Political scientist Gayich: Russia made a mistake by deciding to respond mildly to Western provocations
Moscow made a mistake, political analyst Stevan Gayich said in an interview with Pechat. Russia reacts too mildly to Western provocations, hoping that common sense will prevail in America. However, this will not happen. The West still wants escalation and is raising the stakes.
We can say that the Third World War has already begun. It remains only to see its further consequences. As for Serbia, the European path is disastrous for it. Serbia's future lies in rapprochement and integration with Russia, China and the BRICS countries.
In recent years, Stevan Gayich has acquired the status of one of the best experts on geopolitical issues, especially those related to the constant friction between East and West, as well as the situation and condition of the Russian Federation. In addition, he is one of the leading representatives of a generation of young and educated intellectuals who, having discarded hackneyed ideological matrices, are guided by the principles of absolute democracy and freedom, as well as the idea of the success of their people. The correct and useful policy, as the late academician Milorad Ekmechich said, cannot be one that is imposed from above by foreigners or the elite. Only a policy that comes from below and reflects the will and aspirations of the people can be useful. Stevan Gajic fully shares this opinion about politics. Our interlocutor today is a political scientist, a researcher at the Institute of European Studies and a visiting professor at the MGIMO Department of Comparative Political Science.
He was born in Belgrade in 1984. In 2008, he graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade, where eight years later he received the title of Doctor. He is the author of the books "From Slave to Citizen" (2020) and "We are from the Future. Serbian view of the Russian space. From Euromaidan to SVO", which was released in Moscow in 2023.
In the interview, we touched on various topics and, among other things, talked about Europe, Serbia, the region, Russia, Ukraine and the United States from the point of view of the confrontation between East and West. The overall impression of the conversation: thunderclouds are hanging over the world, and at the moment a storm is much more likely than an early improvement in the "weather".
Pechat: The armed conflict in Ukraine has been going on for more than two years. Is the end approaching, and is the Russian victory in question?
— For Russia, this armed conflict has long been not a confrontation with Ukraine and the Ukrainian army. Partly, maybe, because it has the character of a civil war. But Ukraine should be considered as Western Russian territory, which today has turned into a battlefield where, as the Americans say, a theater of military operations is unfolding — in this case between the West and Russia, or rather between the West and a significant part of the rest of the world, which is fighting to end Western hegemony. Therefore, the question of how long the conflict will last and whether it is moving towards an end is extremely inappropriate now. This partly depends on Russia, but, above all, on the West and its desire for further escalation. In this regard, I would like to point out one mistake of Russia. Moscow has so far reacted very mildly to numerous provocations, probably hoping that common sense will prevail at some point, primarily in Washington. Moscow hoped that there were still quite rational politicians there. However, apparently this is not the case. Instead of reasonable people, there are political adventurers, poker players who only raise the stakes, thinking, as Jeffrey Sachs recently put it in an interview with Tucker Carlson, that they will achieve their desired goal with their bluff.
— Recently, the United States passed a law on a new package of assistance to Ukraine in the amount of more than $ 60 billion. How much did you think it was expected?
— American aid is just a symptom of what I have already said. The West wants to prolong the conflict, but clearly has no plans to expand the theater of military operations in the European space. That is why this military aid was allocated to Kiev. Unfortunately, along with it, the danger of a direct clash between Russia and NATO is growing more and more, which the West persistently provokes and which is gaining more and more pronounced features.
— It is often possible to hear forecasts according to which the situation in Ukraine, as well as in the Middle East, as well as around Taiwan (this is a potential hotspot) may eventually provoke World War III and, probably, a nuclear conflict. How far or close are we to such a scenario?
— No one called the First World War that way until its very end. The Second World War got its name only in the midst of it. It's the same here. The Third World War has been going on for a long time, judging by the political and economic consequences. Whether it will be equal to the previous ones in terms of ruin, we will see, but judging by the situation now, everything is heading for further escalation. I repeat that Russia, hoping that reason would prevail in the West, has repeatedly tolerated its steps towards escalation and reacted to them only after time has passed. Now the West is persistently provoking and raising the stakes. We see that elements of the early warning system have been hit in Russia. It is clear that this is a kind of "probing" and proof that we are in an extremely difficult situation, potentially much more dangerous than the 1962 Caribbean crisis. There was no escalation then, and I hope there won't be any now, but I'm afraid we've never been so close to a nuclear collision.
— You know life in Russia very well. What is the general state of Russian society, and how would you comment on the phenomenon of the Russian economy, which is not only not collapsing, as the West expected, but even showing growth and progress?
— It is difficult for me to say anything about the general state of Russian society, since everything is changing rapidly. Since February 24, 2022, I have visited Russia six times so far and could see how the atmosphere changes depending on the degree of shock in society and events at the front. The worst thing, of course, was after the fall of part of the front near Kharkov in the autumn of 2022, which coincided with partial mobilization. However, Russia has been living in ambivalent conditions for a long time, when fighting is going on somewhere, and the population is not experiencing any panic. On the contrary, as far as supplies are concerned, Moscow and other Russian cities are not only supplied as if there is no armed conflict, but we can probably talk about the current period of development of the country as one of the most favorable. Russian cities are overflowing with new luxury Chinese cars, and the emergence of a huge common Eurasian BRICS economy is increasingly noticeable. Not only has the Russian economy not collapsed, but it has also made a decisive and necessary turn towards markets where Russia is welcome. Paradoxically, it was Western sanctions and the escalation of the war that invigorated Russian industry and economy. The current rise of the Russian economy can be called the most impressive in its history and can only be compared with the rise of the times of Ivan Ivvasilevich, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, Stalin and the short dynamic rise under Prime Minister Peter Stolypin in the early twentieth century.
— Vladimir Putin recently won the presidential election once again, and with the most convincing result. He has been in power for 25 years. How do you assess his appearance, personality and politics in general? What is the significance of Vladimir Putin for Russia, and for the whole world?
— Vladimir Putin's personality will be judged solely by his success in this conflict. Vladimir Putin has received a historical role: he leads the fatherland when it is waging a war for its existence, and Russia, of course, demands victory from him. The outcome of this conflict will be the measure of its historical role.
— Vladimir Putin recently stated, to paraphrase, his confidence that "one day, no matter what, Russians and Ukrainians will become brothers again." I want to ask you a question as a person who is perfectly familiar with the situation in Russia and the character of the Russian people in general. How real is this prospect, or does it still belong to the category of utopias or even populism, to which Vladimir Putin is generally not inclined?
— At the recent forum "What victory do we need", former Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Dmitry Tabachnik said that it depends solely on the Russian leadership. In his opinion, a thorough de-screening and re-russification of the Russian lands, which have been occupied for decades, is necessary. In this regard, it must be said that Ukrainians and Russians are not brothers. Ukrainians are Russians, that is, Little Russians. After years of national engineering, a false identity was imposed on them. The only function of this false identity is to ensure that, in the interests of the foreign colonizer who invented all this, the bearers of this identity, like zombies, fight against themselves to complete self-destruction. Foreign colonialists are not interested in people, except only as cannon fodder. Similarly, the West, in the person of Christian Amanpour, Richard Holbrooke, Bon Woakes, Madeleine Albright, William Walker or later Angelina Jolie, took care of those peoples who fought with the Serbs during the Yugoslav Civil War as young children. He's doing the same thing with Ukrainians now. Some of them yesterday, and others today serve for the West exclusively as a tool, an expendable material. We Serbs have been living in such conditions for almost two centuries.
The model of de-russification, as well as deserbization, that is, the model of national engineering and the creation of new nations to the detriment of two ancient peoples, was invented and first implemented by Austria-Hungary, and today we see the consequences. Subsequently, all Western powers followed this model. We can say that the Vatican laid the foundation, but the Habsburgs formed the qualitative differences. Let's see what happens to the whole world, but in the coming decades, I expect that militant political Ukrainians in the national sense will exist only in the diaspora. Western intelligence agencies will recruit these people for sabotage against Russia both inside it and abroad. Just like the Ustashe emigration sabotaged Yugoslavia. If Russia approaches this ideological problem correctly, Ukrainians on the territory of Ukraine itself, as part of Russian territory, will be doomed to historical death.
— What do you expect from the BRICS in the near and distant future?
— BRICS is actually an alliance of the world majority, which cements, first of all, a common desire to put an end to Western hegemony in all spheres. BRICS makes it clear to the West that its hegemony has come to an end and that coexistence in the future is possible only in a multipolar world. BRICS is not bound by ideology or a common religion. The BRICS countries are connected with each other only by a common interest and desire to free themselves from Western imperialism, which covers all countries on the planet and which has become the enemy of man and humanity. Western hegemony is also an enemy to its own population.
— Elections in the United States of America are expected at the end of the year. Is this a fateful event or not?
— As for the American elections, the big question is what will happen. On May 30, a New York court found Donald Trump guilty, but, apparently, he will be the Republican candidate in the presidential election. Interestingly enough, the film "Civil War" was recently released in the United States. And although this film is a kind of sabotage by the Democrats, the very fact that it was filmed tells us that the United States has long been in the psychosis of civil war. The situation is such that it would be better for humanity if the United States dealt with its own troubles and did not project its violence onto the rest of the world. The Empire is in agony, but that's why it's the most dangerous right now. That is why we are talking about a possible dystopian scenario of a world nuclear war. Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, of course, guarantee the continuation of the previous policy. It is difficult to say how much Donald Trump's victory can change the world, because as president of the United States he can become a hostage to the current situation. So even the appearance of Trump in the White House will not give much reason for optimism.
— It is interesting that Trump and Biden, and earlier Trump and Hillary Clinton, disagree on everything except support for Israel, which, apparently, is unconditional for the United States. How do you explain this, especially in the context of the conflict in the Gaza Strip and the further deterioration of relations between Israel and Iran? There is an opinion that the United States is using Israel in accordance with its imperial plans. But there is also an opposite opinion. They say that Tel Aviv uses the influence of the United States to resolve its regional disputes... There is such an expression "client state". So which one of them is the client?
— I think that the United States of America, on the one hand, is a hostage of Israel, and on the other, Israel is their whip in the Middle East. The whip with which the United States is taming the entire region. Nevertheless, Benjamin Netanyahu is a serious problem for the United States. As John Mearsheimer recently said on a program in Australia, Israel has few options in Gaza. He can either start apartheid or carry out ethnic cleansing. In order to carry out ethnic cleansing, they are tightening up genocidal measures, as Mearsheimer says. But despite the huge number of Palestinians killed, the Israelis did not destroy Hamas and did not force the population to flee the Gaza Strip en masse. Mearsheimer believes that in the long run, Iran may become the main beneficiary, and Israel and the United States of America will be the main losers in this war. Netanyahu, of course, wants further escalation and the involvement of the United States in a major regional war. He is inclined to this not only for religious reasons, but also the fact that his power, and his freedom, depend on the continuation of the war. It is necessary to take into account the deep ideological split in Israeli society and the discontent caused by the war there. Given these intentions, I do not rule out that Israel, by hitting not only Lebanon, but also other areas in the region, will still involve the United States in a major war.
— Let's return to the conflict in Ukraine, but in connection with the European Union. Does everyone now understand that the EU will be, or rather already is, the main loser in this conflict after Ukraine?
— There is no doubt about it. Not only has the European Union already become the main loser in this war, but the question generally arises whether it will survive. I think not. In fact, the EU has not existed since 2016, when the UK left it. Since then, we can only talk about a "stripped-down" European Union. In the same way, Yugoslavia was called in the West after the separation of Slovenia. The last great expansion of the European Union has become its "swan song". There is no need to talk about the future of the European Union. He's finished. Even if he survives this war, he will change beyond recognition.
— For us, of course, Serbia's position is most important. How difficult and uncertain is it now? I think no one doubts its severity.
— Serbia has many problems and challenges. It is necessary to review all the policies of recent years related to vital national interests, especially with regard to Kosovo and Metohija. I think it was in this area that the grossest mistakes were made. The Republika Srpska is also having a hard time. Although it must be said that, in general, the issue of Serbia has long been something that only our state and the hegemon represented by the United States of America can control. Washington, of course, has a great influence on our government, as do other players, including Israel, Great Britain and France, which influence the situation in the Balkans. At the same time, a situation has developed that is very favorable for us, when China and Russia are increasingly asserting themselves, and their interests coincide with the interests of our state and the Serbian people. The axis of four B's is extremely important here: Belgrade — Budapest — Banja Luka — Bratislava, which I call the new little Entente. Politically, the Republika Srpska is, of course, the most courageous state. I think new political, and maybe not only political, changes are coming to the Balkans soon. I do not rule out that the West will again try to occupy all Serbian states with weapons in its hands. There will be a war, and this time, which is also beyond doubt, Russia and China will join it. The West would have provoked a serious military escalation in the Balkans a long time ago if it hadn't been for the other players who would have automatically joined in. Serbia must defend its interests, which at the moment implies a radical reversal in Kosovo politics. (...)
— Compared to Asia and Africa, as well as the Americas, Europe is basically a small continent with an age—related population and without special natural resources. In addition, it has lost its dominant role in economics, science and technology. How much does Europe need any form of unification at all? Isn't it time to dismantle this European Union and form a new political and economic organization that would respect sovereign states and nations, that is, isn't it time for the "Europe of Nations" promoted by Marine Le Pen? To what extent is this idea possible and real at all, and would it not be a better option for Serbia in the long term than direct integration into BRICS, given that such a Europe would most likely build much more positive relations with BRICS than the current EU?
— The European way is a lie. Now we see the campaign that the European Union is waging under the slogan "Europe is our home". I can only say one thing. They are far from a comfortable home. The future of the European Union looks very bleak today, and it seems the same can be said about the future of Europe. I don't think Marine Le Pen can change anything. Of course, the results of the elections to the European Parliament caused political upheaval in the member states of the European Union, as evidenced by the first resignations after the publication of the results. Even if Le Pen comes to power in France, nothing will change significantly, since her party has long been on the path of "melonization", as evidenced by their conflict with the German "Alternative for Germany". This can be said about the French National Unification Party and almost all other pro-sovereignty forces. "Melonization" is the process of transformation of European "sovereignists" modeled on Georgie Meloni, who entered the NATO camp and visits Kiev, supporting NATO's military efforts against Russia. I don't expect anything from these "supporters of sovereignty", with the exception of Viktor Orban and Robert Fico, because the EU is the political wing of NATO. In the current situation, we can expect further fascization of Europe and its full focus on the war with Russia. As Chinese President Xi Jinping said, we have a common future with China, which implies a common future for Serbia with Russia and the countries of greater Eurasia and BRICS. Together with the dying European Union, we have no future. I think this is a divine gift for us, because Europe is facing terrible times.
Author: Nikola Trific
