Russia’s leaders, not to mention its rabid propagandists, increasingly resemble a monkey with a grenade. Only Sergei Lavrov has made it clear twice recently that the Kremlin is prepared to use nuclear weapons to achieve its goals. The first time was yesterday, when he declared that a global nuclear conflict was real (though unacceptable). Before that, he stated that Moscow does not plan to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine at this stage (!) of a «special military operation».
However, in addition to how the Kremlin acts, it is equally important to consider what it declares as its goal in international relations. The director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, discussed this in an interview with «Rossiyskaya Gazeta» yesterday. And here we see that the same idea that is constantly expressed by the leaders and propagandists of the Russian regime runs through this interview as well — they are supposedly fighting against a unipolar world and for a multipolar world. Patrushev says: «Tragic scenarios of global crises, both in the past and today, are imposed by Washington in its quest to consolidate its hegemony and resist the collapse of a unipolar world. The United States is doing everything it can to prevent other centers of a multipolar world from even raising their heads, while our country has not only dared, but openly declared that it will not «play by imposed rules».
In reality, a unipolar world has long been a product of illusionary imagination. In real life, the world has long been multipolar, and even the United States has to take into account the existence and emergence of other centers of power, their independence, etc., including among its allies. But when Kremlin officials talk about a multipolar world, they mean something else — that they «will not play by imposed rules» and will do as they please. And the «imposed rules» in this case are nothing more than the norms of international law, which the Kremlin has long declared to be fictitious and not to be respected. That is why we see assassinations and sabotage on the territory of foreign states, the annexation of their territories and their incorporation into one’s own state, as Hitler did in Europe.
Patrushev says: «In an attempt to suppress Russia, the Americans, through their agents in Kiev, decided to create an antipode to our country, cynically choosing Ukraine for this purpose and trying to essentially divide a united people. Unable to find a positive basis to attract Ukrainians to their side, Washington, long before the 2014 coup, instilled in Ukrainians the exceptionalism of their nation and hatred of everything Russian.»
It is important to note here that this is not just about the events on Maidan in 2014, which could be presented as a state coup, ignoring the fact that Yanukovych was the first to use force under the dictates of Moscow’s instructors, pushing him towards the suppression of the opposition, which provoked the Revolution of Dignity. Patrushev tries to attribute the long and objective process of the formation of the Ukrainian nation and its self-awareness to the Americans, whom he tries to portray as «instilling in Ukrainians the exceptionalism of their nation and hatred for everything Russian». But who was behind this process when, for example, the Americans were far from Europe in the 1930s? Unfortunately, Patrushev cannot blame the Americans, the Poles, or the Germans, since the Ukrainian nationalists were fighting the latter even before they began their struggle against the USSR.
But even if we assume that the recent Ukrainian national awakening took place with the support of the United States, how does this contradict a multipolar world? Viktor Yushchenko, who was the bearer of these ideas, won the nationwide elections, which were recognized by Moscow itself. But the Kremlin responded by poisoning him and preparing the annexation of Crimea, which began long before the «state coup of 2014». Thus, it turns out that the Kremlin, which appeals to multipolarity, does not want to recognize any multipolarity when it comes to the emergence of new poles in the post-Soviet space or the rules of civilized competition between them. It considers all these poles to be the offspring of America, thus ignoring the will of all these peoples and justifying any action against them as a reaction against America.
Finally, Patrushev says: «Therefore, the result of the policy of the West and the Kiev regime under its control can only be the disintegration of Ukraine into several states. Now imagine Western leaders saying the same thing about the consequences of Putin’s policies. But so far none of them has said anything like that. While strongly condemning it, they call for democratic reforms in Russia, instead of talking about the possible disintegration of Russia into several states. Although, to tell the truth, more and more people are starting to think that way, including in Russia itself…
In short, the Kremlin has long behaved in a way that no one else can — neither the US nor China. And in its understanding, a multipolar world is precisely the opportunity for Russia to do as it pleases, especially in places it has declared to be its exclusive sphere of dominance. If the people living there resist, they are declared puppets of America, and the war against them is justified as resistance to American hegemony.
This is the kind of multipolar world envisioned by the monkey with the grenade.