1 Período 1871 a 1924.

Contents

The Nature of post-Soviet borders ... 43 Historical background ... 46 Russian policy towards the ‘near abroad’ countries ... 48 The situation of Russia’s neighbours and survey responses ... 51 Azerbaijan ... 51 Belarus ... 55 Estonia... 59 Georgia ... 62 Japan ... 68 Kazakhstan ... 71 Norway ... 77 Conclusion: A Picture of Russia through its Neighbours ... 79 Table: Summary of Responses to Questionnaire ... 82 The Eastern group of the EU and the Western Balkans: Assertive or attractive Russia? .... 83 A new affinity to Russia? ... 85 A common dilemma: Pragmatic or Value-loaded attitude? ... 87 Securing energy and markets ... 87 Political power-play ... 89 Displays of national sentiment ... 91 The Effect of the Ukraine crisis ... 93 Conclusion: future perspectives ... 94 Sources ... 96

2 _{This section has benefitted from valuable comments and insights of professor Jeremy Smith, Carelia}

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What do Finland, Norway, Estonia, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Japan have in common? They all have a common neighbour – the Russian Federation. In this part Russian policies towards its near neigbourhood (the former Soviet Union) will be introduced and then neighbourly relations will be looked at from the perspective of the neighbours themselves. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the West, primarily the EU member countries and the United States, have tried to understand Russia from the Russian perspective. The stress has been on trying to see and analyse Russia, not through the lenses of Western thinking and experience but through Russian thinking and history. Still, despite the best efforts of the policy and academic community this has not turned out to be a road which has drawn Russia and the West closer to each other. It seems that the way strategic thinking is formulated in the Kremlin continues to puzzle outside observers. We are still surprised about the twists and turns relating to Russian foreign and security policy as well as domestic political developments. The latest surprise has been the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the events in Eastern Ukraine following the annexation. The first part of this report drew a picture of Russia through different future scenarios and there it was clear that, in the scenarios made in Russia or made in cooperation with Russian participants, the emphasis was somewhat different from that of scenarios made by Western experts. This already indicated that the picture of Russia outside of Russia does not fit with the view of Russians. This is one of the major factors that has played a role in Russia-West relations in the post-Soviet era.

Approaching Russia not through Russian or Western eyes, but through the eyes of its immediate neighbours, can add another dimension to our understanding of Russia. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and interventions over Eastern Ukraine have brought to the forefront the significance of this region for Russia and for global politics. This is not the first time we have been reminded of Russia’s interest in its ‘near abroad’ – the 2008 war in Georgia, disputes such as the ‘Bronze Soldier’ incident with Estonia, and in the 1990s and beyond Russian involvement in local disputes in the South Caucasus, Tajikistan, and Moldova have all resulted (in part) from a Russian perception of the special role it has to play in countries that it used to rule, and where many Russians still live.

Russia has a special relationship with those countries that it shares a border with and there is a reason for it. Russia now shares a land border with 14 neighbours. There were 12 neighbours of the Soviet Union, whilst Imperial Russia shared a land border with 10 countries. In the course of history, all in all Russia has had 24 countries, 17 of which have at some stage or other belonged to Russia, as its bordering neighbours. Given the size of Russia, this number does not seem large, but it is considerable by international comparison. The existence of multiple and very different borders, and the concepts which underpin policies towards those borders, are very important and perhaps still under- examined in spite of extensive research on the topic. The collapse of the Soviet Union was first and foremost physical in the Russian mind, but perhaps the collapse confirmed, from the point of view of the 14 countries that had belonged to the Soviet Union, the psychological fact that they had always lived with, that the Soviet Borders were not a unified state border but a composition of many nations dominated by Russians. This report will also look at countries that belonged to Imperial Russia and some neighbours that have never been inside the Russian borders but which have had border relations with Russia that matter both historically and today.

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The section providing accounts of specific countries, ‘How does Russia look from the perspective of neighbours?’ is based on expert opinions from the countries in question. The experts for each country have been asked to give their inside views on Russia as a contribution to this section. Some were willing to be open about their opinions, some were more cautious, so the decision was made to treat each answer equally and they are reproduced in full. All responses are treated anonymously. The compilers of the report would like to express their deep gratitude to all of those who took the time to reply. Even if this is only a small sample of views and cannot be said to fully represent a nation as such, these responses provide a good indication of how in fact countries neighbouring Russia have some similar and some different views on Russia and each country’s relationship to it. It also shows that there is much more work to be done on the attitudes of Russia’s neighbours, and that there is also a need for a more systematic exchange of views.

This report does not deal here with Ukraine as a separate country in the same way as the other countries are dealt with. When work began on this report in the middle of 2013, Ukraine was one of the main countries that should have been considered. However the events in Ukraine and the sharp deterioration of Russia-Ukraine relations in the early part of 2014 made it impossible to give a proper view of current Ukraine-Russia relationship. From the perspective of Kiev, Russia appears universally negative at the moment and while passions are running high it proved impossible to obtain any sober assessments. That neighbour relationship is still to be defined, and the coming months and years will reveal significant developments. The Ukrainian situation figures heavily in other assessments and in our conclusions, however.