The “Novaya Gazeta” Russian media company, which I really respect, has moved to Europe because of Putin’s ferocious censorship. “Why is Russia losing its last ally” – that is the name of a report by “Novaya Gazeta”, which tells about the public sentiments in Armenia. I have a couple of reservations regarding this reportage, starting from the title, the word “ally”, particularly. That word is outdated, I reckon, and describes matters from the previous century.
There were two alliances during the “Cold War”, which competed in military, economic and ideological aspects with one another. The competition ended in 1990, those 3 components were defined.
The US has military bases both in Rammstein and Okinawa, for instance, but I find it hard to state that the country is allied with Germany, or especially Japan. If the US is faced with a corresponding situation, they would act in their own interest, despite all the agreements, declarations of love and talks about “similarities in values”. It is even harder to claim that the US and Saudi Arabia have common ideological values, but at this particular point of time in the Middle East, their interests intersect. However, it cannot be excluded that in 20 years from now “a new Arab spring” will occur on that peninsula, and the dictatorship will be replaced by chaos.
Noone has allies now, neither permanent nor temporary. The people participating in the report in question think of the word “ally” as a marital promise that Russia has broken. By the way, alternative opinions practically were not voiced, which, I think, is not very suitable for a solid media company. If they were to ask my viewpoint, I would say that Putin, guided by extremely wrong political and martial calculations, attacked Ukraine, supposing that they would conquer Kiev in 3 days. It did not happen, and Russia is faced with loneliness, and disaster. In these conditions the Russian president is looking for support elsewhere, and Erdogan backs him up, especially because they cherish the same “totalitarian” values. So in this particular point of time, the interests of Russia and Turkey have coincided more than those of Russia and Armenia (that happened a number of times historically). Getting upset, complaining, saying “but we are allies, aren’t we?”, is pointless.
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Looking for points of intersection of interests with Russia, USA, EU, Iran and others. And guiding the society that way. That is what we should do today, I think.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
