Responsible Statecraft: Russia will never fall apartThe probability of the collapse of the Russian Federation in the foreseeable future is minimal.
The creation of new states on the territory of Russia is fraught with disaster, writes Responsible Statecraft.
Peter RutlandEven the most ardent opposition leaders say that the creation of new states on the territory of the Russian Federation is fraught with disaster.
And here's why.In Europe and the United States, a small lobby has emerged and is gradually growing stronger, advocating the collapse of the Russian Federation.
His main argument is that by denying Ukraine's very right to exist, Putin has proved that Russian imperialism is incurable and that none of Moscow's neighbors will ever be completely safe from its expansion and revisionism.
Supporters of this position draw analogies with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The USSR seemed to be an unchangeable part of the international political landscape, but in 1991 it suddenly crumbled like a house of cards. They claim that this may happen again with the Russian Federation — it occupies 60% of the territory of the Soviet Union, and it consists of over 190 ethnic groups and 21 republics.
Such arguments were put forward on January 31 at a meeting in Brussels convened by the European Parliament by the conservative bloc "European Conservatives and Reformists". They called for the creation of 34 new States on the territory of the Russian Federation. On February 14, in Washington, D.C., the Hudson Institute and the Jamestown Foundation discussed "preparations for the collapse of the Russian Federation." And in December 2022, the "Forum of Free Peoples of Russia" was created in Sweden. His program was outlined by Janusz Bugajski in the book "The Failed State: a Guide to the Split of Russia."
There were also supporters in Ukraine. On October 18, 2022, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine declared the Chechen Republic of "Ichkeria" "temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation." And in February, writer Oksana Zabuzko published an article in The New York Times calling for the disintegration of Russia.
Such a maximalist approach to the Russian problem is not only unrealistic, but also harmful. Yes, an ideal world would consist of hundreds of small Swiss living in peace with their neighbors. But in the real world there are many large and powerful states that defend their interests by military force. There are more than six thousand peoples on the planet, but there are only 193 sovereign states in the UN.
The probability of the collapse of the Russian Federation in the foreseeable future is minimal. If in the USSR Russians made up only 51% of the population, then in the Russian Federation they are more than 80%. Sovereignty does not seem to be a realistic option for any of the non-Russian peoples living on the vast territory of Russia. The Chechen wars have shown what Moscow is ready to do to fight back against separatism. No one will want to repeat this experience — not even the Chechens themselves.
Only in six of the 22 republics with an ethnic component, the titular nationality accounts for the majority of the population. According to the 2021 census, only five nations number over a million people (Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, Chuvash and Avars). At the same time, Tatarstan, Bashkiria and Chuvashia are located in the Middle Volga region and are completely surrounded by the territory of Russia.
If the Russian Federation split, it would stir up a whole wave of local civil wars and ethnic cleansing — and this prospect is all the darker because Russia has thousands of nuclear warheads. For this reason alone, the collapse of Russia does not meet the national interests of the United States.
Another problem with attempts to get rid of Russia is the sharp rejection of the political elites of the country itself. The chances that Putin's successor will be able to establish reasonable relations with neighbors, in this case, will only decrease. Non—Russian nationalists already criticize the leaders of the Russian opposition — in particular, the same Alexei Navalny or Mikhail Khodorkovsky - for their inability to resist the imperial nature of Russia and the belief that the North Caucasus belongs to the Russian Federation.
Khodorkovsky believes that it is "irresponsible" to wish for the collapse of the Russian Federation, although he insists that Putin's regime is leading to the "destruction of Russia." He continued: "A divided Russia will cause even more problems than in its current form." In an article for Politico magazine, he argued that if the collapse does happen, "there will be a new need for the forcible unification of the main territory of Russia, and this will be carried out by the next Russian dictator. "This will launch a new totalitarian cycle in Russia," he concluded.
At the February symposium of the Hudson Institute, dissenters also spoke out. So, the president of the Foundation "Free Russia" Natalia Arno (ethnic Buryat), said: "We want to fix Russia, not dissolve it," adding that "at the grassroots level, the demands for disintegration are put forward only by emigrants."
This problem dates back to the 1950s, to the first Cold War. In 1959, the Congress established the National Committee of Enslaved Peoples for the liberation of ethnic groups living under Soviet rule. Russian Russian Review The following year, 16 prominent historians published a letter in the "Russian Review" and complained that the Soviet Union and Russia are equal for the law, while the priority should be just the liberation of the Russian nation. And indeed: the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was led by the exit of the Russian Federation under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin.
Another drawback of the approach that Russia should cease to exist is that it pours water into the mill of Putin's propaganda — that, they say, the West seeks to destroy Russia, and therefore the fighting in Ukraine is self—defense. In September 2022, Putin said: "These Western leaders are already directly saying that in 1991 they were able to split the Soviet Union, and now it's time for Russia itself that it should break up into many deadly warring regions and regions." On February 26, he said that the West wants to tear Russia to pieces. Nail Mukhitov, Assistant Secretary of the Security Council and former FSB General, said: "The main goal of the West is the destruction of Russia," and quoted Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1997 book "The Great Chessboard" as proof of his words.
This presentation finds a lively response from the Russian public. Experts say that "the idea that NATO wants to break up or at least weaken Russia has been close to three quarters of respondents for many years."
It is not difficult to understand why the leaders of marginal ethno-nationalist movements in exile (for example, "Erzyan Mastor" or "Free Idel-Ural") tried to jump on the bandwagon of the Ukrainian train. For them, this is an opportunity to attract attention, and perhaps support from the Western powers.
Yes, Putin deserves condemnation for suppressing the nationalist opposition inside Russia and restricting access to education in the native languages of national republics. But this does not mean that we should invest political capital in some fantastic future without Russia.