Mira Milosevic studied Political Science and Sociology at the University of Belgrade, her hometown. She has lived in Spain since 1996 and is a researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute and professor of Russian Foreign Policy at IE University. She is a great specialist in Eastern Europe and has published numerous works on the Balkans and Russia. Her most recent book is ‘A Brief History of the Russian Revolution’ (Ed. Galaxia Gutenberg).
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No one imagined a war in Ukraine. You also said that you did not expect it.
– I admit that mistake. Until February 21, she was convinced that Putin did not want to invade Ukraine but to influence the country. But after her speech that day I began to fear that it would happen because it was the first time that she questioned the sovereignty of Ukraine. My earlier analysis was wrong for two reasons.
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Which?
– First of all, I thought that Russia had instruments to influence but the invasion is a consequence of the failure of those instruments. The second reason is that we knew that Russia is a revisionist power but its revenge was not noticeable. The invasion has been proof that Putin is willing for Russia to lose all its international capital to win a war. I see in it a revenge for what happened after the Cold War.
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The Balkan war did not cause so much alarm. Is the reason that Russia is present now?
– Yes. In the nineties, Russia was very weak. When NATO bombed Serbia, Russia did nothing because of that weakness and to prevent another world war. Now they think it will be just the other way around. Ukraine is of strategic importance to Russia and NATO, which was not the case in the Balkans. Moscow says Ukraine is the key to its security because it needs a neutral zone to separate it from its potential enemy; that is, the US and NATO. That is why, since 2007, she has signaled that she would prevent NATO’s expansion to the east.
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Is that demand for a zone of neutrality inadmissible in the current concept of sovereignty or is it the guarantee of a balance of peace?
– Catherine the Great already said in the eighteenth century that the way to defend the borders was to extend them. That has been a premise in Russia’s behavior through the centuries. We believed that Yalta was over at the end of the Cold War. But Russia has subordinated its economic development and the freedoms of its citizens to national security. Unlike other countries that have had an empire, Russia is an empire. But in the 21st century, states must have the ability to choose their alliances.
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And Ukraine?
– It is what you have done and now you are defending that idea, that is why it would be frivolous to say that there should be neutral countries in certain regions. We cannot go back to Yalta and the countries between the EU and Russia must decide without anyone telling them what to do. What happened in Georgia and other countries in the area are lessons for the post-Soviet space. NATO does not invite any country to join the organization. It is the countries that request it. And those who have done it have been out of fear and because of their previous experience with Russia. Another thing is that NATO has not had a strategy to cushion its relationship with Russia. The problem is not the enlargement but to think that Russia would remain idle.
History
“Unlike other countries that had an empire, Russia is an empire”
other powers
“Any war is a problem for China, which wants to do business”
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During the occupation of Crimea you were against sending weapons. Do you think the same about Ukraine?
– It is a much more dramatic situation but we are still not willing to send troops to Ukraine. In 2014, the Ukrainians did not defend Crimea and Russia annexed it without shooting. No one wants to go there to prevent another war, so the only way to help is to give them weapons. Another thing is if it is enough.
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The defense of Europe continues to be linked to the US with the paradox that those who least like it are antimilitarist groups, who oppose increasing defense spending. How is that circle broken?
– Let’s look at what has happened since 2007: Russia has behaved like a revisionist power, intervening in Georgia, Syria, Crimea, Donbas… Meanwhile, the EU has continued with its Ostpolitik, which is based on the fact that if economic interdependence is strengthened, neutralizes the threat of war. Germany believed that this had worked during the Cold War. Now we pay 800 million euros a day for gas and thus finance their war. Europe already knows that it must invest more in defense.
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Not all political groups see it that way.
– The speech of autonomy in defense was already heard more after Trump, it had even started with Obama. The war in Ukraine has shown more than ever the dependence in this sense on the US and NATO. Possibly now the European countries try to comply with the 2% of GDP for defense spending, although within the framework of NATO and not of strategic autonomy. And there is fear that the next US election will be won by Trump or someone similar and Europe will be left without a defense umbrella.
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That is, trade and military spending come together.
– If Europe wants to disconnect from Russia’s hydrocarbons, it will have to increase its purchases from the US Our natural ally is the US because if we want to defend the liberal order in the world we must know that we are not capable of doing it alone. I don’t think Russia will attack a NATO country. This war, in moral and political terms, has already been lost by Russia.
Destabilize
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You defend that Russia has been at war with the West for years, creating crises and destabilizing countries.
– It has a wide range of instruments to destabilize, above all by polarizing societies. They are operations of political influence, propaganda and disinformation campaigns behind which there is a strategy: to weaken the states through their own fragility. Here it has been seen with the Catalan independence movement, the monarchy or the day that 8,000 people tried to enter Ceuta.
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And what does Russia get out of it?
– Russia presents Spain as a country that continues under Franco. Let’s not forget that ‘Russia Today’ published that the government had sent tanks to Catalonia on the day of the referendum. He wants to weaken and ridicule and at the same time sends a message to the Russians themselves: they give us moral lessons but look what they do.
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And Chinese? Which outcome of this war is most favorable to you?
– China supports and amplifies the Russian narrative about what it is doing in Ukraine and accuses the US and NATO of being responsible, saying that Russia had no choice. But it is verbal support. Any war is a problem for China, which wants to do business. That is why she will measure her performance a lot. However, he is a very important actor who has signed an agreement with Russia that points to a new international order, and because of that he opposes the expansion of NATO. China will continue to play ambiguity and I don’t see the US being able to push it so hard that it abandons it. Another thing is that he is interested in the war ending as soon as possible and that he does not agree with military intervention either.
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Can you act as a mediator?
– I dont know. China is very much against the sanctions against Russia and against a world order led by the United States. We are faced with the dilemma of creating a new international order or defending the existing one, which has not accommodated Russia and China. Either we do or we will be in constant tension. The problem is that I find it difficult to do so because both countries want to maintain their areas of influence. Of course, China will allow itself to be courted by the EU and the US and will measure each step, with its costs and benefits.
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Can the threat of a trial for genocide against Putin in the International Criminal Court have any consequences?
– Russia, like the US, is not a signatory to the ICC… This tribunal had some successes and a few failures in the case of the Balkan war. His work is very slow and often he no longer has time to judge… As an idea it sounds very good, but his results, and someone who was born in the Balkans tells him, have been rather failures.
parallels
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Is there any resemblance between the invasion of the Ukraine and that of Poland in 1939?
– Hitler said that Germany needed living space. Living space and zone of influence are quite equivalent concepts. There is another similarity: Germany was not included in the international order derived from the Versailles agreements, nor was Russia after the Cold War. History shows that when a defeated power is included in the new order, peace is guaranteed for a long time. If not, it becomes a revisionist and revanchist power. That is why we are in the biggest crisis since the Second World War and the annexation of Crimea could be like those of the Sudetenland.
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Do you fear that we are on the verge of another world war and that nuclear weapons will be used?
– I think that Russia has not yet used modern weapons in Ukraine. Although there are signs of a bad strategy, the truth is that its Army has advanced inside the country. I don’t know if it responds to a strategy but it is as if Russia wanted to spend its old weapons. And then there’s an image issue: the Soviet-era tanks he’s using still symbolize to many the might of the USSR. Oddly enough, it’s like they want to look like something familiar.
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And the problem of nuclear weapons?
– Russia and the USA are the countries with the most nuclear weapons, but in general we don’t talk about bombs like the one on Hiroshima. The problem is that there is almost a supermarket of nuclear weapons with limited effects. I think it would be the last resort that Russia would use, but it is true that a step has been taken towards a change in the rules of the game.
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In what sense?
– Until now, the Russian doctrine said that it would only use them to defend its territory from an attack or on the verge of total defeat. What it seems to herald is a change in the concept of deterrence that emerged from the Cold War, and is threatening when it is the aggressor power. That is a step towards nuclear proliferation in other countries, which will think they must defend themselves. It is not surprising that Russia speaks of a nuclear threat. Since she has the bombs, she threatens to use them. Among other things, she has them for that.
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Churchill said that Russia is an enigma wrapped in mystery. Do you believe it too?
– There is some recent biography that points out that this phrase was a joke by Churchill referring to his cat… What happens is that there has been negligence. We began to think that we were at the end of history, as Fukuyama said, and that Russia would want to participate in a world order led by the United States. Something that Russia never said. Now, after recovering from the weakness caused by the collapse of the USSR, she wants to return to being a great power. In reality, the Russians do not know how to think of themselves without seeing themselves as a great power. And in the NATO operations in Serbia and Iraq, Russia saw that the US would create a world order without it.
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