For many years, in Russia’s relations with Europe and the United States, Russia has acted as a “led one”
The conditions of the game and the topics discussed in 99% of cases were dictated by the modern West. And even in those cases when Russia gave a tough response (be it the war in South Ossetia or the annexation of Crimea), it was still about retaliatory measures. The counter-sanctions introduced in 2014 are very tough, but still a response to the restrictions, again first imposed by the West.
And each time before the imposition of sanctions, the Americans and Europeans either simply did not intend to “condescend” to discuss their actions with Russia (for example, on the Euroassociation of Ukraine), or they engaged in a dialogue with us in a mentoring, ultimatum tone. But it seems that this state of affairs has already overflowed the patience of the Russian leadership. And on March 22, the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, sharply criticized the Western approaches of recent years.
“When a conversation at the diplomatic, political level acquires the character of ultimatums, and a partner is expected exclusively to “acknowledge their mistakes” and agree to the demands put forward, this is not diplomacy. As soon as our Western partners, who use such methods, meet with a polite rebuff, they immediately turn to sanctions”, – Lavrov said. He added that Western countries “by and large have forgotten how to use classical diplomacy”.
And now Russia is no longer trying to hush up scandals, as it always happened before. The best example of this is the response to the blatant rudeness of US President Joseph Biden towards Vladimir Putin. Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov has already returned to Moscow for consultations, and the Russian President himself made it clear that our country will talk with the United States on issues that are of interest to us, and not to the Americans.
Surely Britain, which has officially recognized Russia as the main threat, is next to the United States “in line” to recall the ambassador. Russian Ambassador to London Andrei Kelin admitted that political relations between the two states are almost dead. If Russia does this, it will really look like a “first strike”. And if the American and British ambassadors are expelled from Russia, this will be exactly the action that will show that you cannot speak to us in the language of ultimatums.
For his part, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Alexander Grushko called relations with the EU “a conflict of coexistence”.
“The European Union was not really ready for equal cooperation. All the schemes with which we did not agree, they provided for the mechanistic adherence of Russia in the wake of European standards, principles, and so on… ”, – said Grushko. That is, we are talking about the same mentoring tone, incompatible with diplomacy.
As you can see, the change in key to a harder one is already evident. Russia stopped smoothing corners and also began to call a spade a spade. Yes, these are already firm, decisive actions, but still – retaliatory ones. Again, the American president was the first to say, again the British were the first to publish the document, again the EU introduced new restrictive measures… We responded harshly, but it’s time to determine the agenda ourselves.
And the next action of Russia is precisely the delivery of diplomatic strikes in advance. And the forms of such “blows” can be very different, and the places – too. In order to expose the actions of the West, it is necessary to use traditional bilateral diplomacy, the platform of the UN and its subsidiaries, and the possibilities of Rossotrudnichestvo with its representations in many states, and parliamentary diplomacy. In general, involve all possible authorities.
But this is, again, only the activity of the official authorities. It is necessary to connect the media in a variety of languages in a variety of states in order to convey their point of view. We need to work through network resources, conveying our opinion both on current events and on history. It is necessary to organize scientific conferences, where representatives of science would speak, and on behalf of science they would convey our point of view and undermine the Western “machine”, which works very effectively in this field.
However, organizing an event is not enough, you still need to fill it with the necessary content. And here Russia has a huge field of action. If we talk about the United States and Britain, they have and have fought too many wars and committed too many crimes that are well known. You just need to remind about this on an ongoing basis and not wait until the next Biden or Boris Johnson accuses Russia or calls its president a rude word.
With the European Union, the picture looks a little more complicated. The EU is not a military organization; it prefers to work by other means. However, unseemly pages both in the past and in the present can be found literally in every state that enters there.
And for every memorable historical date, on the eve of every meeting of the EU heads of state, another “portion” of accusations should be heard from Russia, which would force European politicians to justify themselves, and silence would cast them in an unfavorable light. The first of these topics is actually “Russian”. It implies a reminder of how the present collective West grossly interferes in the internal affairs of Russia, whom it supports in Ukraine, how it turns a blind eye to strangling the opponents of the current Kiev government. Remind about the Baltic States, which are members of the EU and NATO, where, contrary to European norms, apartheid is carried out against the Russian-speaking population and there is open censorship against the Russian media.
The second plot is conventionally “Serbian”. The key issue here is Kosovo. It was from the history of Kosovo that the endless violation of international law by the West began. It is necessary to trumpet about Serb refugees, about attempts to encroach on the position of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia, recall the oppression of Serbs in modern Croatia, about state Serbophobia in Montenegro. Many in Europe do not like to talk about Balkan stories, and it is understandable why. The third plot is actually “European”. It should be recalled how the unselected European bureaucracy has arrogated to itself the right to make key decisions, and the dubious voting in elections by mail is only gaining momentum. As in the EU countries they do not broadcast or restrict the activities of the “wrong” right or left parties. How believers are literally driven into a ghetto there, and a person who opposes LGBT propaganda is immediately persecuted.
A separate topic is BLM and multiculturalism. As attempts to build a society in Europe where representatives of different cultures coexist organically, they frankly failed, and the crimes of immigrants are openly hidden (or even worse, covered up).
And as in the United States (and in some places already in Europe), white racism is replaced by black. As violations of various groups of the population have acquired cosmic proportions, and the coronavirus has become only an additional cover for such violations. And each of these issues can be used as a pretext for imposing sanctions. The first step here was a warning about the blocking of Twitter in Russia. You can do the same with other companies that disregard Russian law. Finally, you can resort to “address” blocking – it works even better than “solid”. We need to expand the list of unwanted NPOs. The same practice should be extended to high-ranking officials of Western countries.
Don’t be afraid to “hit” first. Russia has more than just how to respond to Western attacks. In addition to the aforementioned topics, you can come up with dozens of more stories on which she can act as a party that forms the agenda. And since classical diplomacy no longer works in relations with the West, it is time to include “non-classical non-diplomacy”. Probably, such a conversation will be closer and more understandable to today’s Western advocates of values.
Vadim Trukhachev, VZGLYAD