James SHERR on the Tuzla experiment

Is the situation with Tuzla a provocation, conspiracy, election campaign struggle, or something else?

All of these things. It stems from many reasons because the Russian are at their best when they act with several motives and not just one. And here there are several motives. This Tuzla action is what the former KGB used to call in its methodology “kombinatsiya”. It is designed to achieve several aims at once, and also to explore several different types of possibilities, and establish where the limits are. First, despite everything that has happened in Ukraine, Russia is trying to establish whether Ukraine will have the will and spirit to fight back, to defend itself. Second, it is to find out if the West has lost interest in supporting Ukraine. And third is the West so distracted by what is happening in Iraq, by tensions between Europe and America, by the issues of terrorism, by economic problems that it doesn’t even notice what is happening over Tuzla. Thisis not only a provocation but also an attempt and experiment. And this is a classic way of procedures of the former Soviet Chekisty and KGB. It comes straight from the state.

How will the West regard the Tuzla problem? Does it represent a threat to western interests? And is the West about to interfere?

Perhaps, the West will not really interfere in this problem. But the good news is that what is happening in Tuzla is going to revive a debate in the West which has almost been lost by people who understand the real situation. The dominant orthodoxy in the West is that the more prosperous Russia becomes the more liberal and the more Western in its values Russia will become. But those who have claimed that the more prosperous Russia becomes the more self-confident it will become often forget that this self-confidence might specifically bear in mind restoring its empire. And in the West these ideas have not been listened to until recently. But now the Russians are beginning to speak very loudly about these things, not only people whom the West identifies with the Russian chauvinism, but whom the West identifies with democracy and liberalism, such as Anatoly Chubais. And on top of all of this now we have Tuzla. And I think that for this reason the West will start to pay attention. The West is perhaps beginning to realize we have not understood Russia, that maybe we have got Russia wrong. And this is very important.

What are your scenarios of the Tuzla dispute’s development?

I would predict that it has already been decided in Russia that this situation should not be allowed to cross any red lines. This is an experiment. It is a form of reconnaissance. That’s basically what it is. I think it is under control. I don’t think it is happening accidentally. Although, the Russians might be constructing their long-term consequences. As ever, at a tactical level they know what they’re doing.

THE DAY’S REFERENCE

James SHERR is leading analyst at the Sandhurst Defense Academy, Oxford University Professor, former adviser of NATO Secretary General George Robertson and House of Commons special adviser on Ukraine