Ambassador Vladimir Chizhov's interview with New Europe, 2 September 2014
New Europe: Well, Ambassador, it seems that you can take Kiev in two weeks? It’s been said in a conversation between President Putin and President of the Commission Jose Manuel Barroso.
Vladimir Chizhov: Were you there, listening, eavesdropping?
NE: Barroso said so.
VC: Well, I don’t know. It rests with President Barroso to either confirm or deny that.
NE: Okay, but you do not know how much time you would need to take Kiev.
VC: (shrugs)
NE: How would you then explain to the West the concept of New Russia or Novorossiya that President Putin used? Apparently it created a lot of panic.
VC: It’s actually a term that dates back to the times of Catherine the Great in the 18th century. When those geographical areas became part of the Russian Empire…
NE: So it is not something that Vladimir Putin invented?
VC: Certainly not. And I would say it should be treated just like a reference to those states in the United States that are called “New England”. I don’t think it has anything to do with the relationship between United States and Britain.
NE: It’s just a historical notion, then?
VC: Yes. Covering a certain geographical area.
NE: Including Crimea?
VC: Well, actually, yes, it included Crimea too, and the areas of Donbass, Southeastern Ukraine I would say. And the rest was called Malorossiya, or “small Russia.”
NE: That’s what we call today Byelorussia and Ukraine?
VC: No, Byelorussia is different, translated as “White Russia.” Malorossiya is centered around Kiev, it is translated as “small Russia.” So, everything apart form western Ukraine, which actually was never part of the Russian Empire. By the way, some countries belonging now to the European Union are vividly remembering that they used to own parts of that land. These are today’s Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. In the old days, it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
NE: But when you use this expression: New Russia, doesn’t it put into doubt the Ukrainian identity as a nation?
VC: Of course it doesn’t. It has no national, or ethnic reference, it’s just a geographical and historical term.
NE: How do you explain then that the West sees now Russia as an enemy? The NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen even called Russia “an unfriendly nation”. How did that start?
VC: I think that consciously or subconsciously it has always been there. I would quote one of the Russian emperors, the lesser-known Alexander III, the penultimate one, who said once that Europe is afraid of Russia merely because of Russia’s greatness in terms of size.
NE: Does this mean that with Yeltsin we just had a lull in the relations?
VC: I wouldn’t call it a lull. It was a period when the Soviet Union collapsed, as you know, and that was a time of major turbulence as far as the economy was concerned and also in domestic politics. Those were difficult times.
NE: More difficult than today?
VC: I think it was much more difficult than today…
NE: A quest for identity?
VC: A quest for identity, yes, economic sufferings for a great percentage of the population, something that we don’t see today…
NE: … but which might come back with the sanctions?
VC: No. And there was a feeling of loss of the motherland.
NE: …And of the New Russia that you lost?
VC: Including the New Russia.
NE: Does Russia feel betrayed by the West, by the fact that the West promised not to expand militarily into Eastern Europe? Were there promises that have not been kept?
VC: Yes, a lot of promises have not been kept, including the one that NATO would not expand eastwards. Those promises were oral, they were not put on paper, but in those days the last Soviet leadership, under Mikhail Gorbachev, was naïve enough to trust those commitments.
NE: What about Yeltsin?
VC: I wouldn’t know, perhaps that includes him too.
NE: So: do you feel that the West turned its back to Russia, or that there was some huge misunderstanding?
VC: I think in those days the West overall, and by saying the West I mean both Western Europe and the United States, lost the chance of creating an equal partnership with Russia, preferring to pursue their geopolitical goals.
NE: In this view, would Eastern Europe have been something like a buffer zone?
VC: I wouldn’t regard it as a buffer zone, but I have a sense that the West regarded those countries, just as they regard Ukraine today, as a geopolitical playground.
NE: You said that the sanctions do not affect the day-to-day life of the citizens…
VC: I didn’t say so.
NE: So they do affect it?
VC: They do affect it in the sense that they are serving as a huge impetus to develop domestic production, be it of food or industrial goods.
NE: Are you talking about a positive effect of the sanctions?
VC: Yes. The negative effect is that some Russians may miss some particular French cheeses. (Laughs)
NE: And in cultural and moral terms? How about the young generation, who is dreaming of the West?
VC: I don’t think they are dreaming of the West. They are dreaming of prosperity of their own country, they want to be treated as equals, the way they deserve.
NE: Moscow says it wants to protect the rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine and in what you called New Russia…
VC: …and across the world, I would add.
NE: And across the world. Including in Kazakhstan, as we heard recently…
VC: Including in Western Europe, also in the Baltics.
NE: But this scares the Baltic countries, where there is a sizeable Russian minority…
VC: Probably because they fail to understand what protection of minorities is. They have been neglecting their own minorities for over twenty years, actually mistreating them. You know, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, the three Baltic Republics organised referenda which led to their independence, and everybody voted, including the ethnic Russians. I would even say that the majority of Russians there voted for independence. But then the Baltic governments said: “Okay, we don’t need you anymore. You can pack and go.” Even today, the seats allocated to those countries in the European Parliament are counted on the basis of the overall population, though the Russian-speaking minorities are deprived of voting rights.
NE: On the other hand, the three Baltic countries were never accepted as part of the Soviet Union by the Americans, by the United Nations. They had a separate status.
VC: They didn’t really have a separate status. There was a separate policy on the part of those Western countries, which, for example, did not prevent them to sign the Helsinki Final Actin 1975, and make statements, including by the then U.S. President Gerald Ford, which essentially meant that they were actually accepting the fact that the Baltic countries were part of the Soviet Union. Yes, high-level delegations from the West did not travel to those three republics. But other foreign leaders did.
NE: But what stops you from giving the Baltic countries reassurance that nothing bad will happen to them? The situation is rather tense there.
VC: The situation is artificially tense. When we refer to protecting “Russian speakers”, we mean that by political, diplomatic and moral means, by promoting Russian language, Russian culture, by drawing the attention of the European Union, of the Council of Europe to fix the deficiencies, we are defending their rights. But it doesn’t mean that Russian tanks will roll into all the countries with Russian speakers, of whom are many in all parts of the world.
NE: When you speak about the rights of the Russian minorities in the Baltic countries, would you go as far as to ask, for instance, for Russian to be accepted as an official language of the EU?
VC: Well, I know the existing rules within the European Union. In order for a language to be accepted as an official language of the EU, at least one EU member state should recognise it as an official language. That has not happened so far.
NE: How do you view negotiations inside the EU, inside the institutions, around the formation of the new Commission, from the angle of the attitude towards Russia? It’s been said that it is a good thing for Europe that people like Donald Tusk, the new President of the Council, is a “hawk” and knows about Russia and can take a stand against Russia. How do you view all this?
VC: I trust that whoever is in charge within the EU in those posts, including that of President of the European Council, President of the Commission, High Representative and members of the Commission, which we have yet to see, all of them will be reflecting the common position of the European Union, and not their national, and least of all their personal positions, views or ambitions.
NE: Well, in the case of Tusk it’s not his personal position, it’s Poland’s position. Poland has always had a defiant attitude towards Russia.
VC: Should I then quote the Treaty of the European Union which says that persons delegated to those posts should be elected on the basis of their merits and independence? Meaning, I will repeat, that whoever is in charge should be reflecting not the national position, but the position of the EU as a whole.
NE: On the other hand, apparently the future High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, has been said to be “Russia friendly”. How do you view this?
VC: Well, I didn’t say that. Some people did, but I think that what I said about the previous individual fully refers to her as well.
NE: There are many elements in the West’s attitude of defiance towards Russia. One of them is the new law concerning the NGOs in Russia, which can be viewed as foreign agents. Don’t you think the West has a basis for mistrust there?
VC: There is an evident mistrust on the part of the Western countries, perhaps based on misunderstanding. Actually, the term “foreign agent” was borrowed from existing U.S. legislation.
NE: But we are in Europe.
VC: Yes, but we are all in the OSCE, aren’t we? And it is the OSCE where these issues get discussed.
NE: So, why blame the NGOs that get some financing from abroad?
VC: Nobody’s blaming them.
NE: But they have to register separately.
VC: Only those that are engaged in political activities, only those are requested register. But not to the extent that they are obliged in the United States, where NGOs have to fill in questionnaires for the FBI of dozens of pages.
NE: But again, we are in Europe.
VC: Of course we are. The situation in many European countries is not entirely different from that of the United States.
NE: What countries?
VC: I could refer to the United Kingdom, for example. Or France, too.
NE: And how about the soldiers’ mothers? They have been blamed recently as being foreign agents as well.
VC: I haven’t seen any claims of that. On the other hand, I’ve seen dozens, if not hundreds, Ukrainian soldiers’ mothers demanding the resignation of the Defence Minister…
NE: …of Ukraine?
VC: Yes, and appealing that their sons be brought back home and not used as cannon fodder in a war against their compatriots.
NE: What is Russia’s most recent position concerning the events in Ukraine? What would be acceptable for Russia as a status for those regions, where there is a civil war going on?
VC: Russia’s position has been consistent all throughout the Ukrainian crisis. It’s not a crisis that Russia invented or created. It was created by other people, and if you like I can refer to some benchmarks along the way. It all started from a simple decision by the then President Yanukovych not to sign, actually just to postpone signing the Association Agreement with the European Union…
NE: …In November last year.
VC: Yes, back in November. Because, as he explained, he needed more time to study the documents and their implications, a perfectly legal concern and a fair assumption. Unfortunately, some people, including some of the young generation, students and others, who had been indoctrinated for years by the different Ukrainian leaderships that the Association Agreement is almost the same as joining the European Union, that they would be able immediately to travel without visas to the European Union, to live and work there, were disappointed. Some, I assume, had already packed their bags to leave the country. But this was, I would say, a spontaneous reaction. In the course of the winter, though, it evolved into something different. In the beginning, there were EU flags floating on the Maidan. A few weeks later, one couldn’t see a single one. There were no portraits of Barroso, not even of Lady Ashton. There were portraits of Stepan Bandera, a well-known war criminal and leader of the nationalist, pro-Nazi movement in the Second World War. Then, on the 21st of February, three European foreign ministers, German, French and Polish, together with Yanukovych, and the three leaders of the opposition signed a document…
NE: …A memorandum of understanding…
VC: A document on the basis of which President Yanukovych committed himself not to introduce martial law, then to withdraw the police and special forces from the centre of the city, to agree to a constitutional reform and early elections. I don’t want to sound as his advocate, but he delivered on everything.
NE: And he offered the formation of the government of the opposition.
VC: …Of national unity. At the same time the opposition, the then-opposition, committed itself to stop violence, to leave the buildings seized in the centre of the city, to agree to constitutional reforms, but first and foremost to set up a government of national unity. Two days later, the document which carried the signatures of European foreign ministers was thrown into the waste-bin and the same three leaders of the opposition claimed: “We have established a government of winners.” And, you know, all along the conflict the Kiev authorities failed to deliver on every single one of their commitments.
NE: But, if there was an understanding, why did Yanukovych run away?
VC: At the moment when this happened — and it was a coup d’état, you can’t find a different term for that—, he was still in the country. He later fled because he feared for his personal security. But before he did, he delivered on all his commitments. He did not introduce martial law, he pulled out the police and special forces, and he agreed to constitutional reform and early elections. By the way, the agreement provided for a certain sequence of those measures. First, constitutional reform and then elections. What we saw was the opposite. A government of “winners”, and early elections before constitutional reform. Even now, they called early parliamentary elections without even changing the law on elections, which they had promised to do…
NE: …And knowing that the elections would not be held in some areas of the country. And then the mechanism started and now we are in a stalemate. Coming back to the sanctions, why was there no ban on alcohol from the West?
VC: I really don’t know. One of the motivations behind those counter measures were practical economic considerations. One of the biggest Russian banks that were put under EU sanctions was the Russian Agricultural Bank, which is the major source of credit for the Russian agricultural sector, and since it was put under strain with those sanctions, its room for manoeuvre in providing credit to Russian domestic agriculture was limited, thus putting European food exporters in a preferential position.
NE: And now you say it is a good situation for Russia, because people can start producing again?
VC: Let me remind you of the situation in the 1990s, which we already discussed…
NE: You even imported flowers from Spain then, and cherries…
VC: …We still import tulips from the Netherlands.
NE: Why don’t you produce them?
VC: The climate is not favourable. The same goes for wines. Back in the 1990’s, the Russian market of food popped out open, and European exporters took advantage of that without any restraint or competition. In effect, they took it for granted. The amount of food exports to Russia has since then reached something between €12 and 13 billion.
NE: Because you had no distribution networks inside the country?
VC: That too. As a result, all this was stifling domestic production. So the government has, for many years now, been looking for ways to promote domestic production, and it has gained some success in certain sectors, like poultry, pork meat, some others, but not in all. This was the situation until recently, when the sanctions provided us, involuntarily, with an opportunity.
NE: What do you expect from the Minsk negotiations on Friday? Is there anything to come out of them?
VC: I see this as a very good starting point because it involves the parties to the conflict. Everything else that has been happening so far in other formats involved only one party to the conflict and a number of outsiders.
NE: Why the OSCE and not Europe?
VC: Well, the OSCE was created to deal with issues like that, and the OSCE has proven to be more objective than the EU, I would say. The OSCE produced a peace plan bearing the name of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, the Swiss President. How did Kiev react?
NE: How?
VC: It did not accept it. President Poroshenko, instead of that, produced his own peace plan, which is substantially different. And how did the EU react? Fully supportive of that, applauding the Poroshenko plan and forgetting about the OSCE plan. Moreover, the EU has continued to support, blindly I would say, Kiev’s war policy aimed at achieving military victory in the East.
NE: And, to conclude, what would be the message that you would want to pass to Europe, and what would be the Europe that would suit Russia’s interest, given that we are at a cross point now, with the new Commission, and with changes in NATO as well?
VC: I would say that Russia is part of Europe and it has always been. Russia is the largest European country. We see around us a multi-polar world. There are three pillars of what I would call European civilisation. One is Western Europe, or you could say the EU, another is Russia, and the third is North America. That’s an objective fact. These three pillars should work together to form a common position in this evolving multi-polar world of ours. There are other centres of power. We no longer live in a bipolar, or much less a unipolar world. We all know that Asia is rapidly developing today. Perhaps Latin America tomorrow, Africa the day after. This really implies competition on a global scale, in the good sense, not military competition, but in terms of economic development, in terms of standards of life. All this requires a concerted action without any confrontation. But, having said this, I think Europe, Western Europe and North America too, should not forget that there is no monopoly on truth and there is no monopoly on values. Values are negotiable.
NE: Does that mean that you expect Europe to accept Russia, with that New Russia, or without it?
VC: Again, New Russia is not part of those values. It’s a geographical and historical term. And Russia itself does not need to be accepted anywhere or by anyone. It has always been a pillar of European and Eurasian civilization, and will always remain so.
