund Ukraine in the war and to provide generous support for their own people in the pandemic, they claim they don't have enough money to support debt relief, climate finance or even pandemic support for developing countries?

A: Perception is one thing, but let us look at the facts. The developed world promised US$100 billion (S$135 billion) to countries to help fight climate change. Europe has done its part. We have pledged US$36 billion. Second, not a single euro of our resources that support other countries has been diverted to Ukraine. We have continued providing the same level of support for other countries. Third, who is the biggest aid donor todeveloping countries? Who has been the biggest exporter and donor of vaccines? Europe. Yes, certainly, we could do more. But we are doing more than anyone else. I can understand people saying that we haven't treated equally Ukrainian refugees and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa. Yes, but we must keep things in perspective.

Q: Are the sanctions against Russia working?

A: Actually, the word "sanctions" does not exist in any European treaties. The phrase used is "restrictive measures". We restrict some actions, like buying Russian gas and selling Russia the electronics it needs to produce arms. That's the least we could have done. We say: "You are attacking Ukraine, so we don't want to buy your oil and gas because with that money you pay for the war. You are producing arms, so we won't sell you the electronics that you need to do that. I don't want to give you the spare parts you need for your civilian planes." Seventy-five per cent of Russia's civilian air fleet cannot fly because there are no spare parts. Ninety per cent of Russia's production of cars has stopped.

But there is a big difference between our restrictive measures and those taken by the United States. Our measures are not extraterritorial. We cannot ask an Indonesian company to conform to our laws. The Americans can - everybody must comply with their sanctions. We consider that to be against international law. We don't believe in imposing our laws on third countries. So, we cannot prevent Indian companies from buying Russian oil - and they are doing it.

Q: What is your response to that?

A: It's perfectly normal. If nobody was buying Russian oil, there would be a scarcity of oil in the world, the price of oil would jump, and we would be paying much more. So we don't care if India is buying Russian oil, as long as total Russian oil revenues go down.

But a different thing is circumvention. So, for example, I don't sell electronics to Russia, but maybe I sell electronics to a third country which then resells it to Russia. This is something that has to be avoided, and we are taking measures to ensure this. We won't sell banned items to countries that are buying from us to resell to Russia. Shadow of Ukraine war over Shangri-La Dialogue If Xi gets Putin to send Russia's troops home, he can broker peace: Ukraine Defence Minister

Q: How has the Russia-Ukraine war changed the EU's attitude to defence policy, and what is the EU doing in this area?

A: The war has been a wake-up call. In Europe, we got used to peace, after many years of war in the past. We thought that war was something that happened only far away from our borders, and didn't feel that we could be in danger. That's why we reduced our military spending.

But suddenly, the war came, and it came within a few kilometres of our cities. That has reminded us that the world is dangerous. So, we have to be prepared to face adversaries who want to wage war on us. We don't want to wage war, but we have to be prepared if others want to do that to us.

That's why today we are increasing our military spending, which is now 30 per cent higher than in 2013. But we have to do more than just increase military expenditure. We have to do it in a coordinated manner, because we have 27 different armies.

Q: On China, the rhetoric from the EU and the Group of Seven has changed from decoupling to derisking? What is the difference in practice?

A: Decoupling means we are not going to engage economically with China. Every day, our trade with China is around US$2.7 billion. Every day! So, decoupling? Forget about it. If we tried to do that, we would produce a worldwide crisis.

Derisking is different, it's about avoiding risk. We have to avoid excessive dependencies. When Covid-19 came, we discovered that in Europe, we don't produce a single gram of paracetamol. All paracetamol was produced in India or China. And in the pandemic, this became a problem. So we have to reduce such excessive dependencies. What are they? This is a question that has to be analysed and corrective policies need to be implemented. Derisking cannot be a slogan. It has to translate into policies.

We have to also be mindful of the border between derisking and decoupling. Where does derisking end and decoupling begin? That is not clear. So we have to be careful and practical to avoid excessive dependencies, but not to cut economic links.

Q: Some countries, including Singapore, are concerned that derisking can have unintended consequences. Would you be willing to engage with other countries to take on board their concerns?

A: Certainly, certainly. Countries are right to be concerned. Derisking sounds good and logical, but we have to be careful to define what are the risks, what additional risks are created by derisking and what are the collateral effects of our policies.

If there is something for which Europe can be blamed, it's that maybe we don't take enough into consideration the collateral impact of some of our policies. For example, I am very much engaged with our Asean partners on the effects of our deforestation policies. When we say stop deforestation, we have to take into account how that affects other people and countries. Palm oil is one example, which has been at the centre of a lot of controversy.

Q: What are the differences in perceptions of China between the EU and the US?

A: I'm very much in favour of Europe having its own policies. We will always be closer to Washington than to Beijing, because we share the same political and economic system. But we don't always have the same interests. That's why, in some areas, we don't share the same approaches. Perceptions also vary by country. The relations with China are not the same in Germany as they are in Spain. In the same way, the perception of Russia as a threat is not the same in Lithuania as in Lisbon. Geography, history and economics - they all matter.

Q: Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger allegedly asked: "When I want to call Europe, who do I call?" What would be your answer?

A: Although that phrase is attributed to Mr Kissinger, he says he never said that. But it's an interesting question.

You know, the European Union is a complex institution. It's a club, not a state. So, there is no head of state, no minister of defence, no collective army. It's a club of states that has decided to share some competencies and manage some things in common - for example, the currency, and open borders. It's natural that the complexity of European institutions is not well understood by the rest of the world. How many people understand the difference between the Council of the EU and the European Council?

So who do you call? It depends on whom you want to talk to, and for what. If you want to talk about trade, there is a commissioner for trade. There is a president of the European Commission. If you want to talk about foreign policy, then you have to talk either with me, or with the president of the European Council, Mr Charles Michel, because foreign policy is not made community-wide. Each member state has its own foreign policy.

Q: How do you achieve policy coherence amid all this diversity?

A: With a lot of patience.

Josep Borrell, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Singapore last week to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue.

This Interview was published in The Straits Times, Singapore.

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The Straits Times - Peace is not 'no war' and derisking has risks: Josep Borrell | EEAS - EEAS

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Russia's latest space agency mission: raising a militia for the war in Ukraine - Financial Times

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said the Biden administration is closely monitoring Russia’s claims that it’s stored a tactical nuclear weapon in Belarus, but Washington has “no reason to adjust” its own nuclear posture. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier in the day said Moscow sent the first of several nuclear weapons to its ally Belarus, with the rest to be delivered by the end of summer. Putin, who in March first announced the plan to deploy nuclear bombs in the country bordering Ukraine, said the move is meant as a “deterrence measure.” 

Blinken said he has seen Putin’s recent comments, and the United States will “continue to monitor the situation very closely and very carefully.” 

“We have no reason to adjust our own nuclear posture,” Blinken said at a State Department press conference with Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. “We don’t see any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon.”

He added Washington is still committed to defending “every inch” of NATO territory. 

“As for Belarus itself, this is just another example of [Belarus President Alexander] Lukashenko making irresponsible, provocative choices to cede control of Belarus’s sovereignty against the will of the Belarusian people,” he said.  

Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom Vadym Prystaiko, however, said Putin’s remarks should be taken “very, very seriously,” CNN reported.  

“I believe that [Putin] was blackmailing all of us: Ukrainians, first of all, but then Europeans and Americans and all our partners around the globe,” Prystaiko said. 

Moscow is transferring short-range tactical nuclear weapons, which are not as damaging as the nuclear warheads attached to ballistic missiles but are capable of immense destruction, into Belarus.  

Russia moving the nuclear weapons back into Belarus is the first such transfer for the Kremlin since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. At the time, Belarus was one of four former Soviet Union members, including Ukraine, that transferred nuclear weapons over to Russia. 

Putin, who has repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons in its war with Ukraine, also on Friday denigrated NATO and warned there is a “serious danger of further drawing” the alliance into the war by providing Ukraine weapons.  

Read more here:

Blinken: US has no reason to adjust nuclear posture over Russias weapons transfer to Belarus - The Hill

Greece and Hungary are still blocking EU sanctions on Russia, as talks drag out into their third month.

They want Ukraine to first delete Greek shipping firms and a Hungarian bank from Kyiv's list of "international war sponsors".

Ukraine's unilateral name-and-shame blacklist has a purely PR significance.

But Athens and Budapest say the stigma is hurting their top companies' reputations and are trying to use their EU veto on Russia sanctions to strong-arm Kyiv into submission.

EU ambassadors discussed the 11th round of Russia measures on Wednesday (14 June) with no outcome and will meet again on Monday to try to break the deadlock.

The 10th round of sanctions was imposed in February the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion.

The 11th-round talks kicked off informally in late March and went up a gear in early May, when the European Commission proposed a new blacklist and trade curbs on arms technology.

The hope now is for an agreement by 26 June, when EU foreign ministers next meet.

EU leaders gathering in Brussels three days later also aim to declare the new Russia sanctions.

"The European Council will review efforts to increase pressure on Russia to limit its ability to wage its war of aggression, including sanctions against Russia and those supporting its war efforts [and is expected to welcome the adoption of the 11th package of sanctions against Russia]," they are to say, according to draft conclusions seen by EUobserver.

But as the clock ticks, Kyiv appears to be in no mood to let Hungary's OTP Bank, Budapest's largest lender, off the war-sponsor list.

"The bank's management continues to work in Russia, pay taxes, and this money goes to war. For this money, [Russian president Vladimir] Putin makes new rockets that fly into the homes of innocent Ukrainians," said Ukrainian MP Alex Goncharenko, who chairs a transatlantic sanctions caucus.

"Why doesn't Hungary start with itself and fix the situation?," he told EUobserver.

"They want to do business in Russia, but at the same time, they want to have good relations with Ukraine. You can't be on two sides at once you have to choose a side," Goncharenko said.

The Greek foreign ministry did not reply to EUobserver.

Hungary and EU institutions never answer press questions on sanctions talks.

But one EU diplomat said: "Certain EU states, with Hungary leading the pack, are becoming increasingly transactional on Russia sanctions and support for Ukraine".

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"Weighing on the same scales the interests of banks or shipping firms, versus existential issues for the West, is not just short-sighted, it counters our strategic goals and, as such, it's suicidal," he added.

The Ukrainian shame-list also includes Austrian, French, German, Italian, and US companies but none of these countries are giving their private corporations the same diplomatic cover as Hungary and Greece.

Greece aside, Hungary is also blocking Sweden's Nato accession, in a pressure campaign to claw back frozen EU funds.

The EU froze the money because of prime minister Viktor Orbn's "illiberal" regime in Hungary.

And the US is now also losing patience with its Nato ally.

"Hungary should take the actions necessary to allow Sweden into the alliance, and soon," said Republican US senator Jim Risch on Wednesday, after his committee put on hold a $735m arms deal with Budapest use to the Nato dispute.

The EU Commission's 11th-round Russia proposal aimed to curb trade in arms components to eight Chinese firms, which it accused of circumvention of [EU] trade restrictions" on Russia's military-industrial complex.

It also proposed to blacklist a few dozen low-level Russian officials accused of child abduction and art looting in Ukraine, as well as propagandists, such as Russian academic Sergey Karaganov, who called for nuclear war against the West this week.

But according to EU diplomats, just three of the eight Chinese firms are now to be listed, following Beijing's assurances of good behaviour, as well as German and Italian concern on spoiling relations with China.

And while the rest of the proposed 11th blacklist has more or less stayed the same, its level of ambition is far lower than initial ideas circulated in Brussels some 10 weeks ago.

The EU should take action against Kremlin cash-cow diamond, nuclear, and liquid-gas companies, Poland and the Baltic states had said.

It should also blacklist Gazprombank and some of Russia's wealthiest business magnates, they said, to no avail.

See the rest here:

Orbn still vetoing EU's Russia sanctions over bank insult - EUobserver

For years, the Kremlin diminished the role of regional governors. But the war and the presidents self-isolation from real problems have changed everything. Now the enforced publicity of regional leaders may serve to restore their genuine popularity and authority.

For many Russians, their countrys war against neighboring Ukraine is no longer a distant conflict that has no impact on their lives. Drones loaded with explosives have darkened the skies of not only border regions, but Moscow, too, while cross-border incursions by armed groups are now a regular occurrence in the Belgorod region. All the while, Vladimir Putin continues to pretend that nothing major is happening. The president intends to fight this war to the bitter end, but in order to avoid ever appearing to have lost, he cannot clearly articulate its ultimate goals.

Amid this deafening silence, anyone who recognizes the new reality looks preferable. As the figures responsible for dealing with the aftermath of attacks and for trying to reassure the residents of their regions, Russias regional governors have found themselves in the spotlight, and may well be able to boost their popularity through effective crisis management.

The increased shelling of the Belgorod regionthe first Russian region to find itself dragged into Putins warand incursions by armed groups are likely the greatest test Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has faced in his career, but they have also provided him with plenty of opportunities to excel. Parts of the region, including the town of Shebekino with a population of 40,000, regularly come under fire, and residents of at-risk areas are being evacuated en masse away from the front. Gladkov was even publicly negotiating a prisoner exchange at one point, though he then quickly fell silent, likely upon the Kremlins orders.

The governor has also said openly that the region has insufficient funds to restore infrastructure after the shelling. Back in the 1990s, it was not unheard of for powerful governors to talk publicly about budgetary problems, but in Putins Russia, its highly unusual.

It might seem that the federal leadership and Putin himself should be taking control of the tense situation in the region. But for now, any federal intervention has been limited to phone calls between the president and local authorities. Residents of the region have gotten no reassurances from Putin.

Nor did the president have any words of support for Muscovites in the aftermath of the Moscow drone attack last month. Putin did eventually address the incident, but most of his tirade was devoted to the history of Ukraine and Russia. Instead, the reassurance came from Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who said mobile teams of doctors were being set up in the city, promised to provide all necessary assistance, and tried to convince people that the city authorities would not abandon those impacted by the attacks.

This is not the first time that the central government has adopted this hands-off approach. During the pandemic, Putin also stepped back from talking about problems and trying to solve them, instead transferring all powersand responsibilityto the governors.

The logic back then was obvious. Russian officials were having to make difficult choices between unpopular lockdown measures and additional deaths. Either option was doomed to alienate at least part of the public.

While the ratings of governors dropped accordingly, Putin simply stood on the sidelines. He only began to talk about the pandemic once clear response protocols and vaccines had been developed. Then Putin reported on successes that had nothing to do with him, since he had not been involved in the decisionmaking process.

The current situation is potentially even more dangerous than the pandemic, and that is why Putin remains silent. As soon as the original planto take Kyiv in three daysfailed, the president distanced himself from the military agenda.

Putin is neither willing nor able to stop the war and admit his mistakes. At the same time, he knows that attempting to put the country on a full-scale military footing would be extremely unpopular. Putin clearly expects to achieve his goal by attrition. In the meantime, he prefers to keep well away from issues that could jeopardize his ratings.

All of this will strengthen the position of the governors and some government officials, since the more the war encroaches onto Russias home territory, the more they will be needed. Opinion polls confirm that Russian societys desire for stability is as strong as ever. According to research conducted by the independent sociological group Russian Field, in presidential elections, Russians would rather vote for an effective manager than for a moralizer.

While Putin tells his people that everyone has to die, and its better to do so in war than from alcoholism, and then descends into another polemic about the history of Ukraine, Anglo-Saxons, and anti-colonialism, the governors simply say: all necessary assistance will be provided. Its not hard to see which is the winning rhetoric.

For many years, the Kremlin diminished the role of governors, turning them into mere executors of Putins decisions, his operational managers on the ground. The warand the presidents self-isolation from real problemshas changed everything. The enforced publicity of regional leaders may serve to restore their genuine popularity and authority. Governors are finally starting to behave like real public politicians.

There is no clearer illustration of this than the evolution of Gladkov. From managing a broadly positive agenda of promises of investment and posting upbeat videos on his Instagram page, he has now switched to full military mode, visiting bombed out areas and talking to those affected. And its paying off: his approval rating is close to 90 percent, an unprecedented figure among Russian governors.

Both Gladkov and Sobyanin understand that the average Russian does not really differentiate between the spheres of responsibility of governors versus the federal government, and that in any case, they will seek answers from whomever is closer. The regional heads anticipate grassroots demand and respond to it. In other words, they are doing what Putin stopped doing long ago.

Having permitted themselves to show initiative, these regional politicians are still only working to achieve specific tactical goals rather than far-reaching plans. Gladkov monitors his rating zealously, while Sobyanin is mindful of Septembers mayoral elections. But everything that is happening shows that amid the state of semi-paralysis within the power vertical, those nearer to the bottom of it are gaining unprecedented autonomy, and that if needed, Russian officials are prepared to disregard the seemingly unbreakable rules of that vertical. In the event of the systems destruction, these people will not simply disappear. They will integrate into the new orderor even start to create new orders themselves.

By:

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Putin's Silence Heralds the Return of Russia's Governors as a Political Force - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

In early December of 1989, a few weeks after the Berlin Wall fell, Mikhail Gorbachev attended his first summit with President GeorgeH. W. Bush. They met off the coast of Malta, aboard the Soviet cruise ship Maxim Gorky. Gorbachev was very much looking forward to the summit, as he looked forward to all his summits; things at home were spiralling out of control, but his international standing was undimmed. He was in the process of ending the decades-long Cold War that had threatened the world with nuclear holocaust. When he appeared in foreign capitals, crowds went wild.

Bush was less eager. His predecessor, Ronald Reagan, had blown a huge hole in the budget by cutting taxes and increasing defense spending; then he had somewhat rashly decided to go along with Gorbachevs project to rearrange the world system. Bushs national-security team, which included the realist defense intellectual Brent Scowcroft, had taken a pause to review the nations Soviet policy. The big debate within the U.S. government was whether Gorbachev was in earnest; once it was concluded that he was, the debate was about whether hed survive.

On the summits first day, Gorbachev lamented the sad state of his economy and praised Bushs restraint and thoughtfulness with regard to the revolutionary events in the Eastern Bloche did not, as Bush himself put it, jump up and down on the Berlin Wall. Bush responded by praising Gorbachevs boldness and stressing that he had economic problems of his own. Then Gorbachev unveiled what he considered a great surprise. It was a heartfelt statement about his hope for new relations between the two superpowers. I want to say to you and the United States that the Soviet Union will under no circumstances start a war, Gorbachev said. The Soviet Union is no longer prepared to regard the United States as an adversary.

As the historian Vladislav Zubok explains in his recent book Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union (Yale), This was a fundamental statement, a foundation for all future negotiations. But, as two members of Gorbachevs team who were present for the conversations noted, Bush did not react. Perhaps it was because he was recovering from seasickness. Perhaps it was because he was not one for grand statements and elevated rhetoric. Or perhaps it was because to him, as a practical matter, the declaration of peace and partnership was meaningless. As he put it, a couple of months later, to the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, We prevailed and they didnt. Gorbachev thought he was discussing the creation of a new world, in which the Soviet Union and the United States worked together, two old foes reconciled. Bush thought he was merely negotiating the terms for the Soviets surrender.

The most pressing practical question after the Berlin Wall came down was what would happen to the two Germanys. It was not just the Wall that had been keeping them apart. In 1989, even after four years of Gorbachevs perestroika, there were still nearly four hundred thousand Soviet troops in the German Democratic Republic. On the other side of the East-West border were several hundred thousand NATO troops, and most of the alliances ground-based nuclear forces. The legal footing for these troop deployments was the postwar settlement at Potsdam. The Cold War, at least in Europe, was a frozen conflict between the winners of the Second World War. Germany, four and a half decades later, remained the loser.

West German politicians dreamed of reunification; the hard-line Communist leaders of East Germany were less enthusiastic. East Germans, pouring through the dismantled Wall to bask in the glow of Western consumer goods, were voting with their feet. What would Gorbachev do? Throughout the months that followed, he held a series of meetings with foreign leaders. His advisers urged him to extract as many concessions as possible. They wanted security guarantees: the non-extension of NATO, or at least the removal of nuclear forces from German territory. One bit of leverage was that NATOs nuclear presence was deeply unpopular among the West German public, and Gorbachevs hardest-line adviser on Germany urged him, more than a little hypocritically, to demand a German popular vote on nukes.

In February, 1990, two months after the summit with Bush on the Maxim Gorky, Gorbachev hosted James Baker, the U.S. Secretary of State, in Moscow. This was one of Gorbachevs last opportunities to get something from the West before Germany reunified. But, as Mary Elise Sarotte relates in Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (Yale), her recent book on the complex history of NATO expansion, he was not up to the task. Baker posed to Gorbachev a hypothetical question. Would you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces, Baker asked, or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATOs jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position? This last part would launch decades of debate. Did it constitute a promiselater, obviously, broken? Or was it just idle talk? In the event, Gorbachev answered lamely that of course NATO could not expand. Bakers offer, if thats what it was, would not be repeated. In fact, as soon as people in the White House got wind of the conversation, they had a fit. Two weeks later, at Camp David, Bush told Kohl what he thought of Soviet demands around German reunification. The Soviets are not in a position to dictate Germanys relationship with NATO, he said. To hell with that.

The U.S. pressed its advantage; Gorbachev, overwhelmed by mounting problems at home, settled for a substantial financial inducement from Kohl and some vague security assurances. Soon, the Soviet Union was no more, and the overriding priority for U.S. policymakers became nuclear deproliferation. Ukraine, newly independent, had suddenly become the worlds No. 3 nuclear power, and Western countries set about persuading it to give up its arsenal. Meanwhile, events in the former Eastern Bloc were moving rapidly.

You know your mistake? When they say Speak, you speak.

Cartoon by Peter Steiner

In 1990, Franjo Tudjman was elected President of Croatia and began pushing for independence from Yugoslavia; the long and violent dissolution of that country was under way. Then, in February of 1991, the leaders of Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, as it was then, met in Visegrd, a pretty castle town just north of Budapest, and promised one another to cordinate their pursuit of economic and military ties with European institutions. These countries became known as the Visegrd Group, and they exerted pressure on successive U.S. Administrations to let them join nato. They were worried about the events in Yugoslavia, but even more worried about Russia. If the Russians broke bad, they argued, they would need NATOs protection; if the Russians stayed put, the alliance could mellow out and just enjoy its annual meetings. Either way, there would be no harm done.

The counter-argument, from some in both the Bush and the Clinton Administrations, was that the priority was the emergence of a peaceable and democratic Russia. Admitting the former Warsaw Pact countries into the alliance might strengthen the hand of the hard-liners inside Russia, and become, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

After the Soviet collapse, Western advisers, investment bankers, democracy promoters, and just plain con men flooded the region. The advice on offer was, in retrospect, contradictory. On the one hand, Western officials urged the former Communist states to build democracy; on the other, they made many kinds of aid contingent on the implementation of free-market reforms, known at the time as shock therapy. But the reason the reforms had to be administered brutally and all at oncewhy they had to be a shockwas that they were by their nature unpopular. They involved putting people out of work, devaluing their savings, and selling key industries to foreigners. The political systems that emerged in Eastern Europe bore the scars of this initial contradiction.

In almost every former Communist state, the story of reform played out in the same way: collapse, shock therapy, the emergence of criminal entrepreneurs, violence, widespread social disruption, and then, sometimes, a kind of rebuilding. Many of the countries are now doing comparatively well. Poland has a per-capita G.D.P. approaching Portugals; the Czech Republic exports its koda sedans all over the world; tiny Estonia is a world leader in e-governance. But the gains were distributed unequally, and serious political damage was done.

In no country did the reforms play out more dramatically, and more consequentially, than in Russia. Boris Yeltsins first post-Soviet Cabinet was led by a young radical economist named Yegor Gaidar. In a matter of months, he transformed the enormous Russian economy, liberalizing prices, ending tariffs on foreign goods, and launching a voucher program aimed at distributing the ownership of state enterprises among the citizenry. The result was the pauperization of much of the population and the privatization of the countrys industrial base by a small group of well-connected men, soon to be known as the oligarchs. When the parliament, still called the Supreme Soviet and structured according to the old Soviet constitution, tried to put a brake on the reforms, Yeltsin ordered it disbanded. When it refused to go, Yeltsin ordered that it be shelled. Many of the features that we associate with Putinismimmense inequality, a lack of legal protections for ordinary citizens, and super-Presidential powerswere put in place in the early nineteen-nineties, in the era of reform.

When it came to those reforms, did we give the Russians bad advice, or was it good advice that they implemented badly? And, if it was bad advice, did we dole it out maliciously, to destroy their country, or because we didnt know what we were doing? Many Russians still believe that Western advice was calculated to harm them, but history points at least partly in the other direction: hollowing out the government, privatizing public services, and letting the free market run rampant were policies that we also implemented in our own country. The German historian Philipp Ther argues that the post-Soviet reform process would have looked very different if it had taken place even a decade earlier, before the so-called Washington Consensus about the benevolent power of markets had congealed in the minds of the worlds leading economists. One could add that it would also have been different two decades later, after the 2008 financial crisis had caused people to question again the idea that capitalism could be trusted to run itself.

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How Russia Went from Ally to Adversary - The New Yorker