Janusz  Onyskiewicz, a former defence minister of Poland, was our guest at a round-table at Glover Cottages on Thursday afternoon, 23 March. He had some very definite views about Russian ambitions, none of them good.

Janusz claimed Russia wanted again to be a great power as it was at the time of the Congress of Vienna. It wanted back the powers it had relinquished with disbandment of the Soviet Empire. It wanted to re-occupy Ukraine, which it regarded historically as part of Russia, and to re-establish suzerainty over the rest of Eastern Europe. Putin’s tactic, he claimed, was to interfere in the sovereignty of neighbours by claiming to want to ‘protect’ ethnic Russian minorities, even non Russian Orthodox communities, in surrounding countries, as it had done in Georgia. It had already created a sense of vulnerability in the Baltic states, which it considers the weakest of NATO member states. It would begin by de-stabilising and then occupying Estonia.

Janusz said NATO could not react to concentrated Russian military pressure in the Baltic States because its forces were dispersed across Europe, and unreasonable and time-consuming procedures prevented their quick release and concentration in one place. NATO needed resolution by its hardcore members to create a quick-reactive combined force to meet the Russian threat.

Two participants at the seminar challenged Janusz’s views. One cited a recent book by a former Russian soldier, Dmitri Trenin, Should We Fear Russia (Polity 2016). Trenin claimed Russia spent only one tenth as much as did the US on its armed forces, or eight percent of NATO’s, and Western anxieties were unfounded: Russia had neither the resources nor the will to re-create its Eurasian empire, and its authoritarianism was for domestic purposes. Janusz claimed Trenin as a friend, but didn’t agree with him on Russia or its motivations.

Another participant noted that, up to the time of Russia’s involvement in support of Ossetia in 2008, Russia had been advancing economically and seeking closer integration with Europe. It had a substantial historic claim to Crimea, as well a legitimate strategic interest  threatened by the post-2008 expansion of NATO up to the Ukraine border. Was there a realistic risk of Russian military action further afield, for example in Poland? What could be done to return to a less dangerous relationship between Russia and the EU countries?

Janusz responded that based on history including Stalin’s collaboration with Hitler and Soviet occupation of Poland, of course the Poles continued to feel threatened by Russia. They would continue to feel threatened until Putin or a new Russian leader changed course. Russia was determined to have governments sympathetic to it in its region.

Richard Broinowski