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Russia Rethinks Its CIS Policy

By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer

Alexander Natruskin / Reuters

Sergei Lavrov at the briefing Tuesday


In an apparent attempt to prevent more former Soviet republics from slipping from Russia's orbit of influence, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow would abandon its tacit agreements with its neighbors in favor of relations based on international standards.

Lavrov spoke when asked to comment on a senior Kremlin official's statement earlier in the day that Russia planned to effectively punish Western-leaning CIS nations by ending their discounted prices on oil and gas.

"As market reforms proceed in our countries, we will be increasingly basing our intergovernmental ... and economic relations on world practices," Lavrov said at a news conference after chairing a meeting of foreign ministers from the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose coalition of 12 former Soviet republics.

The policy shift announced by Lavrov would fall in line with other Kremlin measures adopted after upheavals in Ukraine last year and Georgia in 2003 brought pro-Western presidents to power.

Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has been focusing on forging political and economic alliances with neighbors that are genuinely interested in strong ties rather than spreading itself thin in an attempt to keep the CIS together at all costs. After Ukraine's Orange Revolution late last year, Putin described the CIS as a tool for civilized divorce among the Soviet republics -- a clear sign that Russia had all but given up on any meaningful integration through the CIS.


Putin also has said the CIS should be reformed and remain a forum for discussions.

CIS foreign ministers on Tuesday discussed how to reform the group, and finalized an agenda for a summit of CIS leaders in Kazan, Tatarstan, scheduled for Friday.

Simmering tensions between Russia and Ukraine resurfaced at the meeting, with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk accusing the Russian side of refusing to add Ukrainian proposals on migration, borders and economic cooperation to the summit's agenda.

The Russian Foreign Ministry quickly went into control damage, with a spokesman saying the proposals could be added to the agenda because they were only submitted two weeks ago, which was too late.

At the news conference, Lavrov did not refer directly to the Ukrainian proposals, but acknowledged that there had been "many disputes" in the process of selecting and endorsing what should put on the agenda.

"Today's sitting had its own problems. There were many debates in which a formidable package of documents emerged," Lavrov said.

He said the reformation of the CIS -- which has long faced differences and a lack of political will for integration among members -- featured prominently in the paperwork done for the summit. One proposal would require the countries to delegate plenipotentiary envoys to the CIS executive committee, he said.

Lavrov did not disclose details about the proposed overhaul, but RIA-Novosti, citing Kremlin sources, said Russia was planning a radical change in its policy vis-a-vis other former Soviet republics and influential players such as the United States and the European Union.

"The essence of the policy's new direction is not to restore the influence of Russia, which has been allegedly lost in the process of orange revolutions," a senior Kremlin official said, RIA-Novosti reported. "The goal is that relations between Moscow and Washington and European countries on the territory of the former Soviet Union acquire a civilized character."

Earlier this month, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told Rossiiskaya Gazeta that Russia was seeking "to transform this space into an arena of mutually respectful and predictable partnership." He also said Russia would not oppose "healthy competition" on former Soviet soil as long as the rules of the game were clear.

Russia intends to discuss the new rules with its neighbors at the summit and try to clarify that it is not seeking to reintegrate them into a reincarnation of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin official said. "We will have sufficient patience ... to explain to our CIS partners that Moscow is not going to restore the Soviet Union," the official said.

Another issue that will be raised at the summit is that Russia will not tolerate an arrangement in which it does not receive economic nor political benefits for selling oil and gas at a discount, the official said.

While the official made it clear that Russia was specifically intent on scrapping discounts to Western-leaning countries, he sought to blame the planned change on recipients, which he said have in the past failed to use the discounts to further social and economic development at home.

"Russia cannot put up with a situation in which it delivers energy resources at loss-making prices -- effectively subsidizing the economies of those countries -- but the people there remain hungry," he said. "It is such a situation that creates fertile ground for orange revolutions, after which little changes for the people, while the new rulers, at least some of them, receive salaries from the Americans either directly or covertly."

Georgia's new government has received Western aid to help cover officials' salaries.

Political analysts said an end to discounted oil and gas could have a bigger effect on Russia's ties with its neighbors than any other policy measure to date.

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine, said Russia had good cause to stop offering economic or other perks to governments that have adopted an "unfriendly" attitude toward its interests in the former Soviet Union. But he cautioned that Russia should continue to build bilateral relations with all of its neighbors and to avoid an all-out confrontation with countries such as Ukraine, which has leverage in the form of energy transit routes to Europe.