Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire

Exactly as human rights have increasingly become important in international relations and Russia itself has faced criticism for its domestic human rights record, Moscow has increasingly turned to humanitarian policies as an element of its foreign policy.³² According to the 2009 study The “Humanitarian Dimension” of the Russian Foreign Policy Toward Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Baltic States, “Russia has chosen an offensive approach to human rights issues as the best form of defense.”³³ As a result, Russia has sought out “artificial pseudo-problems” of human rights in the states of its near abroad.³⁴ This counterattack serves several purposes. First, it distracts the attention of the international community from Russia’s own human rights violations. Second, it questions the extent to which states like the Baltics or Ukraine can protect the rights of their minorities, thus challenging the legitimacy of these national governments and seeking to “discredit those countries in eyes of international society.”³⁵ Moscow’s vocal campaign over Russian diaspora rights enables it to internationalize and even legitimize the issue. Finally, Russian foreign policy has embraced the protection of human rights at times when it could not use international law to advance its interests. For instance, the evident weakness of Russia’s arguments under international law regarding Crimea and eastern Ukraine has resulted in Moscow’s decision to defend its actions by broad notions of compatriot protection, legitimacy, justice, and above all national interest.³⁶

Certainly, since 1991, various minorities in the post-Soviet space, including ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, have faced occasional and in some cases arguably systemic though not explicit discrimination, potential economic hardships, and cultural integration difficulties. However, since the mid-1990s Moscow has packaged the issues of multicultural, transitional societies as “human rights violations,” tying them together with accusations of “fascism” when this suited its foreign policy aims.³⁷ Moscow’s antifascist rhetoric targeting alleged abusers of the Russian compatriots’ rights is even more paradoxical when viewed in light of the fact that Putin regime’s close ties to Europe’s neofascist and extreme right parties are well documented and include floating the French far right National Front with a €9 million loan in 2014.³⁸ But Moscow’s perplexing efforts to “fight fascism” in the former Soviet republics serve a purpose. By seeking to portray its opponents in the Baltic States or in Kiev as “fascists,” the Russian government and its proxies by definition appear “antifascist.” For instance, Putin compared the 2014 conflict between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian militias in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk with the heroic antifascist struggle of the Russians during the epic two-year siege of Leningrad in the Second World War.³⁹ Paradoxically, in early 2015, the supposedly antifascist pro-Russian leader of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, Alexander Zakharchenko, declared that Kiev is actually run by “miserable Jews.”⁴⁰ Rhetoric aside, present-day Russian “antifascism” has nothing to do with genuine antifascism, which is characterized by adherence to democratic principles, respect for international law, and the protection of human rights.⁴¹