Author: Andrey Razumov
For several years in a row, European politicians have convinced themselves and their voters that the policy of sanctions-based political, informational and economic pressure on Russia should be an integral part of the struggle for freedoms of Europe against the totalitarian East. This point of view has been the mainstream of European politics for the past two years (in fact, longer). And suddenly, although in fact there is no “suddenly”, it turned out that almost everything they tried to punish Moscow with was not only ineffective, but boomeranged at the European Union. Just now European politicians are beginning to wake up from their sweet dreams. They are waking up when the walls of the Eurohouse itself begin to crumble from the constant shaking from the inside. And gradually the time comes for new questions and strategies.
In 2022 according to various estimates, from several tens to several hundred thousand residents of the country left Russia; they disagreed with the policy of protecting national interests. In their confrontation with Russia, they were immediately tried to be used as a battering-ram of public opinion: the hypothesis of the European strategists of the “quiet” war was to make the Russians who left the country ambassadors of true European values and the fight against the “totalitarian” regime of Moscow. Dozens of non-profit associations and partnerships have blossomed like flowers mainly in the territories of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The basis of their existence (literally, their participants received financial rewards and residence permits for this) was the generating of a stream of mythologems, information fakes and negative news about life “in Morder.” One such example is the entire editorial staff of the Internet site “Pskov Gubernia” who left Russia. Based in Riga, they position themselves as “media independent from the Pskov authorities.” Let us leave aside the fact that Gubernia is not an officially registered media outlet either in Russia, or in Riga, or anywhere else. Another thing is much more important: the “Pskov Gubernia” (in Pskov they call it the “Riga Gubernia”) has not been in control of the situation inside the Pskov region for a long time — and this radically affects the quality of their information product. A simple verification of facts, accessible to any Pskovite, “look outside the window and see if it is true what they write,” played against former Pskov, and now Latvian, journalists. At first, the reasoning of the “Gubernians” irritated readers in Russia, and afterwards the readers simply began to laugh at them. This is just the only example of the devaluation of the European Union’s efforts to form a new wave of “political emigrants” as a battering-ram of public opinion within Russia. That is, making Russians laugh is all that European politicians and foundations managed to do with the help of multi-million dollar injections into their agents of influence.
Of course, publicly in a sober mind and sound memory in Brussels, Strasbourg or Berlin, not a single European politician will say out loud that money is only used for laughs. And not because for that politician it would mean the end of his career in the modern European Union. No. The reason is different. The existing chain of financing, which often starts from the European budget or falls on the shoulders of specific EU members, benefits many people: from financial distributors to their final beneficiaries.
However, political history has repeatedly demonstrated that ineffective policies sooner or later raise questions. The same thing is now happening in the European Union: and it was not even big business that started asking questions first, but ordinary citizens. What they see every day with wide open eyes. On the one hand, their jobs and their taxes go to support refugees from Ukraine. On the other hand, the constant aggressive policy towards Russia has been useless; the mantras of the ruling parties and politicians as well as their guides from Washington that Moscow is about to fall have ceased to find at least some kind of response in the souls and hearts of Europeans. The initially silent socio-economic tension is increasingly beginning to spill over into public protests. It is possible that farmer strikes across the European Union are just the very beginning of a broad protest movement.
However, this is not the main danger for Eurohouse. The shadow of the collapse of the European Union, first economic and then political, is rising. The growth of activity and popularity of nationalist movements in Europe is one of the symbols of the approaching collapse of the EU.
Someone will probably say: this is all nonsense; the European Union, in the face of the threat from Russia, has never been that strong. But time passes, and nothing threatens the economic security of Europe, except for the actions of European politicians themselves. There is a well-known parable about how a boy shouted “Wolves, wolves!” Everyone rushed to help — but there were no wolves. And they stopped believing the boy. Now dozens of politicians across Europe play the role of such boys, from Macron and Scholz to Nausėda and Duda: the limit on cries about imaginary wolves is nearing its end.
Perhaps I will say now something that will become relevant not today, not tomorrow, but certainly the day after tomorrow: not much time will pass in Europe when public opinion will be on the side of those politicians who will begin to ask their own questions, and not those imposed from outside: maybe finally is it worth listening to Russia carefully? Or maybe joint economic projects are still important and necessary to preserve jobs and living standards? Maybe this is more profitable for everyone, and not just for those who invest in conflicts?
The time for such politicians and such questions has not yet come. But what we can definitely talk about now is that the European Union sees only Putin as the head of Russia. This is paradoxically only at first glance. However, if we assume that the place of head of state in Russia is occupied by another, weaker politician, the risk of a nuclear threat may turn out to be horrendous. Putin however has been studied far and wide by Kremlinologists for twenty years: it is more effective to do business with a tough, strong, but understandable opponent.
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