So, let’s continue the conversation about the attitude of Muslims to the confrontation between Russia and the collective West (https://golosislama.com/news.php?id=40539). First of all, we must start with the fact that this situation is completely atypical.
When Putin came to power, he tried to sell his «fight against international terrorism in the Caucasus and throughout the CIS» to America, which at the same time was starting a «crusade» in the Middle East. And let’s not forget that at that time one of the NATO bases even appeared in Russia — in Ulyanovsk. In other words, the great fighter against NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders at that time offered Russia itself as a NATO base. And for some reason he didn’t really object to NATO’s eastward expansion, which he suddenly demanded be reversed at the end of 2021.
And the reason for all this is that Putin was first scared to death by the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, and then by the first Maidan in Ukraine in 2004. And even though he objectively had nothing to fear at that time, because he was a young, popular leader, supported by liberals, and had good relations with the West, he decided that the West was encroaching on him.
And disagreements began to manifest themselves in the post-Soviet space. In principle, the West wasn’t particularly against Russia providing services in the fight against «international Islamic terrorism» in Muslim regions and countries. But countries like Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia were considered candidates for NATO and EU membership, at least because many people there looked to them with hope. And in Moscow, they continued to be seen as parts of the Russian Empire, albeit a broken one, but whose territory was still considered its sphere of influence.
Hence Putin’s Munich speech and the subsequent slide into confrontation. In this sense, when Putin says that he wanted to reach an agreement with the West, he is partly right — they really did not agree on the terms. We say this not to justify Putin, but to make Muslims understand — Putin’s Russia was never an initial alternative to NATO, especially one favorable to Muslims.
Moreover, the Kremlin has long worked to undermine the emerging anti-Kremlin consensus in the West and to achieve recognition of Russia as part of the club. It was mainly a game of dividing Americans and Europeans, as well as supporting various ultra-right and xenophobic forces in the West, for whom Putin even became an idol at some point. Hence the compliments paid to him by Anders Breivik, the visits to Moscow by Le Pen, Salvini, the Kremlin’s support for Alternative for Germany, the attempts to use Brexit for its own interests, the hope that Trump will be a more convenient president, the hope for Nord Stream 2, etc.
In general, Putin had friends in the West until recently. Muslims should remember that these were friends — in almost all cases, they were Islamophobes to whom the Kremlin presented itself as the fighter against Islamism and Islamization that the West needed.
But, as they say, when God wants to destroy a man, He takes away his reason. And this is exactly what happened to the Kremlin when they disrupted this complex game of divisions within the West and presented an unattainable ultimatum to the whole West. And after it was rejected, they carried out the biggest massacre in their post-war history in front of a shocked Europe. Not to mention Yugoslavia, where their predecessor Milosevic did the same thing, with the difference that there was not such a dense information space as there is today, when every frame from the bombing site, filmed by an eyewitness on a phone, can become the property of the whole world in a few minutes.
In short, Putin has really provoked and turned the whole West against him. But Muslims should pay attention to the circumstances under which this is happening.
For various reasons, America has been withdrawing from almost everywhere in the Islamic world in recent years, culminating in its withdrawal from Afghanistan. By the way, even then, when this happened, we wrote that it should not be presented, as many Muslims or just haters of the USA do, as such a retreat. After all, it was preceded by several years of negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, when they were convinced that if they left, Afghanistan would not become a base for attacks against the US and the West. After that, there was no reason for them to stay there forever, losing billions of embezzled dollars and thousands of lives of their soldiers.
Thus, in recent years, the Americans have been withdrawing from the Islamic world almost everywhere, which can only be welcomed from an Islamic perspective. But while this is good news for the Islamic world, it is bad news for some, because it has given the Americans an opportunity to focus on their main enemies.
In fact, the only serious competitor to the West in all respects is China. And in this regard, at one point, the idea was floated in Washington of making concessions to Russia in order to secure its support against China. But Putin had nothing better to do than to draw all the fire of the West on himself, hoping that China would at least cover him, and at best launch a simultaneous attack by launching a similar «military operation» against Taiwan. However, China is wisely waiting, and it is not impossible that it will use this situation to reach an agreement with the West at Russia’s expense.
In any case, the essence of the new situation is that the West is now focused either on confrontation with Russia alone or with Russia and China.
What does that mean for Muslims?
If you look at the map of the world, you will see that the West no longer directly occupies almost any Muslim country, and as for indirect influence, more and more of those small dictators who used to look up to the U.S. are now turning to China.
On the other hand, there are still many Muslim countries under the military control of Russia — these are all the countries of the CSTO, i.e. almost all of post-Soviet Central Asia, this is the military presence in Azerbaijan, and finally, the direct incorporation of significant Muslim territories and populations of the Caucasus and the Volga region into the «Russian world».
At the same time, this «Russian world» now wants to subjugate the Orthodox Slavic countries of the post-Soviet space, which could theoretically pave the way for further expansion into the Balkans, where the Russian ambassador in Bosnia is already openly threatening them with a repetition of the «Ukrainian scenario».
The question is, what are the interests of the Muslims in this situation? Is it in the preservation of occupation control over Muslim countries and peoples, the beginning of a new genocide of Muslims in the Balkans, and the threat to Constantinople? Or is it in the collapse of this empire, and one part of the territories of «Orthodox civilization» going to the normal Western world, while the other — the Muslim one — gets the opportunity to break free from its control and build its own life?