Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site, 29.09.2020

There is a war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia and Azerbaijan report hundreds of deaths. [Russia’s Foreign Minister] Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin over the phone “express concern” and urge “to prevent further escalation”.

For 28 years, Russian diplomacy have been trying to produce an impression of Moscow’s mediation in the peace process, but, judging by what is happening, could not achieve anything. Certainly, France and the United States also took part in the peace settlement. But Karabakh is very far from them, but only some 300 km to our border.

Where is the “influential world power” striving for “multipolarity” and division of the world into spheres of influence? There is no such. In the tragic Karabakh conflict, Russia demonstrates complete helplessness: it makes general statements, asks for peace and is in a state of “concern”. All this despite the fact that Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), where Russia plays the first violin all respects. Or else is the CSTO needed only to threaten unarmed citizens of Belarus who oppose election fraud and arbitrariness?

On the other hand, Putin’s strange “partner” in the so-called peacekeeping mission (but in fact in bloody and senseless participation in the civil war in Syria) – Turkey, also a long-term participant in the “settlement” of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, – is behaving extremely aggressively and openly supports Azerbaijan. However, the Kremlin does not want and cannot quarrel with Ankara and is ready to tolerate anything from Erdogan.

Russia has a definite goal: to end the war on its borders and to achieve real dialogue between the conflicting parties. This is the primary task for the state as a regional leader. However, in order to behave like a superpower – to make conflicting parties make peace and in general to participate in international affairs on an equal footing with other world leaders – one must first become a superpower: observe international law, have a world-class economy, have a positive reputation… Putin’s Russia has nothing of the kind. All this is to be created in the Russia of the future. In the meantime, Lavrov can only express banal concern.

Source

Grigory Yavlinsky

is Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of the Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO, Vice President of Liberal International, PhD in Economics, Professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.