Strategic thinking is not granted by nature. It takes time and effort to learn it from good teachers. People with this kind of thinking become very unsuitable for all kinds of leaders, including topmost statesmen. They tend to say some hard-to-grasp things and write difficult documents.
Moscow, 2006. All the intelligence and counterintelligence services of Ukraine are headed by patriots only. On the political arena of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin, leader of the Congress of Russian Communities and, later, the Rodina (Fatherland) party, is gathering strength as a political ultra. Let’s see now what further happens to Rogozin himself and Vladimir Putin’s political course towards Transnistria, Georgia, and, finally, Ukraine. Let us recall what regions and facilities in eastern Ukraine Rogozin visited as Russia’s vice-premier for defense production on December 3, 2013, just weeks before the Russian risky venture against Ukraine (http://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/20131203160314.shtml). You are right – Ukrainian defense industry facilities. Now let us turn eight years back and read two information reports.
“Rogozin: Crimea To Be Part of Russia Again,” of February 22, 2006:
“Sooner or later, Crimea and Sevastopol will be part of Russia again.” Rogozin, leader of the Russian Rodina party, is sure of this result. He said in an interview with Novy Region that he would never accept Crimea as foreign land.
“I cannot tear myself away from what I consider my country. I consider Crimea as my territory and will never accept it as foreign land. I am saying politically incorrect but sincere things,” Rogozin said.
“I am against the basic agreement on friendship and cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, for it does not take into account the interests of the two countries’ residents. I am against Ukraine positioning itself as a unitary state. If Russia positions itself as a federation, Ukraine should be a federative state all the more so. I think the status of Sevastopol was established long ago. The way out of the situation is to recognize Sevastopol as a Russian city. As for Crimea, the problem can be resolved. Crimea is undoubtedly Russian, and I think it will become the core of large-scale work to reunify Russia and Ukraine. If I could live to see those times, I wouldn’t think I have wasted my lifetime. If I, an ordinary citizen of Russia, could play some role in the reunification of Crimea and other Russian lands with the Russian Federation, I would be happy,” he said.
At the same time, Rogozin admits that the Russian government has no time now to fully tackle the problem of Crimea’s place. “Russia has a host of other problems that it cannot solve so far. There is also Transnistria, a territory geopolitically associated with Suvorov, not with Rumanian princes. There are Abkhazia and South Ossetia. They are fragments of the USSR, which haven’t joined any countries. Their people made their own choice – they took Russian passports. We must respect their choice,” Rogozin said. (Let us add that Rogozin spoke about Abkhazia and South Ossetia in February 2006, two years before the Russian intervention into Georgia.)
To be unbiased, let us also read this.
“Yushchenko has instructed the Cabinet to map out a strategy of the development of Crimea as a Ukrainian territory” of February 22, 2006, in URA-Inform:
“President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine has instructed Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers to map out a strategy of the development of Crimea as a Ukrainian territory,” UNIAN reports.
“As Acting Prime Minister Yurii Yekhanurov told the Cabinet of Ministers, the president gave this instruction yesterday at a meeting on Crimea.
“The acting prime minister confirmed that work on mapping out the strategy and solving the problems of Crimea’s development would be duly carried out.”
We know the result. Let us go on. Two years later. Moscow. Lenta.ru:
“By decree of President Putin, dated January 10, 2008, Rogozin was appointed Russia’s permanent representative at NATO. In this capacity, he informed the alliance in August 2008 about what stands behind Russia’s attempts in South Ossetia to force (!) the Georgian side to opt for peace and announced a partial cessation of cooperation with NATO whose members had interpreted Russia’s actions in the region as an act of aggression against Georgia.
“In late December 2011 President Dmitry Medvedev appointed Rogozin deputy chairman of Russia’s government. In April of the next year he was relieved of the office of representative at NATO. Rogozin remained as vice-premier after the election of Putin as President of Russia in March 2012 and the appointment of Medvedev as head of the Russian government in May of the same year. Rogozin has a command of the French, English, Spanish, and Italian languages.”
And now let us surf to the Russian government’s website and see what Rogozin is in charge of, as a deputy premier, in the current Russian government.
We can read:
“Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin. Assumed office on December 23, 2011.
“Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation’s Government. Coordinates work of the federal executive bodies and instructs them on the questions of national defense, mobilization, and state material resources management; governmental policies for the development of the defense-related, nuclear, aerospace, shipbuilding, and electronic industries; fulfillment of the state armament program, state defense procurement, and programs of the development of the defense-related, aerospace and electronic industries; the development and operation of the GLONASS system; nuclear supervision; control over the export of commodities, information, operations, services, and the results of intellectual activity which may be used to manufacture the weapons of mass destruction, means of delivery of the weapons of mass destruction and other varieties of armaments and military hardware; pursuit of the coordinated military-technical policy within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization; governmental policies in the field of military-technical cooperation between the Russian Federation and foreign states; governmental policies in the field of civil defense, protection of the populace and territories in emergency situations; the development of research aimed at strategic military-technical and defense planning; reinforcement of the Russian Federation’s state border; the working-out of proposals to establish a system of training young people for service in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
“D.O. Rogozin heads the following coordinative and advisory bodies:
“The Interdepartmental Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Hardware and Software Complex ‘Safe City,’ the State Border Security Commission, the Maritime Board in the Russian Federation’s Government, the Export Control Commission, the Governmental Commission for Prevention of the Bankruptcy of Strategic Businesses and Organizations as wells as of Defense Production Organizations, and the Board of the Russian Federation’s Military Industrial Commission.”
As we can see, Putin has long been promoting Rogozin. But, to begin with, he sent him for three years to the NATO headquarters six months before the war against Georgia. It was easy for a man who knows four NATO countries’ languages to look into the degrading structure in three years. All the more so that Russia’s NATO mission was several times as large as that of Ukraine and its cooperation effort was far more intensive. We can conclude now that this cooperation was aimed at sounding the alliance’s weak spots and preparedness for fast and resolute actions. Rogozin seems to have done a good job. If Putin had known that NATO would react fast, toughly and effectively to his risky venture against Georgia and aggression against Ukraine, he would not have dared do so. But Rogozin, the Security Service, and the General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate persuaded Putin with veritable information that NATO was not the way it used to be. He could act because there was no military danger at all, while economic and diplomatic sanctions can be weathered. The sanctions are not perpetual, and the people will support him, but what strategic problems this will help resolve!
Another point. Let us see again the responsibilities of the now experienced Rogozin in the Russian government and ask ourselves: is there a vice-premier in the current government of Ukraine with at least a tenth of such important functions, all the more so that we are an object of aggression? Do we have personalities of Rogozin’s caliber?
In a word, it is the cursed strategy and long-term planning again. By all accounts, we will never have this. Elections, elections, and, of course, lustration.
