The festive season only deepened the chill between Russia and the West, and few on either side of the “new cold war” predict a swift thaw in 2015.
In a televised press conference that is now a pre-Christmas staple, president Vladimir Putin defended his record and heaped blamed on the West for Russia’s financial woes and various military, diplomatic and political conflicts.
He bemoaned Nato expansion, United States plans for a missile defence system in Europe and alleged western support for separatist rebels in the north Caucasus, and claimed foreign powers sought perpetually to weaken Russia.
“Sometimes I think maybe the little bear should just sit quietly and munch berries and honey rather than chase piglets,” Putin said in metaphorical reference to Russia.
“Perhaps then they would leave it alone. But no, they wouldn’t, because they will always try to chain it up. And once they’ve chained it up, they will rip out its teeth and claws.”
And when these teeth and claws – Russia’s nuclear weapons – had been removed, Putin explained, “then the little bear will no longer be needed”.
Western sanctions on Russia were not a result of his annexation of Crimea or support for militants in eastern Ukraine, Putin insisted, but rather a punishment imposed on Russians simply for being who they are, and living where they live.
“This is payback, or, rather, payment for our natural desire for self-preservation as a nation, as a civilisation, as a state,” he said, claiming foreigners were desperate to steal Russia’s natural resources.
“We’ve heard many times . . . that it’s unfair that Siberia with its immeasurable wealth belongs entirely to Russia. Unfair! So grabbing Texas from Mexico was fair, but whatever we do on our own land is unfair.”
Little bear
At the end of a tumultuous year, Putin was telling Russians that the West would always be a devious and dangerous enemy, and a threat to the freedom and very existence of a “little bear” with huge pots of oil, gas and metals.
The coming year is likely to be very difficult for many Russians, with the economy forecast to shrink, inflation expected to drive prices higher and many companies predicted to lay off workers and face a battle to avoid bankruptcy.
The immediate cause is a sharp weakening of the rouble, which has lost about half its value this year as it tracked a steep slide in the price of oil and gas, sales of which account for about half of Russia’s budget.
The major oil-producing states grouped in Opec – of which Russia is not a member – say they have no intention of cutting production to boost prices. Oil now trades at about $60 a barrel but Russia’s spending plans are based on $100 oil.
Economic hardship is likely to feed a stronger bunker mentality among officials who, like Putin, will seek to blame Russia’s ills on foreign and domestic enemies, diverting attention from their own corruption, incompetence and failed policies. Russian critics of the Kremlin expect to face even tighter controls to ensure dissent is not channelled into mass movements or major street protests.
Internationally, some see Russia’s economic problems already softening its position on Ukraine, where in recent weeks Kiev and its US and European Union allies attest to better co-operation with Moscow on calming the conflict in the east. Kiev and western diplomats feel the Kremlin is baulking at the cost of its adventure in Ukraine, and realises it cannot afford more sanctions or to subsidise Crimea and rebel areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
But while fears have waned that Moscow will help the rebels push into other Russian-speaking provinces to form a unified “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”), Putin has also pledged never to let the pro-western Kiev government “destroy” its opponents in the east.
Frozen conflict
The result could be a “frozen conflict” of a type familiar from Russian-backed separatist regions in other former Soviet states, such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia and Transdniestria in Moldova, which Moscow uses to disrupt those divided countries’ efforts to integrate with the EU and Nato.
Ukraine might not accept such a scenario, however.
Despite its calamitous financial situation, Ukraine is much bigger and stronger than Georgia and Moldova, and is in talks to buy weapons from Nato members in eastern Europe and could even receive arms from Washington.
On the day Mr Putin mused about the “little bear” and the West, US president Barack Obama signed a law that allows the US to supply $350 million (€285 million) in so-called lethal and non-lethal military aid to Kiev from 2015 to 2017.
The EU also imposed more sanctions on Crimea and the new president of the European Council, former Polish premier Donald Tusk, steeled the bloc’s leaders for a long struggle with Russia.
“Russia is today our strategic problem, not Ukraine,” he said. “The biggest challenge today is the Russian approach, not only to Ukraine but also to the EU.”
“It is obvious we will not find a long-term perspective for Ukraine without an adequate, consistent and united European strategy towards Russia,” he added.
There will be a frisson in dealings between the Russians and a Pole, whose countries have been at loggerheads for centuries, and Mr Tusk’s pep talk targeted the many EU leaders who desire a swift return to “business as usual” with Moscow.
Russia will continue to use its economic muscle, particularly in the energy sphere, to divide the EU over Ukraine, at a time when Kiev urgently needs $15 billion (€12.2 billion) on top of a $17 billion (€13.2 billion) International Monetary Fund aid package.
Conflict – frozen or otherwise – in the east will keep draining Ukraine, where war has already killed more than 4,700 people and displaced a million, and sent shivers through Russia’s neighbours from central Asia to the Baltic states.
With Moscow’s military aircraft more active near Nato states than at any time since the last cold war, Russia hinting at the possible deployment of nuclear missiles in Crimea, and the US clearing the way to arm Ukraine, the recent assessment of new EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was bracing: “The world has never been as dangerous and unstable.”
Prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk delivered an equally clear message to Ukraine’s parliament: “The task for 2015 is to survive.”
