Keeping a Lid on Putin's Resurgent Russia

Russia's latest outburst of passive-aggressive paranoia, aimed at Britain in particular, may reflect a realization in the Kremlin that western resistance to its perceived bullying of neighbors, disdain for civil and human rights, and cut-throat energy policy is growing after years of blind eyes, held noses and wishful thinking.

President-prime minister Vladimir Putin likes to emphasize Russia's resurgent power, buoyed by record oil and gas export receipts and renewed self-belief. But hackneyed claims that British agents are plotting to destroy the fatherland, recycled yesterday by Russia's chief spy master, Nikolai Patrushev, smack of weakness not strength.

"It's clear that the sweet dream of a strategic partnership between Europe and Russia is over," Jörg Himmelreich, a regional expert at the German Marshall Fund, told a conference of the independent Russia Foundation in London. In many ways, he said, Russia was reverting to type after its short-lived 1990s flirtation with western-style democracy and governance.

"The coming elections will be more a form of plebiscite. Russia, de facto, is almost a one-party system again. The advisers, the siloviki, around Mr Putin resemble the Communist party's central committee," Mr Himmelreich said. Rather than governing for and on behalf of the people, Mr Putin's authoritarian government, like its totalitarian and imperial forerunners, believed "the people are a risk".

Ed Lucas, author of a forthcoming book, The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces Russia and the West, said western attitudes were hardening after a period, spanning Boris Yeltsin's presidency and the early Putin years, of hoping for the best and eschewing forceful action on issues such as the repression of Chechen separatism.

One reason was the fall from power of France's Jacques Chirac, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and Germany's Gerhard Schröder, all replaced by politicians who were less impressed by Mr Putin or, in the case of Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel, privately detested him, Mr Lucas said.

"Broadly speaking western countries are no longer happy to put up with bullying of Russia's neighbours. They've stopped blaming countries such as Poland and Estonia for causing a strain. They look at the blatant kleptocracy in the Kremlin and the phoney politics and pseudo-democracy. In the EU the result is greater solidarity and less self-flagellation and guilt about the Yeltsin era."

Looked at another way, Russia's obstructionism and pot-stirring on issues ranging from Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program to Serbian opposition to Kosovan independence was the product of rising national confidence and historical resentment, a senior research analyst from the UK defense Academy said.

Despite evidence of a growing Russian challenge to western interests, the analyst said Nato, the premier anti-Soviet alliance, was unprepared to tackle emerging threats posed by Russia. That was partly the result of strategic tunnel vision induced by 9/11.

But if, for example, Moscow supported militarily Abkhazia's mooted secession from Georgia, a pro-western former Soviet republic, it was unclear what if anything Nato, the EU or the US could do. The west's first priority must be to regain Russia's respect, the analyst said.

The Kremlin's arrogant refusal to extradite the main suspect in last year's murder in London of Alexander Litvinenko showed how much ground had to be made up. A start could be made by pursuing firmer EU positions on energy, free trade and human rights. It was crucial to forge a proportionate foreign policy that was neither evangelical nor strident, nor totally relativist and apologetic.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, a former foreign secretary, said Russia's legitimate aspirations should be respected although few now expected it to embrace western values wholesale. But neither should Mr Putin's position be considered impregnable.

"What has to be remembered is that Putin is playing a weak hand," he said. "Russia has no non-energy exports to speak of. The oil won't last for ever. Russia's population is dwindling in size.

"What is really striking is the crudity of a Russian foreign policy run by a secret policeman advised by secret policemen. These people are scoring own goal after own goal, like in Ukraine. It is Russia they are hurting most."