In March 2014 the Russian Federation illegally annexed the Crimean Autonomous Republic from Ukraine. From there the instability has spilled over to almost the entire South-East of Ukraine. The Crimean crisis and separatism in the South-East of Ukraine are the strongest historical challenges for the Ukrainian people and sovereignty since independence. However, Ukraine is not the only country that should be concerned about the steps that Russia is taking. The ideology that is brewing inside Russia and its actions are just as dangerous to the countries of the Visegrad Group.
The source of the crisis in Ukraine is a systematic and well-planned program by Moscow to undermine the Ukrainian state. Russia is using Ukraine as a proxy to wage its civilization war against Western Europe and the United States. The Crimean crisis has so far demonstrated that Europe and the United States have not been able to respond adequately to Russia’s actions. This will likely embolden Russian to orchestrate further escalation of violence and instability in Ukraine. Russian ideology, which we analyze in this article, is designed for “greatness” and has a big appetite. If Ukraine falls, Russia will not stop there. After absorbing Ukraine (should this happen), Russia will likely seek to restore its influence in the former Warsaw Pact area, including the V4 states.
In this article we will try to show how the modern ideological basis of the Russian state has been formed. What are the external and internal factors that have contributed to its formation? What are the implications for the European continent and the V4?
Russian ideology as a response to the democratization of Ukraine
Many experts noted that the beginning of the restoration of Russia from a regional power to a great power was the 2008 war against Georgia and the subsequent occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
As already mentioned, Russia was on the brink of collapse and ideological exhaustion after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the old ideology of communism was discredited while the new had not been articulated. Russia’s oligarchs and criminals became the country’s main decision-makers.
In 2000, Vladimir Putin was tasked to overhaul the Russian economy and disentangle it from the power of the oligarchs. Growth in the world market prices of crude oil and gas provided the means to patch up glaring holes in the post-Soviet Russian economy, without making major changes to the economic sphere.
Putin’s regime began a serious battle against oligarchs such as Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. This internal war became known as the “equidistance of oligarchs.” Putin’s victory against the oligarchs allowed him to centralize power. Those oligarchs who managed to survive, namely Alisher Usmanov, Mikhail Fridman, Leonid Michelson, and others, were allowed to engage in business in return for loyalty toward the Kremlin. In this way Putin’s regime created some semblance of stability in the economic and political system of the Russian state.
However, the moment of truth has become the emergence of a new “St. George” ideology which started as a backlash to the events in neighboring Ukraine. The emergence, growth, and advances of Russian national, messianic patriotism and anti-Western sentiments coincide precisely with the revolutionary events in the Ukrainian capital, particularly the Orange Revolution in 2005 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. The following components are crucial to understanding Russia’s current ideology:
- The Russian youth movement called “Nashi” (Ours);
- The concept of “sovereign democracy” by Vladislav Surkov, one of Putin’s closest allies;
- Establishment of the international media channel Russia Today;
- The geopolitical school of Alexander Dugin;
- New Russian traditionalism;
- The doctrine of “Russkiy mir” (Russian world).
