KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Last week’s prisoner exchange with Russia — the largest since the Cold War, with 24 captives exchanged among seven countries — sparked hopes internationally that, just maybe, similarly determined diplomacy might help thaw the frigid relations between Russia and the West and open space for a negotiated end to Russia’s aggressions abroad. Unfortunately, the prisoner deal’s underlying message is that Vladimir Putin’s regime uses negotiations only when it sees the outcome, as it did last week, as a victory at the expense of its perceived enemies. The deal illustrates the narrowness of opportunity for any negotiated solution to settle the sides’ differences.
A USIP analysis project on Russia’s negotiating behavior finds that Putin, after a quarter-century in power, uses a practice of diplomacy and negotiation deeply rooted in an imperial, skeptical and often pessimistic worldview of Russian power elites, stretching back to its czarist heritage. This worldview is fueled by resentment over Russia’s chaos in the 1990s, which Putin and many other Russian elites blame on the West. The analysis underscores that any realistic, current-day effort to bargain with Russia would need to comprehend and factor in this worldview, with its attendant obstacles to any negotiation.
Since taking power at the turn of the century, Putin has inherited and developed a Russian view of the world, and Russia’s place in it, that sees the country as a “besieged fortress” encircled by foes who covet Russia’s resources and fear its military might. This view has shaped a broad strategic culture among Russian elites about their country’s national security, both internal and external. Among other effects, this worldview serves the elites’ maintenance of power and promotes the sacralization of a strong, stable state. Within this shared strategic culture, individual Russian leaders behave differently with the world, partly according to what analysts call their “operational codes” — including their personal beliefs and appetites for risk or enrichment.
The Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 reduced the Russian-ruled state by a quarter of its territory and nearly half of its population. Many Russians see it as a voluntary pullback — as Putin says, a diminution of “historical Russia” that was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. Since then, Russia has used negotiations (alongside aggression) to pursue what Putin and other Russian leaders say is their country’s rightful, great-power status. Those goals have remained constant even as specific leaders have disagreed about the international system and Russia’s path for development. So, for example, the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, cooperated with the West, while current-day Putin is hostile to it. While Yeltsin sought to influence Ukraine by recognizing its independence in 1991, Putin has sought influence by invading Ukraine in 2014 to prevent its move to the West.
Boris Yeltsin largely sought a closer relationship with the United States and the West during Russia’s first post-Soviet decade. But his resignation and elevation of Putin in 2000 shifted Russia’s foreign policy decisively. Over 24 years, Putin has evolved what some analysts today call “Putinism” — a deep mix of Kremlin political and business interests, authoritarian practices, disinformation and a playing upon popular emotions, more than a coherent ideology.
Putinism merges the president’s leadership, the regime and the state bureaucracy. This approach melds ideas and emotions from the past and present — imperial czarist and Soviet ideas about Russia’s exceptionalism and manifest destiny, plus current, post-Cold War grievances — along with the invention of internal and external threats and the militarization of society. In this mishmash of ideas, Putin deliberately does not offer a policy map or blueprint for the future. He avoids ideological certainty to maintain room for diplomatic maneuver and strategic autonomy. Ambiguity, blurring and balancing allow for unpredictability and strategic surprise — and a vital tool in this approach is the skilled use of Russian diplomacy, including negotiations.
For many Russians, their country’s turmoil in the 1990s — including penury for millions of citizens, the separatist war in Chechnya and the apparent hijacking of the Yeltsin administration by corrupt oligarchs — discredited the idealistic goal of building a democracy. Within the regime, Russia’s web of “special services,” descendants of the Soviet KGB and military intelligence, filled an ideological and institutional void, taking on a mantle of legitimacy once held by the Soviet Communist Party. By the mid-2000s, they became the regime’s core, even if their factions often compete. These special services, especially the Federal Security Service (FSB), wield greater power than rivals such as the Foreign Ministry (traditionally the leader in Russian negotiating efforts), the presidential administrative organs, armed forces, state banks and corporations, business oligarchs and regional leaders. The special services maintain disproportionate influence over policy and money, unparalleled access to the president, and dominance in the information space.
For these senior security officials, the Cold War never ended. The United States remains the main enemy, bitterly resented. And that defines Putin’s war in Ukraine, making it the first battle in a global struggle against the West. The “Ukrainian crisis is not a territorial conflict,” Putin explained last year. “The issue is broader and more fundamental — it is about the principles upon which the new world order will be based.”
The Kremlin declares the current international system, dominated by the United States, a threat to Russia’s identity and sovereignty.
The Kremlin declares the current international system, dominated by the United States, a threat to Russia’s identity and sovereignty and proclaims that its struggle will create a fair multipolar system. Internationally, Russia tries to target a broad swath of nations and peoples with its call to “fight Western imperialism,” building on sentiments, notably across the “Global South,” that the current international system is unjust. Russia sees itself as one of the multiple poles of a new order, along with the United States, China and regional power centers in the Islamic world, Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
This Putinist view oddly proclaims an emphasis on “state sovereignty,” but with some countries — including the poles of the multipolar system — more “sovereign” than others. In Moscow’s view, the West undermines those few, fully sovereign states’ right to self-determination, especially when promoting human rights and democracy. This approach sees some larger countries advancing their interests by prevailing over smaller neighbors, often using force. It declares a central role for the United Nations, where Russia can veto Security Council resolutions it opposes — in spite of the foundational principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Russia’s political and security structures are sensitive to external events that might threaten the regime. The “color revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan — and the aspirations to European Union membership by Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova — are acute sources of concern. The Kremlin has interpreted these phenomena not as genuine acts of popular discontent against authoritarian regimes, but as political events “instigated” by the West (especially the United States) to encircle and contain Russia and ultimately topple Putin himself.
These Kremlin narratives and practices threaten Russia’s neighbors and international stability. Putin uses his declared historical legacy and invented destiny for Russia to claim effective ownership of its imperial, “historical territories” and the people living there. Before the World Russian People’s Council last November, Putin reiterated a two-part concept of Russian identity. He put Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians at the center of Russian identity; he then outlined a wider “Russian world” including other ethnicities in both historical and modern Russia. His articulation of “Russianness” reiterates longstanding Kremlin justifications for its invasion of Ukraine and further aggression toward its neighbors. Putin’s claim that “Western Russophobia” adversely affects everyone in the country is intended to rally support for Putin’s war among citizens who are not ethnically Russian. For Putin, therefore, the battlefield with the West is Planet Earth.
As policymakers consider whether this month’s prisoner exchange signals any greater opportunity for diplomacy, it is worth noting that Putin has periodically declared Russia’s readiness to negotiate an end to his war in Ukraine — if Ukraine surrenders on his terms. How should Washington react?
The reason relations between Washington and Moscow are frozen is Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He needs to end that invasion by withdrawing Russian forces. He could then negotiate a peace with Ukraine — not with the United States. Parallel negotiations between Russia and NATO, and Russia and the United States, could complement the negotiations with Ukraine.
Before any negotiations with Russia, the West should understand that differences in history, culture and worldview make Moscow’s understanding and practice of diplomacy much different than its own — differences that apply even to the meanings of “war” and “peace.” The West should go into any negotiations with Moscow with eyes wide open and low expectations of success.
Iuliia Osmolovska is a Ukrainian foreign affairs scholar with the Kyiv-based think tank GLOBSEC and a former Ukrainian diplomat.