“Russia wants to present Poland as an irrational and unreliable actor to western elites”

This interview with Agnieszka Legucka – a Russia analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) and associate professor at the Academy of Finance and Business Vistula – was originally published in Polish by Gazeta.pl.

Grzegorz Sroczyński: What is the worst thing we can expect from Russia?

Agnieszka Legucka: We don’t know that. The Russians want to surprise everyone – unpredictability seems to be the most consistent element of their policy. “The west should be afraid of us, because they can never be sure what we could attempt to do”: this is their message, more or less.

They are capable of changing course by 180 degrees practically overnight, applying a new scenario, doing something utterly bizarre.

For example, they may attack Poland?

Using a potential war with Russia as an argument to scare the public is unwise, although it might well increase the clickthrough rate. For more than a decade, I’ve been hearing that “there is going to be a war”. Poles have become oblivious to this constant alert.

Because Russia rules out a war in Poland?

It does not. However, there is no point in sounding the alarm and announcing that this may happen soon or in a year’s time. Life goes on and we are becoming insensitive to genuine threats.

People are beginning to view this issue as another element of the so-called Polish-Polish war [i.e. internal domestic politics] – some are presenting Russia as a threat to conceal some scandal, and politicians are accusing one another of being the Kremlin’s agent. In this atmosphere, we could easily miss the moment when something really dangerous starts to happen.

We don’t know what to expect. They have around 15 scenarios ready in their files, frequently totally contradictory, and this is what makes Russia different from liberal democracies which are extremely predictable. They juggle with these scenarios and choose the one they consider the most beneficial. Not necessarily for the Russian people.

So beneficial for whom?

For the ruling elite in the Kremlin. The situation has been like this for more than a decade. Russia’s foreign policy is mainly focused on ensuring security to Putin and his cronies. All decisions are subordinate to this goal. The Kremlin is using two basic narratives: one involves Russia as an oppressed victim, and the other Russia as an invincible empire.

They present both narratives to the world concurrently, although they are contradictory, since how can one be a global superman and a cornered victim at the same time? However, this toxic mixture is working somehow.

This is particularly evident in the statements by Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, who frequently accuses the west of oppressing Russia with unfair sanctions. There would be no point for us to poison Skripal and Navalny, she says. Anyway, Russia is great and magnificent, it defeated Hitler and saved the world from fascism, and the west wants to belittle Russia and rob it of the place it deserves.

It has been like this for centuries and it is still so today. Poland has a certain role in this narrative as well.

What role?

They want us to be viewed as Russophobic provincials. They intend to present the Polish stance as one that is irrational and rooted in myths, so that on the international stage voices critical of the Kremlin are equated with “Polish lunacy”.

Don’t behave like the Poles – they are obsessed with us and are talking rubbish?

More or less. In addition, Russia presents us as the US’s vassal: don’t listen to what Poles are saying because they stick to this anti-Russian madness. Plus, they say what the Americans tell them to say.

Do you mean that Russia welcomes this anti-Russian narrative in Poland because it can ridicule it?

They mainly want us to be an embarrassment to European elites because in this situation any hawkish policy towards Russia – which is what Poland is advocating – could be presented as embarrassing and irrational.

Presenting Poland as an unreliable actor to French and German elites may help to build this narrative: hey, look, what they are proposing is nothing more than anti-Russian propaganda, and we should talk like serious partners instead.

If Russian TV broadcasts any news from Poland at all, it focuses on the dismantling of monuments. Back in 2016, we enacted the law on removal of totalitarian symbols, but we are still unaware of how the Kremlin is using this aspect of our bilateral relations in its propaganda.

What monuments are being dismantled in Poland? To the victory of the Red Army?

According to the Russian narrative, Poles are “removing cemeteries”, which is what Russians are unable to comprehend.

Are we removing any cemeteries?

No. The binding Polish-Russian agreement on graves and places of remembrance commemorating the victims of war and repression requires us to take care of places of burial. Everything is explicitly regulated in the agreement. The problem is that Russians claim that we are violating this agreement. Because there are two versions of the agreement’s content, both sides are right to some degree.

How is this possible?

The Russian translation contains the word “monumenty”, which means monuments in general, and they say that we are required to protect all types of monuments, while we claim that this applies to cemeteries and places of burial alone. As a consequence, in many Polish towns bulldozers are dismantling the statues of Russian soldiers holding bayonets, as well as memorials bearing the red star.

And this is when they bring in TV crews with cameras?

Yes. They broadcast these reports over and over and use them as arguments that Poles are ungrateful and irrational. We should have followed the Estonian example to resolve the problem of Soviet-era monuments, where they were moved to a dedicated museum, gathered in one place and labelled as elements of Estonian history. Nothing was destroyed, so Russian TV had no opportunity to film anything and then to broadcast it.

How should the west interpret Russia? What are Russia’s genuine geopolitical interests? What are its actual goals?

In this context, geopolitical thinking is a trap. After all, if Russia is such a vast country, from the point of view of geopolitics, it will intend to continue its expansion. Geopolitics assumes that there is a rivalry and conflict between states. Meanwhile, there are many indications that Russia is not following the rules of geopolitics, i.e. it does not want to expand its territory.

For example, the Kremlin is not interested in annexing Donbas, they prefer to maintain this territory’s status as no-man’s-land, which theoretically is controlled by separatists and de facto is under Russia’s protectorate. They do not want it to simply become a part of Russia.

Why not?

This type of chaos in Russia’s neighbourhood is no good for Russia as a state, but it is favourable for the elite in the Kremlin. This is because whenever it wants to, it can unfreeze armed conflicts in these no-man’s-lands and use them to threaten the neighbouring countries: Ukraine, Georgia, and the west alike.

For decades, the west was convinced that it could bribe the Russian elites. It was a mistake because they can no longer be bribed. This is what I call a “collective Putin”.

What if this “collective Putin” received a guarantee: “your money will be safe, you won’t be persecuted even once you retire, but what we want from you in exchange is that you stop causing trouble, stop making wars, threatening everyone around and escalating the situation”?

Well, they received similar proposals many times already. All western attempts to achieve a reset and to present economic benefits to them – for example Germany did this as part of the construction of NordStream2, a very expensive project on which Russian oligarchs made a fortune – all these proposals were similar to what you are saying.

However, achieving this was unlikely due to the logic of the authoritarian system in its Russian version which requires constant tension and social mobilisation. This system is empty inside, it has not been filled up with any serious idea, moreover, it has become exhausted as regards the promise of a better life for its citizens, a salary increase, a decent start into life for children. 22% of Russians want to emigrate, among younger people the proportion is as much as 48%.

What should the west do to appease Putin?

It should focus on itself. We have no means of influencing Putin, so let’s drop the illusion that any dialogue with him is possible and that he can be persuaded to come to his senses. We can adopt a more coherent, hard-line stance towards Russia.

The sanctions are frequently criticised and viewed as ineffective because Putin does what he wants to do anyway. However, these sanctions are painful to him, they cost the Russian budget around 2-3% of the country’s GDP annually, they are curbing the development of the energy sector because Russia is unable to obtain cutting edge technology and loans from the west.

Pressure makes sense, if it is consistent. If it was not for the threat of sanctions, Navalny would have been dead by now. The situation is the same in the case of Lukashenko – tough sanctions were imposed on the Belarusian regime and on the next day Pratasevich and his girlfriend were moved to house arrest.

How is Germany viewing the Nordstream deal with Putin, which we in Poland find mind-boggling?

Germans believe that by launching cooperation with Putin, based on this giant pipeline and gas contracts, they will be capable of controlling him. This results from Germany’s experience regarding European integration: at present any conflict between Germany and France is unimaginable but let’s remember that in the past such conflicts were the basis for consecutive wars.

The EEC, and later the EU, created strong economic links between these two states and the conflict was gone. German experts believe that countries such as Poland and Ukraine will be better protected due to Nordstream.

Why?

They believe that Germany will play the part of a guarantor for an unreliable contractor, that is to say, they are constructing this pipeline to secure stable gas supplies to Europe and to play the part of the strongest partner against whom Putin won’t rebel. Germany is sending the following signal to other countries: if you have individual gas contracts with Putin, he can turn off the tap whenever he wants to.

He could target specific countries in this way in order to obtain something from them. In the situation in which Europe will be receiving gas via Nordstream and we will act as middlemen, Putin would have to turn off the tap for us and it’s clear that he won’t do this to Germany. You won’t be receiving it directly from Putin. This is their thinking.

Maybe this makes sense.

They will soon realise that they were mistaken. The German economy will be consuming huge amounts of cheap Russian gas. This is because Germany wants to reorient its entire energy sector on gas and renewable energy sources. In ten years’ time, they will become dependent on Russian gas and this will be when the Russians will say: OK, since you have shut down your nuclear and coal-fired power plants, we want this and this from you, and we want you to pay more for our gas.

What can you say about the Biden-Putin meeting?

Biden shouldn’t have held a meeting with Putin. I understand that the United States is trying to neutralise Russia because it wants to focus entirely on its rivalry with China. However, the consequence of this meeting is that the US is “normalising” Putin. Moreover, Germany and France have proposed holding a Putin-EU summit. Such meetings legitimise authoritarian leaders. Everything they have done thus far is now a closed chapter.

But Biden didn’t close any chapters. He very firmly said that he didn’t approve of Russia’s policy.

Sure. From the point of view of the US’s interests he did the right thing. First, he met with the partners from G7, then with NATO, and said that defence commitments are sacred. It was only later that he met with two autocrats and troublemakers: Erdogan and Putin. However, from our point of view, this means that Putin is welcome in Europe, since soon after this Angela Merkel proposed to organise an EU-Russia summit.

The annexation of Crimea, Navalny, disinformation, hacking attacks, the crackdown on the opposition – we are now considering this a closed chapter. Let’s go on to negotiate – it’s business as usual. This is a very bad signal to Russian civil society: if everyone is holding meetings with Putin, why would it make sense for us to rebel against him?

Would it make more sense to completely sever ties with Putin in all spheres?

No, it wouldn’t. In this way we would create another iron curtain and forget about those Russians who oppose the government. Economic and social contacts should remain.

What should we do then?

No contact with Putin, reduce the influence of Russian business groups in Europe, stop the practice of granting golden visas, Cypriot and Maltese citizenship and UK residence permits to affluent Russians. Plus stick to the sanctions. However, without resorting to the ‘atom bomb’ solution which would involve breaking diplomatic relations.

If we do this, there will be no war between Russia and the west?

If there will be any war, most likely it would not be a sudden invasion with tanks and military jets. Instead, acts of provocation and incidents that could escalate would be more likely. For example, shooting down an airplane in Kaliningrad Oblast or blocking a Russian ship meant to protect Nordstream 2 in the Baltic Sea.

Such incidents may easily get out of control – NATO will respond and Russia’s response will be even stronger etc. We need to take this into account. However, I think that for the elite in the Kremlin the political cost of an armed conflict with the west would be too high.

Main image credit: Carmen Rodriguez/Flickr (under public domain)