Chronic. On one subject at least, the Parisian clamor which rises from the electoral campaign, to the extreme right as to the extreme left, via the old right of government, makes hear the same refrain. There is only one recourse to our foreign policy difficulties: Russian President Vladimir Putin. The incantation is black magic or voodoo because, most often, it amounts to taking the source of our problems as a remedy. This is perfectly illustrated by the Belarusian affair.
Peacefully but resolutely contested the day after a poll in the summer of 2020, the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, a paragon of raw violence, clings to power by force. He crushes the slightest gesture of defiance and, in the exercise, he has the full support of Russia. Not that Putin has the slightest respect for Lukashenko, whom he despises, but his fall could drag Belarus into the Western camp.
Unacceptable in the Putinian universe where the primary concern is to reconstitute as much as possible the “near foreigner” of the Soviet era – a vast zone of safety on the steps of Russia. There, in this in-between, a country has only limited sovereignty and, at a minimum, is barred from any arrangement with the European Union (EU). With this strategic concern is mingled Putin’s fundamental hostility to the EU. It is not the sanctions that the Union may have taken against Russia that are in question, although they do play a role. The fear of the Kremlin is the very idea of a European entity which could emerge and impose itself in the balance of power with Moscow.
Realpolitik versus “angelics”
We must start from this reality: Putin’s Russia, it is his right, is hostile to the European project. She seeks to harm him. She defended Brexit and she supports the Europhobic parties within the EU. She treats Brussels with contempt. Russia may not have helped Lukashenko mount the hybrid attack on the Union he is waging by instrumentalizing immigration. But the Russian services could not ignore the preparations. As the Spaniard Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, says: “Lukashenko is acting the way he does because he has overwhelming support from Russia, even if she denies it. “
It prevents, “Jumping on their seats like kids”, Charles de Gaulle would say, a number of presidential candidates occupy the television sets to chant this old French mantra: “Russia, Russia, Russia”. A deep, or better yet, exclusive dialogue with Putin would solve many problems – from Ukraine to Syria, from Belarus to the obsolescence of the security architecture in Europe, they say. They still claim to embody realpolitik, a source of solutions, and denounce the angelic human rights of their opponents, a source of illusions.
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