Tell me who your friends are, goes an old saying. But how indicative is one's enemy list, especially when the list of friends grows dangerously slim?
Levada Center [unfortunately there is no longer an English language version of the site] has just released results of their study of who do Russians consider friends and foes. Results are all but predictable and Levada Center might just as well can the study for the foreseeable future or at least until coercive state dominated media loosens it grip on propaganda.
Not surprisingly, the two countries Russians consider best friends are Kazakhstan and Belarus. Both autocratic regimes, both highly dependent on Russia economically and politically. Also not surprising is the list of foes. Estonia is the foe number one and Georgia is the foe number two. It is mildly amusing and revealing that such tiny countries are now Russia's biggest foes. Talking of picking on countries from the same league does not cover the monumental differences in size, population, economic and military capacity. So why would this be? Why would Russian people feel threatened, or feel that people from these two tiny countries are the least friendly?
There are two compounding explanations. One obviously is coercion of state dominated media. I personally witnessed media and government induced hysteria on my two previous trips to Russia. Last September it was Georgia and this May it was Estonia. Such a drumbeat of attacks, accusations, snide generalizations, personal and otherwise, will most certainly have an effect on people's thoughts. Especially when opposing opinions are short and far between. Dynamic of apprehension towards Estonia does suggest an artificial spike: 28% last year and 60% this year. Vzglyad [Outlook] Business Daily references "experts" that "have no doubt that the moving a grave site war memorial in Tallinn was the cause". I would recommend that people at Vzglyad look in the mirror - their (together with other media outlets) distinctly negative coverage and fanning of hysteria has just as much to do with the spike.
But to say that Russian people are brainwashed and just swallow all what the establishment PR machine stuffs down their senses would not be fair. Media can not be a sole source for such animosity and expanding the list of "unfriendlies" illustrates a deeper meaning: Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, USA, Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland. If we drop the US from the list for obvious reasons of traditional animosity, the remaining list would shine with one glaring commonality - all these countries have with different levels of success embarked on independent political and economic paths. They have broken away or are trying to break away from the "sphere of influence" and according to some like a Visiting Columbia University Scholar Vasili Rukhadze , countries in that "traditional Russian sphere of interests" [what a monstrous feudalism oozing construct!] are in the gravest of dangers from the current Russian geopolitical offensive.
Against pro-Western post-Soviet countries Russia deploys various tactics: supports shady separatist regimes (against Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan); cuts off gas supplies and astronomically raises prices (Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Azerbaijan); applies economic sanctions (Moldova, Georgia); manipulates elections in cooperation with local corrupt and criminal elites (Ukraine); detonates local pro-Russian or Russian forces (Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia).
Of course, there is a third explanation and I have very little doubt it would be the most popular in Russia and among Russians themselves - the West is siccing mindless drones against Russia. The same
Vzglyad Business Daily quotes the Chairman of the Union of Orthodox Citizens of the Ukraine (sic!) Mr. Kaurov as suggesting that "orange" sentiments and desires to join NATO have had "a detrimental effect on relationships between our countries". The article itself is called "USA trained enemies of Russia", while there is nothing in the body of the article to warrant such a screaming headline. One of the worst cases of petty journalistic dirty tricks Russian media is so full of these days.
Germany made it to number 3 on the list of biggest friends of Russia. It is an interesting but not an unexpected development. Russia has a history of pendulum shifts in relations with European powers. Sometime it would gravitate towards France, sometimes it would gravitate towards Germany. Only a quarter of respondents felt this way about Germany the third country on the list vs. 38% and 39% respectively that feel Belarus and Kazakhstan are friends. Tell me who your friends are...
The biggest surprise to me was inclusion of China as number four best friend of Russia. Talk about wishful thinking and delusions. In fairness, China has dropped and only 19% consider it a friend vs. 24% last year.
US commands a respectable 35% of those that think it is unfriendly to Russia, but this number had decreased since 2006 by 2% despite of all the anti-US rhetoric. Finally, 10% of Russians think there aren't any countries friendly to Russia. 2% think there aren't any unfriendly ones.
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