Sudden and sweeping reforms to Russia’s security ministries don’t signal a return to the Soviet Union, but a new balance of power. (c) Ivan Sekretarev / AP / Press Association Images. All rights reserved.Under Vladimir Putin, Moscow has assiduously sought to retain its authority over the states of former-Soviet Eurasia (with the grudging exception of the Baltics), through a combination of political connection, military threat, security guarantees and economic cooperation.
Quite how successful it has been has tended to vary over time and in relation to the complexion of the country in question. Very broadly, Moscow has found it much easier to maintain positive relations with authoritarian rather than democratising regimes, and this has been especially true of a relatively unremarked form of “soft power” it has developed, that of intelligence cooperation directed towards the mutual suppression of activists and opposition forces.
This “axis of repression” extends through Central Asia to Belarus, via Azerbaijan. It also used to include Ukraine, under semi-democratic clients such as Viktor Yanukovych, but clearly that is no longer the case. None of these regimes could be considered client states of Moscow’s.
