New Europe: How do you assess the recent G7 summit in Brussels
Vladimir Chizhov: Well, nothing dramatic.
New Europe: Aha. Are you disappointed?
Vladimir Chizhov: Not at all. I think the G7 drifted away from the traditional G8 agenda, focusing on totally different issues. The G8 agenda, formulated by the current Russian presidency of the G8, was sidelined.
New Europe: Sidelined because Russia was not there.
Vladimir Chizhov: Of course. And the G7 chose to discuss totally different issues. So I would not mix the G7 with the G8 at this point.
New Europe: So it was a totally different event for you?
Vladimir Chizhov: It was. And hardly impressive.
New Europe: Hardly impressive — we know that. How would you assess the logic of not having Russia in Brussels, but inviting Russia the following day at the D-Day commemorations in Normandy?
Vladimir Chizhov: Well, you should ask those who sent out the invitations, of course. Let me clarify this: Russia was never part of the G7. The moment Russia was invited, G7 became G8, 17 or something years ago. As far as the D-Day commemorations are concerned, they would’ve looked ridiculous without Russia being there.
New Europe: As for the claims that founded the non-invitation of Russia to the G7: we know that Russia does not admit its involvement in Ukraine…But others claim there are Russians there.
Vladimir Chizhov: There are many Russians living in Ukraine. There are also many Ukrainians living in Russia.
New Europe: Yes, we don’t have Russian guerrillas in Ukraine, we’ve heard this. But how about the recriminations about Russia applying different measures when it sells gas to Ukraine, and when it sells gas to other countries? Why is Russia applying different tariffs to foes and friends?
Vladimir Chizhov: Tariffs are something that exist internally in each country. What we are probably talking about are gas prices. And prices for gas, as for any other commodity, are subject to negotiations between companies — the company that sells the gas and the company that buys the gas.
New Europe: But the Russian state has a huge stake in Gazprom.
Vladimir Chizhov: 51 %.
New Europe: So it’s a political decision.
Vladimir Chizhov: On prices? No.
New Europe: No? Is it then a market decision?
Vladimir Chizhov: It is indeed a market decision. Of course every deal in energy also involves taxes, both on the supplying side and on the consuming side. And I will not reveal any secret if I say that up to 70 % of the end-price that a European customer pays for gas in this part of Europe goes to the state coffers of his country.
New Europe: Will Russia recognise officially the new president of Ukraine?
Vladimir Chizhov: You know, you are not the first person asking me this question. And I am a bit puzzled. What do you imply by “official recognition”? The Russian ambassador went to Kiev, he participated in the inauguration ceremony. What else would you expect?
New Europe: An official announcement.
Vladimir Chizhov: Countries recognise each other as countries. They do not recognise governments or presidencies.
New Europe: So you’re not bothered by having someone in power in Kiev who wants to claim back Crimea?
Vladimir Chizhov: Well, everyone is entitled to make mistakes.
New Europe: How about NATO? What is Russia’s position towards NATO’s promises to Georgia, and even veiled promises to Ukraine, in some areas?
Vladimir Chizhov: To begin with, I think NATO eastward expansion is an unhealthy process. Be it the countries you just mentioned, or any other countries, including those that have already joined. We believe that NATO’s expansion in principle is an attempt to address security challenges of the 21st century with means dating back to the mid-20th century — and means, I will add, devised in totally different historical circumstances and for totally different reasons.
New Europe: Did NATO infringe any of its promises in the ‘90s? Did NATO promise formally that they would not expand in eastern Europe?
Vladimir Chizhov: Well, not NATO as such, but major Western countries did. They, for example, promised to the last Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO infrastructure would not move to Eastern Germany, the then German Democratic Republic. It has moved. And there were a lot of other promises.
New Europe: Like not sending troops to Eastern Europe and —
Vladimir Chizhov: Yes.
New Europe: But Russia did a similar promise in ‘99 at the OSCE summit in Istanbul when it said it would pull out its troops from Transdniestria.
Vladimir Chizhov: I was there…
New Europe: So you made that promise.
Vladimir Chizhov: No, I did not. It was of course President Yeltsin at that time. But let me explain: it was not a promise, it was a commitment to do that, subject to certain conditions. And those conditions were followed up by a declaration of the OSCE in 2002, which spelled out unequivocally: “provided the necessary conditions are in place” (I quote it was actually my wording). But the conditions are not there.
New Europe: What were those conditions?
Vladimir Chizhov: Actually, in practical terms the Russian military presence there does not have any military significance. I can explain in a few words the background.
New Europe: Yes, please.
Vladimir Chizhov: After the events in eastern and central Europe —
New Europe: You mean the fall of communism?
Vladimir Chizhov: I mean the change-over of governments and the subsequent pullout of the Soviet forces and of their stockpiles. Some of those stockpiles ended up in that part of Europe. So what is now referred to as Transdniestria housed a number of — well, huge amounts of munitions. Not arms as such, but munitions. Some of them dating back to pre-World War II period. Like bullets that would not fit any modern gun, and too dangerous to transport. So we contemplated various options, including destroying them on the ground under international supervisions. Germany even provided some equipment to do that. There were of course protests by local residents who said this is bad for environment, and they had a point. So some — well, more than half — of stockpiles were eventually moved out. But I don’t think it would’ve been in anybody’s interest to leave those stockpiles unattended, unguarded. So that was the main reason why little over one thousand Russian troops stayed, to guard those stockpiles. Plus, of course, a peacekeeping contingent which is there on the basis of a multilateral agreement between the authorities of the Republic of Moldova and those of Transdniestria. Upon consent of both parties. But that’s a very small number.
New Europe: There is talk now about a referendum in Transdniestria about independence, or a union with Russia.
Vladimir Chizhov: They already had several of those referenda.
New Europe: Would Russia accept such a referendum? Would Russia take this country like it did South Ossetia, or Abkhazia, or Crimea?
Vladimir Chizhov: You know, the last time a referendum was held in Transdniestria — if my memory does not fail me — was in 2006, which was in response to a law enacted in Moldova the year before, 2005. The law, which downgraded the status of Transdniestria to just a geographical notion, without autonomy rights, or anything. What is Russia’s position now? We are in favour of a peaceful resolution of this conflict on the basis of Transdniestria being part of a federal, neutral, non-aligned country of Moldova. And we are actively pursuing the 5 +2 multilateral dialogue on this issue, the latest round having taken place last week.
New Europe: Speaking of South Ossetia and Abkhazia: the only countries that recognised the independence of those entities are Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the island of Nauru, in the Pacific —
Vladimir Chizhov: And a few others.
New Europe: Which ones?
Vladimir Chizhov: Some other Pacific islands.
New Europe: Some other Pacific islands?
Vladimir Chizhov: Yes.
New Europe: Doesn’t sound very impressive.
Vladimir Chizhov: So far it doesn’t. Though there is a number of other countries contemplating the option.
New Europe: Is that a failure of Russian diplomacy?
Vladimir Chizhov: No. You know, after the Bolshevik revolution for 10-15 years the country survived without being recognised. And it lived on. Today there are some countries that are either totally unrecognised or recognised by one single country…
New Europe: Let’s say Taiwan, for instance.
Vladimir Chizhov: Or the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, for that matter. And actually in the latter case, there was a UN Security Council resolution urging UN member states to not to recognise it. There was no thing of the sort in the case of Abkhazia, or South Ossetia. I can also refer to Kosovo, which has not been even recognised by all EU member states.
New Europe: Five EU countries don’t recognise Kosovo.
Vladimir Chizhov: Yes, as the majority of countries across the world.
New Europe: Right. Let’s stay in Russia. I suppose you are often asked about some laws that make Russia a kind of a scarecrow in cultural, political, diplomatic terms, like the law about NGOs being tools of foreign interference. How do you explain this, how do you dilute the impact of this?
Vladimir Chizhov: You probably mean the so-called “law on foreign agents”. Well, the term “foreign agents” applied to NGOs is not a Russian invention. It was invented in the United States of America. And the law, which dates back to 1930s, is still in force. Do you know — how many Western NGOs are active in Russia?
New Europe: No, how many?
Vladimir Chizhov: About 3000. How many Russian NGOs are able to work in Western Europe and the United States?
New Europe: Do you have any?
Vladimir Chizhov: Yes, two in the United States, a handful all over Western Europe. And when one of those applied to be registered in France, they had to fill a questionnaire of over a hundred questions, and in a similar case in the US the list was even much longer, including reference to the FBI counter intelligence directorate.
New Europe: A tit-for-tat —
Vladimir Chizhov: No, there is nothing political in that. Nobody is preventing any NGO in Russia from receiving financial support from abroad. But if that NGO is dealing with political issues, then it has to register, it has to inform the authorities that it is receiving financial assistance from abroad. If it is dealing in humanitarian issues, like, you know, medical assistance or assisting children or anything like that, there is no need to even register.
New Europe: So it’s not a measure of reprisal.
Vladimir Chizhov: No.
New Europe: Another thing that scares people here is the Eurasian ideology
Vladimir Chizhov: Well, we’re not afraid of some people here pursuing the Euro-Atlantic ideology. Why should anybody be afraid of Russia pursuing Eurasian ideology? It’s just a geographical term. Or is it something else? I mean your Euro-Atlantic thing…
New Europe: We can already say the Eurasian ideology has nothing to do with communism, first of all.
Vladimir Chizhov: Yes.
New Europe: Because it was formulated by some White Russians who migrated to the west, including figures like Trubetzkoy, who was a highly praised linguist and intellectual. So it’s not something to be attached with Stalinism or any other Soviet ideology, but how would you describe it in a few words?
Vladimir Chizhov: It’s about the integral elements of what we all know as European civilisation. In our view, which I personally fully share, is that European civilisation today rests on three pillars — you know this “EU-speak”, those three pillars... One pillar is Europe as such, the other pillar is Russia, and the third pillar is North America, which is closely connected with the first two. So these three pillars of European civilisation need to interact and they need mutual support to retain their role in today’s multipolar and globalised world.
New Europe: But what is Asian there? Why Eurasian?
Vladimir Chizhov: You worked in Russia, so you know that two-thirds of Russia lies in Asia. And of course —
New Europe: But here we speak in symbolic terms, not geographical, and political terms.
Vladimir Chizhov: Well, something that I think is grossly underestimated in this part of Europe is the historical achievement of my ancestors, of those Russian who lived in the 17th and 18th century, who succeeded in expanding the borders of what we today consider European civilisation to the Pacific coast, to the borders of China. I will probably stop here without asking you a hypothetical question: which language would otherwise be spoken across Siberia today?
New Europe: Mongol?
Vladimir Chizhov: I wouldn’t want to know. But I think you should be happy that it’s Russian.
New Europe: But Russians were for centuries under the Mongol yoke, as you call it.
Vladimir Chizhov: Yeah, a couple of centuries.
New Europe: A couple of centuries. Do you think the West doesn’t realise, doesn’t understand the strength and the power of your breaking free from this yoke?
Vladimir Chizhov: Yes, among other things which unfortunately the West fails to understand.
New Europe: So the West is ungrateful for Russia having in a way saved Europe from external invasions…
Vladimir Chizhov: That too, yes.
New Europe: And how can you convince them of this, when you give them the impression of invading a European country?
Vladimir Chizhov: Which one?
New Europe: Ukraine.
Vladimir Chizhov: We did not invade anybody. If you are referring to Crimea, Russian troops have been there for over two centuries.
New Europe: Yes, it’s the major Russian naval base on the Black Sea.
Vladimir Chizhov: Of course. Which, I would say, has a lot of symbolic significance. Perhaps more symbolic than strategic. But still. You know, since Ukrainian independence the Russian navy was there on the basis of a bilateral agreement, a series of bilateral agreements. There has been a lot of speculation about the surge in numbers during the dramatic events in the beginning of this year. But that was also fully in conformity with those agreements, because — well, again, I won’t reveal any secret if I say the ceiling for troop numbers was 25,000 written in those agreements. And the actual numbers when the turmoil in Ukraine started was 16,000. So the gap of 9,000 was filled. We never denied that. But no ceiling was broken, no shots fired, nobody got killed.
New Europe: To stay in the field of political and cultural influence of Russia in Europe, of course you have a long cultural history, literature, music, painting, everything. Today, when Russia is rather seen as a foe in Europe —
Vladimir Chizhov: By some.
New Europe: By some. Still, the only direct political influence you have is on some far-right parties.
Vladimir Chizhov: Many left-wing parties too.
New Europe: And many left parties, but fringe parties, extremist parties. There was a meeting in Vienna —
Vladimir Chizhov: Well, some of those fringe parties actually won the European parliament elections.
New Europe: They won them in their countries, but on a Europe-wide scale they are still a minority.
Vladimir Chizhov: Yes.
New Europe: So Russia is approaching some of these extremist, fringe parties —
Vladimir Chizhov: No.
New Europe: But there was this meeting in Vienna—
Vladimir Chizhov: We are not approaching them, they are approaching us. And we are open-minded to everybody. Except, of course, parties and political groups professing fascist, nazi ideology, including those in Ukraine.
New Europe: But you feel that Russia is excluded from what it would deserve.
Vladimir Chizhov: No.
New Europe: You said European civilisation was based on three pillars —
Vladimir Chizhov: We are understated, underrated.
New Europe: You would like to be on the same level as the United States and Europe as a whole, with Russia as a third pillar.
Vladimir Chizhov: I think it is in everybody’s interest.
New Europe: And are you optimistic? How do you see this?
Vladimir Chizhov: I am a born optimist. That’s why I chose this line of work.
