Washington Post
March 11 2006

Russia’s Shadow Empire

By Ana Palacio and Daniel Twining
Saturday, March 11, 2006; Page A19

Since 2003, democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia have dealt
strategic blows to the ambition of Russia’s leaders to reconstitute
the former Soviet empire by retaining political and military
suzerainty over their weaker neighbors. But Russia’s imperial
pretensions along its periphery linger.

Calls from the elected presidents of Georgia and Ukraine for a united
Europe stretching “from the Atlantic to the Caspian” should embolden
Europe and the United States to help people aspiring to freedom in
other post-Soviet states end Russia’s continuing dominion over them
by rolling back the corrupting influence of Russian power in regions
beyond its borders. This task is especially urgent in countries where
Russian troops and political support sustain secessionist conflicts
that threaten aspiring new democracies and the security of the West.

Since the Cold War ended, Russian leaders have built a shadow empire
on the territories of Russia’s sovereign neighbors, extending Russian
power where it is unwarranted and unwelcome by sponsoring “frozen
conflicts” in southeastern Europe and the South Caucasus. This
behavior, designed to maintain political and economic influence
beyond Russia’s borders, impedes democratic development in states
that aspire to join the West. It exports instability, criminality and
insecurity into Europe. It threatens regional military conflict that
could draw in the United States and other powers. It also bolsters
anti-democratic forces within Russia who believe Russia’s traditional
approach of subverting its neighbors’ independence is a surer path to
security than the democratic peace enjoyed by the nations of Europe.

The frozen conflicts in the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, and in the Moldovan territory of Transdniestria, share many
characteristics. Russian troops fought on the side of local armies
when these regions broke away from their mother countries as the Cold
War ended. Russian officers continue to help train and command the
breakaway territories’ Russian-armed militias. The secessionist
leaders are all Russian citizens, some sent directly from Moscow, who
are maintained in power by the continuing presence of members of the
Russian military and security services. Secessionist political
leaders also enjoy the sponsorship of powerful criminal elites in
Russia, which profit from the unregulated smuggling trade — in
consumer goods, drugs, weapons and women — in the conflict zones.

Moscow has granted the people of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and
Transdniestria Russian citizenship, including Russian passports and
the right to vote in Russian elections. This effective annexation of
sovereign peoples is expressly designed to undermine the authority of
pro-Western governments in Georgia and Moldova.

Russian political and military influence also looms in the shadows of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Opposing armies that fought a bloody war over the disputed enclave in
the 1990s now shoot at each other from trenches across a “no-man’s
land” more reminiscent of Flanders in 1916 than the European
neighborhood in 2005. This barely frozen conflict threatens a hot war
that would devastate the region.

It is also the place where a breakthrough is perhaps most likely.
Western governments could support a settlement there in which Armenia
returned to Azerbaijan the occupied provinces surrounding the
disputed territory and allowed Azerbaijani refugees to resettle
there. Nagorno-Karabakh could enjoy full autonomy until its ultimate
status was decided by democratic referendum at some future date. In
return for Azerbaijan’s cooperation in ending a conflict that
threatens its growing prosperity, the West should welcome closer
partnership with that country as it moves forward with reform, end
residual sanctions against Azerbaijan dating from the 1991-94 war,
require closure of the Russian bases on Armenian territory that
threaten Azerbaijan, offer a mini-Marshall Plan for the entire South
Caucasus and put these countries on a path to Europe.

In South Ossetia, Europe and the United States should support
Georgian calls to internationalize the Russian-dominated
“peacekeeping” force, which now functions chiefly to obstruct changes
to the secessionist status quo. The United States and the European
Union should join Georgia, Russia and South Ossetia in a new
negotiating framework designed to achieve a lasting political
settlement consistent with international law.

In Abkhazia, the Atlantic democracies should push to transform the
U.N. observer mission into an armed peacekeeping force, hold Russia
to its 1999 promise on troop withdrawal and pledge assistance to
rehabilitate Abkhazia’s war-torn economy as part of a federation
agreement with Georgia. With the West, Ukraine can help bring change
to neighboring Transdniestria by continuing its recent crackdown on
cross-border smuggling, reinforcing Moldovan demands for a Russian
military withdrawal and supporting a political settlement upholding
Moldova’s sovereignty and the democratic rights of all its people.

Russia holds the key to any resolution of the frozen conflicts, and
the Western democracies are surely not powerless to foster a change
of Russian behavior in Europe’s back yard. President Vladimir Putin
must understand that his country cannot enjoy partnership with the
West — including membership in the G-8 club of Western democracies
and the chance to host their summits — as long as his policies in
the European neighborhood, and at home, look less like those of a
modern European statesman than of a czar.

Ana Palacio is the former foreign minister of Spain. Daniel Twining
is an Oxford-based consultant to the German Marshall Fund of the
United States. These are their personal views.