Posted on July 19, 2008 - by Venik

Russia Punching Above Its Weight

I was reading the latest Newsweek (July 28, 2008) and came across the “Poisonous Relations” piece by Andrew Wilson and Mark Leonard. These two clowns are senior members of the “European Council on Foreign Relations” (ECFR) – a “think-tank” and an online propaganda outlet set up by billionaire George Soros (the guy who bankrolled Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” in 2003) in an attempt to influence EU’s foreign policy.

Soros was a particularly active investor on the Russian market in the 1990s. At one time George Soros was the biggest individual investor in Russia. Soros also donated hundreds of millions of dollars through his Open Society Institute foundation in Moscow. However, his support for political radicals in Russia and former Soviet republics, as well as his incessant attempts to influence state policy led to strained relation between the American billionaire and the Russian government.

The authors of “Poisonous Relations” believe that Russia is trying to pick a fight with the poor defenseless EU. Examples? Here you go: “…Russia banned Polish meat in 2005, claiming it was unhygienic; it attempted to charge the German airline Lufthansa special fees for flying over Siberia in 2007; and it allegedly engaged in cyberterrorism against Estonia in May 2007 and against Lithuania in June 2008.” That’s about it.

Truth be told, Poland eventually agreed to additional inspections of exported meat by Russian health officials. The “attacks” against Estonia and Lithuania were never proven and were probably organized actions by individual Russian hackers in response to discrimination against Russians and support for neo-Nazi ideology in the two Baltic states. Extra overflight fees for Lufthansa was an economic dispute. Hundreds of such disagreements between member-states are handled by the EU every year. There is no reason to suspect some evil designs on Russia’s part, other than it wanted to get more money out of the German airline.

The two ECFR foreign policy gurus also believe that “…too often Russia has been able to punch above its weight by using underhanded divide-and-conquer tactics.” I was very curious to find out just which EU members, according to Wilson and Leonard, are above Russia’s weight. The example immediately follows: “Moscow offered certain member states, like Germany, preferential energy deals while picking fights with others, like Estonia.” As I suspected, it’s Europe’s premier political heavyweight – Estonia – that Russia had the nerve to annoy.

Newsweek’s anti-Russian propaganda piece would not have been complete if Litvinenko’s poisoning wasn’t mentioned. When Britain demanded extradition of the suspect in the poisoning case, Russia dared to uphold its constitution, which does not allow extradition of Russian citizens. Moreover, Russia had the insolence to remind London that it has a couple of extradition requests of its own: for Chechnya’s “foreign minister” Zakyaev and the renegade oligarch Berezovsky. Incensed by Russia’s determination to uphold its ridiculous and unimportant laws, the Foreign Office decided to expel several Russian diplomats.

Clearly, Wilson and Leonard see these incidents as a clear indication of Russia’s hostility toward the EU. If these two guys have a hand in EU’s Russian (or, rather, anti-Russian) policy, we should not be surprised that bilateral relations sank so low in the recent years.

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