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Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone

Russia behaving as a „good guy” in the International arena. In relations with the former Soviet republics, the policy proceeded from an assumption of their equal status and stressed negotiations as the means to resolve outstanding issues. The concern over the rights of Russian minorities, for example, was handled by means of „delegations” set up to conduct negotiations in each former republic, and by invoking Western support in cases of alleged abuses, as in the Baltic States. Only in cases of failure could a question of military force be raised “before the international community,” according to a deputy minister of foreign affairs interviewed in June 1992¹.

The largely conservative Russian Parliament became sharply critical of Yeltsin’s “West-subservient liberał” policy, which in the eyes of most deputies abandoned Rus-sia’s national interests. A document prepared in June 1992 by the then chairman of the parliamentary Joint Committee on International Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations, Yevgeny Ambartsumov, criticized the Foreign Ministry for having no “integral conception of foreign policy” for the “near abroad” and charted an alternative scenario. Its main points are worth quoting because they actually provide a blueprint for the new policy as it was adopted in 1993-94 by the very officials who were then the targets of criticism [relevant points are italicized].

“As the intemationally recognized legał successor to the USSR, the Russian Federation should base its foreign policy on a doctrine declaring the entire geopolitical space of the former Union to be the sphere of its ńtal interests (like the U.S.’s Monroe Doctrine in Latin America) and should strive to achieve understanding and recognition from the world community of its special interests in this space. Russia should also stńve to achieve from the world community recognition of its role as political and military guarantor of stability in the entire former space of the USSR. It should strive to achieve support from the Group of Seven countries for these functions of Russia’s, up to and includingforeign curnncy snbsidiesfor quick-reaction forces (Russian „blue helmets”)...

In subsequent agreements on the CIS and bilateral agreements, it is necessary to...

(make)... special provisions for Russia’s right to defend the lires anddignity ofRt/ssians in the nearby foreign countries. And it is mandatory to make special stipulationfor the status of Russian troops in the CIS countrie/’².

The declaration claims the area of the former Soviet Union as Russia’s sphere of influence and claims for Russia the right to act as a gendarme protecting Russian minorities

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1

   F. Shelov-Kovedyayev, interviewed by “Izvestia”, June 26,1992, p. 6. Translated in the “Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press” XLIV, No. 26,1992, pp. 20-21.

2

   Cited by Konstantin Eggert, Russia in the Patie ofEurańan Gendarme'?, “Izvestia”, August 7, 1992, p. 6, translated in ibid., No. 32,1992, pp. 4-5.